Category: CD Reviews

My dying bride is a band that needs no introduction at all. With an impressive 11 studio albums in their portfolio the English doom legends bring a new EP entitled The Manuscript.

It took me several spins to absorb the whole essence of its music, and the conclusion came simply: beautifully made music with experience, heart and soul. There is not one element that leaves room for doubts, everything is done by the book: all instruments are written and played beautifully, the My Dying Bride way.

"The Manuscript " is the Ep's opening track,a fantastic and romantic song carrying the MDB emblem along past tracks like...

If there was a band that has impressed me so much and had me hooked from the very first minute of listening, that band would have to be Usnea. And these guys have left me in pure awe.

And their music is oh so hard to describe, lots of funeral doom influence, actually a mixture of doom styles. Black metal has a big impact on the vocal delivery and the feeling and atmosphere of the music. There is also a fantastic range of drone and experiments of noisy unstructured phrases that do add dynamic and dimension to the songs.

What does the...

Darkthrone is a band that needs no introduction. A band that has become something of an institution (whether you like it or not) within the global metal scene throughout the longevity of it’s existence, consistently adding to a commendably lengthy back-catalogue of relatively steady quality and never straying too far from it’s roots despite it’s existence in a constant state of flux, change and progression. Darkthrone has proven itself a monolith of consistency in change.

Indeed, from its conception in the late 1980s and over the course of it’s near 25-year lifespan, the band has been forever shaping and shifting through a variety of manifestations and although the significance of it’s early 90s era is not to be understated; it’s absoluteness is often over-emphasised by those who deem it...

'Galloping Blasphemy’ is the debut album from this Greek outfit. Their bio says they play blackened thrash metal plus their black album cover emblazoned with the band’s logo (their name is made up into an inverted cross on fire) was all the encouragement I needed to give it a spin. 

Now Satan’s Wrath pertain to deliver Blackened Thrash and man do they! They have that old school thrash sound right down, but it also has a range to it, using many forms of the thrash spectrum, though you wouldn’t guess this by the opening track ‘Leonard Rising - Night Of The Whip’. It starts with eerie ritual chants and whispered voices which then breaks into a trad heavy metal style riffing. Yes, there is a little hint of thrash further in with a lead guitar section played...

With it's 40^th anniversary only three years away Barnsley's finest heavy metal export has unleashed its 20^thalbum. Yes, Saxon has been at it that long. “Sacrifice” is arguably the band's best work in years. With the mighty Andy Sneap at the helm for recording in Yorkshire, Biff Byford said it was intended to be a stripped down, no-nonsense affair. It's as subtle as a brick, but just as solid.

A striking feature is the erratic mix of subjects and locations in the songs. We begin with what sounds like Indiana Jones in the jungle with a Hammer Horror soundtrack. This intro gives way to a pummelling thrasher the likes of Testament would be proud of. The title track confirms its locale with a tale of human...sacrifice. Then it's off to Northern Ireland, where Byford pays tribute to the long gone ship building industry of Belfast. It's called “Made In Belfast”...