Update From Arbiter As Well!

Being a 6 gentleman band does have it's perks. Arbiter, who released a dual album earlier this year are working on another pair of albums, this time though the band is split into two teams for the writing process to see how things work out and give everyone a chance to shine during writing.

Check Out Moth's Latest Update!

It's crazy that Moth's album Endlessly In Motion is about a year old now. Most bands go through a two year cycle on releases, but that's not stopping Moth who are hard at work on a new release. The band recently pushed out a 2 minute vocal recording video, in which you can hear vocalist Benton McKibben tracking some sweet new vocals, among other funny bits.

Band Of The Week: The Walking Dead Orchestra

I missed last week's Band Of The Week, because of the holiday's happening, I was busy, but being that internet traffic slows during holidays i felt it might be a bit unfair to the next showcased group. So Reflections enjoyed some extra time in the spot, but this week brings in a new beast. This group I have Spotify to thank for. Spotify's discover function is a pretty average system at best, often making weird comparisons between bands, but every once in a while it absolutely nails things I'll like on the head. The Walking Dead Orchestra stood out to me as a fan of the show, but their music really has nothing to to do with the show, which is fine because the music is absolutely killer.

Nergal Talks About Behemoth's Lastest Music Video

Behemoth are definitely one of the best bands are producing high quality and interesting to watch music videos. The imagery is really dark, but the cinematic look of their videos is stunning. Their latest video for the song 'Blow Your Trumpet Gabriel' doesn't shy away from that. Adam 'Nergal' Darski sat down for a video interview and talked about the process they went through to get this video done.

Band Of The Week: Reflections

2013 is almost over and the Djent movement is only getting bigger. There's still plenty of Djent haters out there and plenty who still think it's a trend, but regardless of that bands press on and new bands form all the time. Reflections is a fairly new band, formed in 2010, but they've made some solid steps with their music and they are easily on the list for the good side of Djent bands.

New August Burns Red Christmas Song!

August Burns Red is already well known for being one of the best Metalcore acts ever, but they've also gained fame for their excellent instrumental Christmas song covers, which have been in film trailers among other things. The band had been releasing a track or two every year, but last year released an entire album of song, which as awesome as it is it did leave some to wonder if they'll do another song since they tackled a great bunch with this album. Thankfully they kept it up and have released a cover version of 'Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy' which will be included with fresh copies of their holiday album.

Disfiguring The Goddess Release A Surprise Double Album!

(Update: It appears that Spotify only has Deprive up. Not sure if Black Earth Child will appear later or not.)

Disfiguring The Goddess was already set to release an album today entitled Deprive, the album art for which you can see above, but on top of that release Cameron Argon, the mastermind behind the band released a second album entitled Black Earth Child.

Band Of The Week: Rogue Empire

Rogue Empire's electro/symphonic deathcore sound may not be a brand new idea with bands like The Browning and Born Of Osiris making big waves in the genre, but Rogue Empire does what they do well and if you're a fan of bands like these you'll definitely want to check them out.

Somebody Robbed Norma Jean

The world unfortunately has no shortage of dickish people. Tour life is already tough enough, but it seems Norma Jean was robbed on a day off in Chicago. The thief/thieves broke a window on their van and took a bunch of personal items and cash and all around just ruined the day. The band understands they aren't the only band this has happened to and seem to be really humble about the situation and aren't trying to take donations from fans or anything like that. Just asking that people buy merch if they want to help out.

Check Out Arbiter's New Video!

Man, Ironclad/Machinations has been out for upwards of a year now. Pretty insane right? I love the album(s) and you should too. Anyhoo. I haven't reported anything from the band in a while but now we have HUGE news. They've got a new music video, and prepare yourself, it might just blow your mind. Can you smell what the Arbiter is cooking?

Band Of The Week: I Killed Everyone

I generally try to go with lesser known bands for this article because I like to showcase the guys who aren't getting the attention they deserve. I Killed Everyone isn't the smallest band ever (they've got a solid number of likes on Facebook at 53k with a nice fanbase) but they aren't on the same level as Whitechapel, The Acacia Strain, and Chelsea Grin in terms of prominence.

Download Rogue Empire's 'Overlord' For Free!

Who doesn't love free music? If ever there were a reason to give a band a shots surely being able to hear all of their work for free is up there right? Anyhow Synth infused Progressive Deathcore outfit Rogue Empire are giving away their album Overlord totally free!

Band Of The Week: Malevolence

Portugese progressive death metal outfit Malevolence have released their album Antithetical a few days ago on November 22nd, which I plan to review here soon, but that doesn't mean you should wait to give them a listen. It's a great listen and packed with great writing.

New After The Burial Song 'Wolves Within'!

We haven't had new material from After The Burial since 2010's In Dreams, apart from the three remastered tracks from Forging A Future Self that appear on the This Is All We Have EP. The new song 'Of Fearful Men' is a pretty solid track with a heavy dose of progressive influence they've been known to drop in their sound.

Gutted Souls - Unconscious Automaton

We live in a world where achieving clean production and pitch perfect sounding guitars has never been easier and the focus on getting the guitar tone and mixing takes the forefront in music. It’s understandable though because when everyone’s music sounds perfectly clean it’s often times hard to listen to bands that don’t have great production. But then there are bands that come around and remind you that the writing and energy of the music should be the most important factor. Rio De Janeiro’s Gutted Souls are just the band to do so. Their EP Unconscious Automaton is a much needed blast of energy that packs a very raw and visceral sound.

Band Of The Week: Amia Venera Landscape

So I'm a bit late to the game on this one as these guys released their album back in 2010, but I didn't find them until recently when Spotify recommended the album for me. Spotify doesn't have the greatest recommendation system on earth but this one was spot on and I'm extremely happy to have discovered these guys. Amia Venera Landscape is a post-hardcore band with more talent than most bands in this genre.

Check Out The New Jason Richardson Preview

Jason Richardson, the former guitarist for Born Of Osiris and current guitarist for Chelsea Grin is set to release a solo track at the end of the month. The track is a 10 minute instrumental and judging from the preview will showcase his guitar chops very well. It would be interesting to see Richardson become the Jeff Loomis of deathcore. I would at least like to see him tackle a solo album.

New For Today Song 'Fight The Silence'

I've always enjoyed For Today's music, they may use bass drops a bit too often but, their music is pretty catchy and can hit hard when it needs to. I wasn't as taken with Immortal as I was with Breaker and Portraits, but all of their albums are enjoyable. Today the band has announced a new album coming in 2014 and also released a single entitled 'Fight The Silence'.

Band Of The Week: Silence The Messenger

Silence The Messenger are a deathcore outfit from Texas who've just recently released their debut album entitled Achilles. The band has been active since 2010 when they released their EP Buried, but their major label debut packs quite a punch and has been garnering a decent amount of attention.

New Veil Of Maya Song!

Veil Of Maya just signed a new contract with Sumerian Records and according to the band they feel like the relationship they have with the label is a strong one and good things have been happening there. It is definitely nice to hear a story about a band having a healthy relationship with a label, and I'm glad Veil Of Maya aren't running to Kickstarter as a lot of bands are trying now.

Daniel "DL" Laskiewicz Joins Legend!

Not too long ago The Acacia Strain parted ways with longtime member Daniel "DL" Laskiewicz, who had a big hand in the writing process for The Acacia Strain and did guitar work for them. However DL hadn't been touring with the band for a long time (as in a good number of years) and one thing led to another and he was let go, and replaced by Devin Shidaker and Richie Gomez. Now though it appears DL has joined the band Legend, who have made quite a name for themselves and share a lot in common in overall tone with The Acacia Strain so it seems like a great fit for DL's style of writing.

Band Of The Week: Death Toll Rising

Death Toll Rising are a death metal outfit from Canada who've been around for about 10 years now but didn't start releasing material until 2008. Their latest release Infection Legacy is aptly named as the album is a rather infectious one. The band's blend of Death Metal and Thrash isn't the most innovative thing around but it's well done and the production on their albums is pretty much spotless.

Humanity's Last Breath - Self Titled

When the single ‘Animal’ released last year Humanity’s Last Breath found themselves with a plethora of both positive and negative feedback. ‘Animal’ garnered plenty of positive attention for its immense sound and excellent production quality which saw a rather good boost from the bands debut album Structures Collapse. The negative feedback came in with the comparisons to Vildhjarta who had gained tons of popularity from their release Masstaden. Some listeners just felt the band aligned themselves too closely to Vildhjarta’s sound.

The Acacia Strain Announce New EP!

A lot has happened with The Acacia Strain in the last year or so since the release of their latest album Death Is The Only Mortal, which you can read my review of here. The band lost long time member Daniel 'DL' Laskiewicz, who was a big part of the bands writing process from day one, but had not been touring with the band for sometime. Shortly after they announced his departure they announced the addition of two new guitarists, Devin Shidaker (ex-Oceano guitarist) and Richie Gomez (ex-Molotov Solution guitarist). Many were curious how much of an impact DL's departure would have on the bands writing but after listening to this new track 'Above' I think we don't have much reason for concern.

Band Of The Week: Forsaken

Despite being an all too commonly used name (last.fm say these guys share this name with at least 8 other bands a few of which are also in the metal/hardcore genres) Hartford, Connecticut's Forsaken does stand out of the bunch. Hitting home somewhere between Whitechapel and Dweller, Forsaken have a nice thick sound with plenty of dark ambiance to make the EP really stay with you.

New Dethklok Song!

This came as a great surprise as I didn't realize Dethklok was working on a special which will apparently include an album! Metalocalypse is doing a 'Klok Opera' titled Doomstar Requiem, which as a huge fan of the song 'Dethharmonic' I am really excited for.

Revocation Post A Video For 'Fracked'!

Revocation's new self titled album has been out for a little bit now and is hands down one of the best releases this year and further proves that Revocation are one of the best active bands out there now. The video for 'Fracked' as noted by the guys over at Heavy Blog Is Heavy does hearken back to the olden days of Thrash videos with it's purposefully cheesy graphics and generous use of stock images. There is a bit of Soviet Montage Theory at work here as well.

Anakronis - Regression

A few months back I got the chance to review an album by the band Super Massive Black Holes, thanks to their Bassist Denver Bergreen. Super Massive Black Holes brand of experimental metal was enjoyable and well played. More recently though Bergreen contacted me about another band he was in entitled Anakronis. While Super Massive Black Holes had elements of tech death infused into their sound, Anakronis is blazingly fast technical death metal through and through. Regression is an impressive EP on par with plenty of tech death greats out there right now.

Band Of The Week: Dead End Path

I found Dead End Path after doing a search for hardcore bands with a similar tone to bands like Harms Way. Dead End Path basically hit the search terms directly on the nail head. Their album Blind Faith is an awesome hardcore outing.

Band Of The Week: Divinity

I've been listening to Divinity since I found a used copy of their album Allegory a few years back. They play melodic death metal that is both well written and technically impressive.  Their sound will hit home will fans of Mnemic, Sybreed, and Synthetic Breed.

New Conducting From The Grave Song!

Even when you try to keep up with whats going on in the metalverse, it's tough to keep tabs on everything and stuff tends to fall through the cracks up until the last minute. I had no idea that Conducting From The Grave were working on a new album or that they had finished their contract with Sumerian and took to the kickstarter/self-publishing route like many other bands are trying.

Band Of The Week: Dark Sermon

I have been following Dark Sermon since they went under a different moniker as In Reference To A Sinking Ship (which is a reference to a Norma Jean song title), in part it was thanks to the fact that vocalist Johnny Crowder went to the same university as me and made the paper at my school. In that relatively small period of time things have basically exploded for Dark Sermon, they got signed to eOne and have been touring pretty extensively with their debut LP In Tongues.

Harm's Way - Blinded

Harm’s Way’s LP Isolation is a great example of straight forward hardcore music done right. This band has the right attitude and the writing capabilities to make them the top of the genre. Their focus on enormously heavy sound sans needless breakdowns really makes them something special. This year we got some new music from them in the form of the Blinded EP. This EP continues their well-established sound but adds a thick heaping of great atmosphere.

Revocation - Self Titled

Getting the best of both worlds is something people generally consider a good thing, and when it comes to Revocation is far and above true. Revocation’s blend of death metal and thrash metal is so incredibly well done and captures the best aspects of both those genres perfectly. While you can ponder the labels of the bands sounds for a long time while listening to their albums, one thing remains clear, these guys put out incredibly well written music and their new self-titled album only furthers that point.

Band Of The Week: Elysian

Elysian are an Australian progressive metal band who fall somewhere between Periphery and Allegaeon. There's plenty to love on Wires Of Creation between the technically proficient writing/musicianship and the spaced out atmospheric parts of the album that really give it a signature feel.

New Fit For An Autopsy Song 'Thank You, Budd Dwyer'!

Fit For An Autopsy are basically killing it right now. Their upcoming album Hellbound is no doubt going to be as stellar as their debut album The Process Of Human Extermination. The band has released a new track from Hellbound entitled 'Thank You, Budd Dwyer' and it's definitely worth checking out. The songs title references Robert Budd Dwyer, a former politician who famously killed himself in front of reporters on live television. Dark stuff, but it's a great track.

Band Of The Week: A Riot In Moscow

I found this band a few weeks back thanks to a Facebook suggestion, and their debut EP is pretty killer. A Riot In Moscow are some where between progressive death metal and deathcore, blending the sounds of Black Dahlia Murder, and Job For A Cowboy, with bands like Thy Art Is Murder and The Contortionist.

Norma Jean - Wrongdoers

Norma Jean has always been a bright light in metalcore. The band’s existence has spawned some of the best music in metalcore and in a some way Norma Jean opened the gates for the fantastic band that is/was The Chariot. Norma Jean’s last album Meridional was well received by many, but something about the album didn’t quite click with fans overall. It is in no way a band album, and it features some of my favorite songs such as ‘Deathbed Atheist’ but overall something about Meridional felt out of place. It wasn’t as solid overall as Redeemer and it didn’t quite hit the high notes of The Anti-Mother. Now though we’re met with the release of Wrongdoers, and this album is nothing short of fantastic. This is the album fans have been craving.

Band Of The Week: Fall City Fall

In light of one of the best chaotic hardcore bands announcing their break up recently, I wanted to showcase a new chaotic hardcore band who has a lot of promise. That band is Fall City Fall. I did do a review of their album a little while back, but it's a killer album and people should be listening to them.

The Chariot Are Breaking Up

It's been a rough year in metalcore. UnderOath called it quits earlier this year, there's that whole debacle with As I Lay Dying vocalist Tim Lambesis, and no one knows the future of the band in that situation at the moment, and today The Chariot posted a video that ambiguously states they are breaking up.

New Moth Music Video For 'Dissolved'!

If you haven't checked out Moth's debut LP Endlessly In Motion, you're missing out on one of the best release this year. If you need convincing, well today is your day. Moth have released a video for the song 'Dissolved' from said album and you should definitely give it a view.

New Humanity's Last Breath Song 'Void'!

Humanity's Last Breath have released a new track from their upcoming album! The track is titled 'Void' and it's pretty nasty. Their single from last year 'Animal' got a good reception, but some claimed they were taking too much from Vildjharta in their overall sound. 'Void' dials that back a notch and brings more of their sound from Structures Collapse back in.

Commotio Cordis - Self Titled

Commotio Cordis is a band that hails from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Their name is derived from the Latin term for a generally fatal heart condition induced when something (or generally someone) disrupts the beating rhythm of your heart. Commotio Cordis has commonly occurred in organized sports, mostly due to hard hits and the like. So like many death metal bands Commotio cordis have picked a name centered around death, and like plenty of bands in the genre, it makes for a great name and makes you delve into information you might not have looked up before. You learn something new every day!

Band Of The Week: Harm's Way

If ever there was a band to encapsulate everything that the Hardcore genre should be, it's Harm's Way. Too often Hardcore gets turned into 'brocore'. The tone, the aggressive and heavy as hell writing and the dependence on great riffs instead of simply writing breakdown after breakdown makes these guys easily one of the best in the genre.

Rogue Empire - Overlord

Deathcore with electronic influences is something I recall saying I did not see a big future for and felt was a gimmick. Now I am definitely far from accurate on everything I say and I am fine with being proven wrong that a certain type of music is good. In steps Rogue Empire. These guys have tons keyboards and electronic backgrounds to their sound that essentially build the atmosphere of the album in its entirety. The band are not combining dubstep and deathcore, which would likely be an atrocity, instead they are basically taking Born Of Osiris’s keyboard ideas and capitalizing on it.

Another New Fleshgod Apocalypse Song!

Fleshgod Apocalypse became one of my favorite bands with their last release Agony, and personally I was unsure how they would be able to top that album, but the two tracks they have released so far from their upcoming album Labyrinth have been nothing short of impressive.

New The Devil Wears Prada Music!

The Devil Wears Prada are one of the biggest bands in metalcore, to the chagrin of many, but tons and tons of people enjoy these guys, myself included. I am a bigger fan of their older material though and the Zombie ep will pretty much always be my favorite work from them, but I've always enjoyed their music. Anyhow, they announced a new album entitled 8:18 which surprisingly won't be releasing August 18th, but instead September 17th (Who's the genius was that missed that easy to remember release date opportunity?) and we've got a couple of new songs to hear from said album.

Band Of The Week: Vale Of Pnath

Vale Of Pnath (the P is silent!) are a tech death outfit from Denver, Colorado who absolutely kill it in every way. The only thing to complain about is that they've only had one full length so far, which released back in 2011, so hopefully that will change soon. The band hasn't announced any big news about anything new just yet, but earlier this year they released a video for the song 'Sightless' from The Prodigal Empire.

Band Of The Week: As They Sleep

Things have been rather quiet in As They Sleep's camp lately. Their last release Dynasty came out in 2010, and there doesn't seem to be any info about them working on a new album although they released a cover of Billy Squire's song 'The Stroke'. I do hope this changes in the near future though as these guys have made two brilliant albums in their career so far.

Dischordia - Project 19

It’s been a solid amount of time since I have heard anything from Dischordia’s camp. The last thing I had heard from them was their excellent Creator, Destroyer EP back towards the end of 2011. That EP was a really strong 4 track outing and was one of the best EP’s I’d heard that year. It still holds up really well today. Now though Dischordia are here with a whole new beast. Project 19 is a 19 track album technically speaking but truthfully it is 10 tracks with 9 19 second silent tracks to make the album 19 tracks long.