Own Release

Finally, after five years, Carneia return with their second full length, after 2008’s White Coma Light (Offerandum Records). In mean time, the band toured with acts like AmenRa, Black Heart Rebellion, Maudlin or Bulls On Parade.

Belgium, a country unknown to most, but I have to admit we spawned a decent number of musicians and bands. One of those bands is Dyscordia, a progressive metal band from Kortrijk. The band has been at it for some time as they have been supporting bands like Primal Fear, ReVamp, Ensiferum, Alestorm, At Vance,…..

Checkmate is one of the many metalcore bands that seem to exist to put out angry sounding records that show a lot of brainless stomping furious energy. What holds me back on this album is that there is a sense of exhaustion that builds as the album wears on. It's all pretty standard stuff that's been done before, and done better.

The Tool meets Baroness meets Converge meets Gojira meets Every Time I Die- songwriting is strong and very aggressive and the band focuses entirely on just making down to earth music. Also, depending on your taste, the vocal tone can grow a bit tiresome after a while.

This Rio De Janeiro based Brazilian Heavy Metal act was formed in 2009 by former Reckoning members Guilherme Sevens (vocals, also formerly with Death Box and It Sows Within), Carlos Eduardo Salone (guitar, also formerly of Neutralis), Marcelo Vai (bass, formerly of Imago Mortis, now playing with Obsin), André Andrade (drums, formerly of HeavenFalls, currently with Stalker) and second guitar

The Senseless is a solo-outfit by former Berzerker member Sam Beam, with a first album in 2007, called In The Realm Of The Senseless, and a follow-up one year later on, entitled The Floating World. The latter, however, never got released for a couple of reasons. The contract in between The Senseless and the former label, Anticulture, came to an end, and Sam’s perfectionism implemented a release-cancel time after time.

Grimus (named after a novel by Mister S. Rushdie ‘question mark’…) are a (Latino-Iberian) quintet (vocalist Bryan Martinez, drummer JP Andrade, guitar players Marco Bobadilla and Michael Munoz, and bass player / singer Michael Goncalves) from New Jersey, U.SSS.A. In 2009, Grimus recorded and self-released the positively accepted and reviewed EP Gutter Earth, and this album, Omnicide, is the band’s official full length studio debut.

Here's another album which should've gotten in colleague Ivan's to-do box (see also intro to review of Saligia EP/ mini-album, posted at same time), but this time at least the editor-in-chief cannot be blamed for the mix-up, as the (download) promo came only with a track-list.

Having tried to form a band in his Russian hometown Pskov (situated not even 40 km from the Estonian border in a bird's eye, but roads failing one needs to drive some 60 km to get to the border on the A212 in a WSW direction out of the town), multi-instrumentalist SL moved to the vicinity of Göteborg, Sweden (Helsjon, to be precise – which is a good 35 km outside of Göteborg center in an ESE direction) where in late 2011 (and then at the age of 21), he happenstanced upon young drummer Simon (only 18 at the time).

On the international Rock and Metal scene, Iceland may be but a small player which only very occasionally spews forth new bands, but as a rule they all make it onto the markets abroad (the local market being typified by an abundance of Folk bands), and fare pretty well in the process.