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Zozobra is the new band of Caleb Scofield, known from bands such as Old Man Gloom and the well-known Cave In. Nowadays, also his Cave In colleagues Adam McGrath and JR Conners joined in on the new record Savage Masters.

With the signing of the Canadian Erimha, Victory Records has proven once again that they aren't narrow-minded at all. We know the label of hardcore, punk, screamo and emo bands, but Reign Through Immortality, is a real metal record that stands somewhere between black metal and death metal. The most remarkable thing about it is its production. For a new band, every detail sounds crystal clear, lifting the album to a higher level.

Even though Unkind without a doubt are crust metal, it is not a complete sound-inferno that awaits me here, but surprisingly differentiated stuff. Sure, at times they are crashing through the Finnish lake district with a vengeance, but they don't only destroy everything, but do real songs. What makes Unkind differ from the rest of the crust horde is the fact that they put more emphasis on variety, musically as vocally.

Pete Karlsson, known from e.g. Maze Of Torment, Deceiver or Thrown, and especially his (solo) project Flesh, returns under a new moniker, The Pete Flesh Deathtrip. The first album under this name was recorded at Studio Beast with engineer / mixer / master Peter Bjärgö.

French horde Moonreich return with the second album, called Terribilis Est Locus Iste. The album comes close to an hour of duration and is worth every single minute of it, at least if you can appreciate the aural execution of misanthropy. Moonreich do stand for fast, disharmonic and merciless Black metal with a specific Nordic-alike sound, a grim atmosphere (mind the massive yet icy production!) and a nasty approach that trespasses all narrow-mindedly created borders.

Impressive sludge metal with a thrash-touch is offered to us by Lord Dying on their debut-album and will bring each fan of High On Fire, Mastodon, Black Tusk, Red Fang, Ancients or Lair of the Minotaur to tears of anger! Because this stuff is absolutely excellent.

This “Doom” Metal band from Oulu (coastal town by the Botnic Gulf at the mouth of the river Oulujoki, situated NW & middle of Finland – with over 130,000 inhabitants, it is the 5^th largest city in the country, and one of the northernmost largest cities in the world) was founded as a quintet in 2003.

Truly one of hard rock great survivors UK’s Deep Purple return with their 19th album and Now What?! is already being heralded as one of the best records the group has released in not years, but decades.

Sweden has always been the breeding ground of many great metal bands. One that has been taken from under the dust is the female fronted rock 'n roll band Sister Sin. Ten years ago, they released their debut record, called Dance Of The Wicked. But as the band didn't get the success they deserved back then, the American label Victory Records decided to re-release the album.

I wonder if there is something like brutal panda bears, but according to Brutal Panda Records, this is a perfectly plausible combination. They released the first record of the San Francisco based band Kowloon Walled City. The band's name refers to the walled city of Kowloon in Hong Kong, a refugee where mobs, prostitutes, criminals and all other sorts of outcasts hided from the government.