Coming along with quite a set of positive reviews for their earlier work, today we have Norway’s Okular and their sophomore release “Sexforce”. Playing an interesting mixture of Progressive Death Metal with some Melodic DM elements, this band is full of creative and unique ideas, too bad they can’t seem to really work them together in a cohesive manner. Besides the obvious musical quality, this release features guest appearances by Athera (Susperia) on seven tracks and Vintersorg on one song.

After many listening to this promo countless times, we are torn about not really being able to like it as a whole. The album is quite complex and has plenty of layers to it, but they mostly feel like several things going in different directions and never really coming together properly. On the one hand, we have killer guitar work on songs like “Not Separate” and “Sexforce”, but some of the tempo changes are confusing and the vocals go in different directions.

After their surprising transformation on “Third Act in the Theatre of Madness”, Illnath returns with a very solid release rooted on a bigger Melodic Death Metal foundation. “4 Shades of Me” features 11 tracks of superbly catchy Melodic Death Metal that shows the band nicely settling into their new career path.

Immediately after the so-so opener “Blood Warrior”, “Gallow Hill” shows the first signs of brilliance in this release with super catchy riffing and a crushing sense of melody and aggression. The band’s growler Mona Beck does a fine job in delivering harsh vocals that if you didn’t read it was a female singer, it would be hard to figure out.

Arriving in a limited edition 7” today we have Siculicidium’s EP titled “Keringők”. Featuring two tracks, this release has two different ‘reinterpretations’ of Swans iconic “New Mind”. Each track delivers quite disturbing sounding versions of this song that are very traditional to the band’s creepy Black Metal sound.

Opening with “Valse Triste” the band sets a very slow and painful pace. As you can instantly hear, the riffing closely resembles Swans original version, but the mournful vocals greatly enhance the experience. The Black Metal roots of the band are also very present has the song progresses, adding that extra level of personalization the band gives to the track. As unique as Swans original version was, we very much enjoyed this different interpretation of the song.

Showcasing the band’s raw talents in a live setting, today we have Grave Desecrator’s official ‘bootleg’ release “Unblessed Bootleg”. Featuring 11-tracks of brutal old-school Black/Death Metal, this live album delivers an aural assault for any fan of the band that is dying to hear how they sound live. With over 40 minutes of music, this crushing release is a must have for any fan of this band.

Leading this release with the combo of “Hellhound Breed / Sign of Doom / Revelations (Of the Beast) / Stared to Hell”, the band blows away the crowd with crystal-clear renditions of these crushing songs. Butcherazor’s vocals are as brutal as anybody could expect and the powerful riffing is excellently captured in this live recording.

Featuring 41 minutes of solid Southern/Stoner Metal, today we have newcomers Throne and their debut album titled “Avoid The Light”. In this very promising debut album, the band manages to deliver a Sludgy and heavy Stoner/Southern Metal that while not very original, it catches the listener’s attention and never let’s go.

Opening with the slow and painful “Prefer to Die”, flashes of Neurosis immediately came to us thanks to the powerful vocals of Samu. The tone is very doomy/sludgy creating a very thick and simple atmosphere. Things pick up with “Buried Alive” and “3 Days of Rain”, two tracks that establish the band’s Southern influences very early and are packed with traditional riffs.

Arriving from Moonlight Records, today we have another solid Stoner Rock/Metal release that hails from Italy. We have seen a surge in Stoner Rock/Metal releases in the last few years and luckily for Prehistoric Pigs, they fall under the ‘better than average’ category. Cranking out 55 minutes of catchy music, “Wormhole Generator” is a quite a solid release from any fan of the genre.

Starting the release with the trippy “Swirling Rings of Saturn”, the band showcases their very simplistic approach into creating catchy and trippy music. There is nothing very fancy about their sound or event extremely technically proficient, it is just straight up effective riffing and traditional song structures. The fact that “Wormhole Generator” is fully instrumental makes it even better since you can enjoy the hard-rocking tracks without the need of putting up with a (maybe) bad singer on top.

After not really liking the band’s previous releases, we finally have found the key to enjoy Deep-pression’s very unique and disturbing music: while taking a hike in the dark. If you listen to this album while you walk alone in the woods, we guarantee that you will go paranoid in a few minutes and think something supernatural is following you around, and this is without the help of drugs or any other ‘mood enhancer’.

The traditional intro flying by, “Syreny” creeps up on you with some Psycho-esque ambient sounds that made us jump when not expecting them. The guest vocals in this release really hit the jackpot as they are creepy as fuck. We imagine that a ghost would sound exactly like this, and they greatly add to the overall ambience of the music. “Tam,Gdzie Martwe statki Jęczą...” is equally creepy and very effective thanks to the dark ambient elements and the dissonant bass guitar here and there.

Arriving on a promo package filled with goodies from Romania, today we have KoldVoid’s “Roadside Ghosts”. In this dreamy release we are treated to 11 tracks of pure atmospheric brilliance that bring imagery from some of the most surreal and unique movies such as David Lynch’s work. If you want to be transported into very ethereal places, this is the release for you.

In this debut release, KoldVoid manages to create beautiful landscapes since the openers “Start” and “Equilibrium”. With a very minimalist sound at first, this release transports the listener immediately with perfectly timed ambient elements. The hypnotic “Phantasma” is the first stand out track with an excellent cinematic feeling of flying through space in a very smooth and relaxing trip.

Lead by the whacky Christopher Bowes, GloryHammer arrives to us with an impressive dose of killer fantasy-inspired Power Metal. Showcasing his awesome songwriting skills and knack for epic orchestrations, Mr. Bowes does a great job in this new band bringing to life his alternative concept of Scotland’s medieval history. For over ten tracks the band crafts epic battle hymns and highly effective songs that will have any fan of the genre throwing away all their Blind Guardian, Rhapsody, etc. merch and CD’s to get some new GloryHammer stuff.

After an epic intro track, “The Unicorn Invasion of Dundee” marches forward with a superbly epic chorus section and a furious pace. While the song title and probably the lyrics are as absurd as anything that Alestrom has ever recorded, the band produces killer music that sounds as good as any veteran fantasy Power Metal band. The vocal arrangements are superb and give that epic vibe that we crave in these kinds of albums.

After blowing us away with “Delta”, we had high expectations for “Ethera” and the band seemed to drop the ball on a few tracks in this release making it less impressive. However, not all is lost and Visions of Atlantis manages to deliver some good and bombastic songs that make up for the ground lost by some of the inferior tracks.

With “Delta” achieving an awesome level of explosiveness and bombastic elements, the band tries to start “Ethera” with a similar approach but introducing some futuristic keyboard sounds that don’t really work with the rest of the elements in this release. “The Ark” is a clear example of this, making it sound very disconnected. On “Machinage” near the end there are some truly horrible spoken sections accompanied by some robotic auto-tune like effects that just made us want to pierce our eardrums.