Review

2019 Albums

Album Review: Wandar – Zyklus 9 (Black Metal)

November 19, 2019 Noob Heavy admin

Zyklus is an outstanding black metal record that not a lot of people have heard over here and I’m honestly surprised. The quality and creative direction are both high end and it’s presented eloquently. Wandar are a German band who have been around since 2006 putting out music independently. I received the cassette from indie tape bistro Repose Records earlier this year and it has since become one of my favorite tapes. It’s also out on Vinyl, very recently actually. I’d recommend this to any black metal fan, especially those I see on social media growing weary of post-black releases this year. Wandar encompass most forms of black metal and won’t bore you about it. […]

2019 Albums

Album Review: Scargzlot – Wolf’s Atonement 8 (Black Metal)

November 16, 2019 zaxrecordreviews

Here in the states and surrounding countries, winter is coming on. Hell, depending on where you are, you might already be getting the brunt of it. With winter comes changes, like the weather, and the holidays, and the very distinct difference in mood, atmosphere, and aesthetic. I find black metal to fit winter quite well, so naturally I jam a lot of black metal around this time of year. […]

2019 Albums

Album Review: Unfathomable Ruination – Enraged And Unbound 9.5 (Brutal Death)

November 12, 2019 Noob Heavy admin

Well this is a hit, there’s death metal for the whole family on Enraged and Unbound, the dad and uncle that still listen to The Big 4 and Morbid Angel, the the older son who likes it a bit more technical, and the youngest of the children becka with the Disentomb tee who likes it fucking dank and filthy. It has guest vocals by death metal growlers Julien Truchan from Benighted and Sven de Caluwé from Aborted. The album art is a work made by the incredible Eliran Kantor. This album is like the heisenberg recipe of pure death metal and it comes out November 22nd on Willowtip Records. […]

2019 Albums

Album Review: Holy Serpent – Endless 10 (Stoner/Gaze)

November 4, 2019 Noob Heavy admin

Endless is straight up ‘the shit’, that’s the most important fact of this review. It’s an album that has made me swoon like few others this year and it’s not exactly that metal or heavy. It is however, perfectly suited to the current climate of stoner rock and doom, bringing something quite zesty and refreshing, a fusion of fuzz, alt rock and doom rock. I’m hearing influences from Type O Negative and My Bloody Valentine, it’s super inspired and engorged with energy despite the doomy tempo. They nailed it musically and in terms of doom aesthetic – something Australia has been refining for some time now. […]

2019 Albums

Album Review: Hell Yeah – Welcome Home 7 (Groove/Southern)

October 28, 2019 Noob Heavy admin

It was back in 2012 or so that the American super-band HELLYEAH (consisting of such members as Vinnie Paul of Pantera and Damageplan, Chad Gray and Greg Tribbett of Mudvayne and Tom Maxwell of Nothingface) came into my attention with Band of Brothers. Way before that, they had released Alcohaulin’ Ass, a southern-rock-sounding track, which I had heard on some occasions. But it was Blood for Blood (2014) that established them as a groove metal act I would call qualified. Their 2016’s Undeniable, being not on par with its antecedent, tossed the band back to normalcy again, only having a few highlights here and there. But with the founding member Vinnie Paul’s untimely demise in June 2018, the band has had so much to prove whether they are able to pick up where they left off or they are just another run-of-the-meal metal band with a couple of commendable songs and quite a handful of fillers per album. […]

2019 Albums

Album Review: Rings Of Saturn – Gidim 10 (Deathcore)

October 28, 2019 Noob Heavy admin

Rings Of Saturn have been around for a bit perfecting their insane brand of techno death metal, and with this latest album they prove they can soar alongside current titans Infant Annihilator and Cattle Decapitation. 2019 keeps upping the vocal game and setting an insane standard that most just can’t compete with. Add an overgrown child prodigy of a guitarist and you’ve got the essence of RoS, it’s excessive… and fancy. Utilizing brutality with finesse rather than toxic bravado. I’ve heard so many albums try to reach this peak but fall short, so it’s not without pause that I consider this one of the greatest tech death works of like… the decade? Imagine if Dragonforce was good. […]

2019 Albums

Album Review: White Ward – Love Exchange Failure 8 (Post Black)

October 25, 2019 zaxrecordreviews

I love coming across albums that are very long, but feel like nothing. Albums you can just sink into and lose yourself in are the absolute best. A prime supplier of records like these are post-black metal and atmospheric black metal in general. White Ward fit this quite well with their new album “Love Exchange Failure” that eclipses an hour in length with only 7 tracks to its name. […]

2019 Albums

Album Review: Messora – The Door 8.7 (Prog Death)

October 20, 2019 zaxrecordreviews

Progressive death metal is a very underrated subgenre. I think it’s sort of overlooked because it’s pretty hard to classify, I often think of it as all encompassing yet forward thinking death metal. Every year there’s at least one progressive death record that absolutely blows me away. Last year it was Where Owls Know My Name by Rivers Of Nihil, this year it’s The Door by Messora. […]