Vegard Sverre Tveitan, aka Ihsahn, is probably mostly known from legendary act Emperor. He is / was also active in splendid projects like Thou Shalt Suffer (damn, I do miss them in every aspect), God Of Atheists, Zyklon-B (another excellent combo, even though… Never mind…), Hardingrock or Xeresia (almost all of them bands or projects I am just crazy about); with his wife Heidi S.
I was very pleased with what Italian band Stigma (the one from Piedemonte, of course) did in the past. Albums like When Midnight Strikes! and Concerto For The Undead (both of them released via Pivotal Recordings, in respectively 2008 and 2010; reviews updated on respectively 18/04/10 and 21/12/10 in this site’s Archives-section) were honoured by positive reviewing taken care of by undersigned ;-).
Doom Metal has many faces; that’s something we all know, that isn’t but a cheap side-line. Making abstraction of the Black-, Funeral-, Sludge- and Death-oriented sub-genres (amongst others), and concentrating on the more traditionally inspired bands, there are some huge different interpretations as well. There’s the so-called Epic-scene (with sword and shield), the Sixties-oriented one (with joint and mushroom), the sabbathesque clones (also with joint and mushroom), and so on, and so on.
Hybris is a London based technical thrash metal band witch concept started originally in distant 2002, when Federica (Centurions Ghost) made camp in London and started writing riffs for what would have been an all-female metal band. However, finding the right people seemed to be a big issue.
The Hundredth Name is the full length debut by Las Vegas-based band Demon Lung. This act was formed in 2011 and recorded an EP before, called Pareidolia.
It may be true that it is nowadays rather hard to produce something entirely innovative in the heavy sludge genre, but some bands still deserve some special attention. As in the case of Palehorse, a UK band that has been around for over a decade. A major thing that sets Palehorse apart from the majority of genre bands is use of no axe guitars whatsoever, but instead they ad two four stringers..
It's safe to say Havok has one goal: 'Thrash 'til death'. These denim and leather-clad metal warriors have quickly released their sophomore album Unnatural Selection. Much like last year's excellent Time is Up, Unnatural Selection finds Havok fast, frantic and damn near flawless. Yes, much on Unnatural Selection will echo elements of Sacrifice, DRI, Slayer, Kreator, and others but phantom lord, can these Denver lads play thrash!
One of Ireland’s most prominent bands return with the third full length studio recording, almost exactly two years after Mammal (see Concreteweb’s Archive Section’s May 9th 2011-update for the really fabulously written -hehe- review done by undersigned). The stuff, coming with rather sober artwork, lasts for forty eight minutes, by the way.
Voices are a new project with a couple of former Akercocke-members. And those who are trusted with Akercocke might have a clue about what Voices stand for.
Deplorable how little info one can find on the Internet about this London based British band! From what I've been able to piece together, the band was formerly known as a quartet under the name of Death Cigarettes until the latter part of 2009, when original singer Maya and guitarist Andy decided to take on a new rhythm section.
