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Technical death metal. It’s a genre that’s as likely to inspire apathy as it is excitement. There’s often a fine line between technical wizardry and tedious wankery, avant-garde excellence and anal excess. The days of dazzling an audience with overblown musicianship have long passed. While the latest generation of musicians have found themselves busy burning fretboards, there‘s usually an abundance of style over actual substance; entire discs spinning by in a soulless blur of polyrhythms and sweep-picks.

So far, 2013 has heard Portal twist our senses and Gorguts push to blow our minds. And now, Ulcerate re-emerge. Suddenly technical death metal has got a whole lot darker and a shit-load more interesting.

“Vermis” is the Kiwi death metal test-pilot’s fourth album and the...

Purify the horror are a Grindcore act based in the home of Grindcore, Birmingham. This ‘Untitled’ E.P from Dissected Records is their first release. It runs it at 17 minutes long and features 12 tracks, one of which is the obligatory 4 second grind micro blast, going by the name of ‘Shree-dela-badum-de-ladum-de’, others stretch just over the 2 minute mark.

As is all the rage these days they choose not to publicise their identities, choosing instead to hide behind pig masks and going behind the names: Sergeant Squeal (vocals) Bear-pig (Guitar/Bass), and Lord Pig (Drums).

They state that they are all...

As the first melody of ‘Thunder Alchemy’ seeps through your speakers, an immediate comfort zone is found, with phrasing reminiscent of 'De Mysteriis...' era Mayhem. However, this brief familiarity erodes as the riff unexpectedly evolves, and by the time the drums and vocals pound into your ears, it is supremely evident that Pantheon of Blood are their own, unique beast. A far cry from the hordes of black metal acts running with Darkthrones ‘unholy trinity’ template, and a band whose desire to forge their own identity keeps them standing out from the grim and frostbitten...

The Mezmerist are/were a one man project from California. According to the release ‘The Innocent, The Forsaken, The Guilty is one of the most mysterious US metal releases of all time’ having taken the Shadow Kingdom a very long time to track down the man behind it (Thomas Mezmercardo), and a further five years preparing the re-release I guess they have a point.

This is a double EP released as a...

Shining are a Norwegian Jazz-metal band who started life as an acoustic jazz act before growing some hefty balls and running with them. I, for one, am grateful they did because this genre defining group is owning it.

This is the band's seventh studio album or third in their line of 'Jazz Metal' releases and it is one epic genre they're creating, they have elements of metal, jazz, prog-rock, thrash, metalcore, rock and they are creating a perfect concoction of diabolical genius, literally everything you could ask for in an album. 

The album One One One has been...

Borracho, the fuzz fusion galore four piece from Washington DC, USA are a band best known for bursting into the desert rock music scene in 2011 with their debut release "Splitting Sky". After a number of mini releases the band are back with latest LP offering “Oculus”, a deadly addictive combination of riffs drenched in feedback mixed with a tactically doom laden tempo, that is delightfully delivered with the sounds of influence, to an audience hungry for a new take on the old scene.  

"Empty" opens the album with ingredients of the all familiar...