Goatsnake - Black Age Blues

By Aaron Sullivan. Fifteen years after the release of their last full length Goatsnake returns with Black Age Blues. While it may have been a little over a decade since any new material. Black Age Blues just picks up where they left off. Almost literally. The opening track is called "Another River to Cross"

By Aaron Sullivan.


Fifteen years after the release of their last full length Goatsnake returns with Black Age Blues. While it may have been a little over a decade since any new material. Black Age Blues just picks up where they left off. Almost literally. The opening track is called "Another River to Cross" and begins with a slow fade in of the ending of the last track on Flower of Disease called "The River". Before fading into the new song. See the connection?

Goatsnake 2010. Photo by Taylor Keahey.

Goatsnake are no frills, meat and potatoes DOOM. It’s all about the almighty riff. Something Mr. Anderson has plenty of. Using his Sunn O))) amps to deliver the thick riffs. Combining with Greg Rodgers and new bassist Scott Renner holding down the rhythm and madman singer Pete Stahl's bluesy vocals to make for one potent slab of a heavy, down tuned, DOOM-fest. A song like "Coffee & Whiskey" starts as this great blues based butt shaker but ends with a riff so heavy Mr. Iommi himself would be proud. This is an album that begs to turned up to 11. I recently had the pleasure of seeing them live and perform many of the songs off this album. They are as good if not better live than they are on the album. Plain and simple this album just rocks. It will have you playing air guitar, banging your head, while singing at the top of your lungs. Honestly if this album doesn’t get you going, you may want to check your pulse.

Goatsnake 2010. Photo by Taylor Keahey.

As of late Southern Lord has been more of a label used by Mr. Anderson to go back and release some of his favorite old hardcore bands, new hardcore bands, and re-issues of some of the labels most popular albums. I say this not as judgement. It’s his label and he is welcome to do with it as he pleases. It’s just nice as a long time fan of this label to see it return to more of it’s roots. With maybe the exception of Sunn O))), no other band embodies Southern Lord more the mighty Goatsnake, and with Black Age Blues they continue to show why they are among the labels favorites.

Macabre Omen - Gods of War - At War

By Kaptain Carbon. I really want to talk about Greece as a heavy metal export, but I feel that Macabre Omen is not the best place to start. With the already stellar releases of Nocternity and Caedes Cruenta, 2015 is starting to look decent for Greece, especially considering their other more pressing financial woes.

By Kaptain Carbon.


I really want to talk about Greece as a heavy metal export, but I feel that Macabre Omen is not the best place to start. With the already stellar releases of Nocternity and Caedes Cruenta, 2015 is starting to look decent for Greece, especially considering their other more pressing financial woes. Macabre Omen's second record, Gods of War - At War, would be a wonderful addition to the country's growing extreme metal scene, if not for the fact that they are not really from Greece. Macabre Omen, as an entity, has the same enigmatic and elusive nature of its music. Macabre Omen started in Greece and then relocated to the United Kingdom with this particular album being recorded in Italy. Sure the band discusses the trials and tribulations of Hellenic culture but given their displacement, I feel Macabre Omen, as an entity is more international and possibly universal. Somewhere hidden behind fog and mist lies two people doing a bunch of different things.

Macabre Omen is receiving a mild amount of press in 2015 even though the band's last record, and debut, came out 10 years prior. Further that with the fact they have been releasing material since the mid 90’s and one can see that this band has a tendency for long gaps in between releases. Looking at the band’s history, one sees Alexandros Antoniou as the ringleader for the project with a rotating, or withering, cast of supporting musicians. Despite a dwindling of musicians and also more time between releases, the project do not waste this time, using it to craft a unique, well-honed release. An entire review could be written on the achievements of Alexandros Antoniou but suffice to say that Gods of War - At War comes with the weight of eternity at its side.

As a force, Gods of War - At War is an interesting dive into pagan black metal, which toggles between inaccessible qualities like the dying raspy vocals and more melodic moments like the interludes and galloping rhythm of the songs. Songs like the opener "I See, The Sea," as well as "Rhodian Pride" have a wonderfully anthemic backbone which mutes the harsh qualities of the music; at least long enough to not realize the type of music which is making ones arms tighten with excitement. From the acoustic interludes and atmospheric backdrops, the listener is acutely aware that this is a record that deserves ten years of craft before its release. The density in each track, which never dips below 5 minutes, is impressive especially given the fact that they never tire throughout the record. I may not be able to comment on the state of Grecian black metal with this band but, suffice to say, Macabre Omen has made a damn fine record in whatever country they want to lay claim to.

Kaptain Carbon writes metal reviews on lesser known contemporary metal at Tape Wyrm, power metal and movie reviews at Hollywood Metal, and moderates Reddit’s r/metal community.

Label Spotlight: Witching Hour Productions

Polish label Witching Hour Productions have now set up shop on Bandcamp. Their bread and butter is Polish death metal of recent vintage (but die-hard fans of Behemoth and Vadar can find releases of early demos and albums). Of course when it comes to death metal who better to separate the wheat from the chaff than the mighty Autothrall?

Polish label Witching Hour Productions have now set up shop on Bandcamp. Their bread and butter is Polish death metal of recent vintage (but die-hard fans of Behemoth and Vadar can find releases of early demos and albums). Of course when it comes to death metal who better to separate the wheat from the chaff than the mighty Autothrall? So without further ado: enjoy his excavation of three massive chunks of death metals from the bowels of the Witching Hour Bandcamp.

Cover art by Zbigniew Bielak

Try and envision a world in which Deicide wrote much better music than they normally do, and incorporated Polish strength blasting and a bit more flashy, thrashing aggression in addition to splitting the layered vocals down to just growls and snarls (and usually not at the same time). This is a world Azarath not only have envisioned, but have manifest into reality for 13 years and five full-lengths, the latest of which is Blasphemers' Maledictions, a brutal execution of dead center production values and rampant, neck snapping anger which leaves but the chalk outlines of corpses in its wake. This would be enough as is, for most folks, and yet they've also seen fit to pen riffs that are actually worth a damn. (read the rest of the review here).

Artwork by Michał "Xaay" Loranc

"White Architect" builds a nice intro atmosphere that instantly gives you hope that you're about to hear more than the average death record, and "Cortex Defamation" cashes in the check, with tyrannical walls of thick bludgeoning rhythms that instantly get the anger level high and the blood flowing through the limbs that then flail about like an induced seizure. Yet, amidst the crawling, battering of the guitars there are nice little touches of distorted backup vocals, and the leads after 3:00 are fantastic. "A Dying World" charges gloriously across some broiling guitar melodies and spastic bass fills before breaking down into a thick series of shifting, crunchy tempos, and "War Machine" is simply a ridiculous, fucking brutal piece which removed at least three of my vertebrae as I was listening and unable to stop from jerking around the booth, flighty arpeggios complementing Chudy's blunt chorus vocals. And from this point...it just gets SICKER. (read the rest of the review here).

Cover art by Mentalporn

Next to Vader's Necropolis (which is a lot more barebones than this album), it's the best Polish death of 2009, easily obliterating the latest Behemoth for that honor. "Revival" opens with a lush cosmic ambience, with a throbbing bass that helps emotionally ascend into a destructive arsenal of storming riffs as the heavens tear asunder. This album is like the Galactus of death metal. Jacek Grecki has a voice very similar to Piotr of Vader, if a little blunter in places. You'll probably want a breather after this first track, but the intimidating "Personal Universe" will not allow such folly, as it bludgeons you into oblivion like a fleet of Star Destroyers en route to a real conflict. "...if the Dead Can Speak" begins with some timid, flowing guitars, elevating with some breakneck chugging, grooves and double bass madness, before the vocals take command over a simple, rolling pattern. "216" then again annihilates the listener into formless space dust. Get used to it, because it's going to happen again with "One Step Too Far", "Divine Project" and the tribally taunting "Simulation". (read the rest of the review here).