TESTAMENT Para Bellum Nuclear Blast (2025) Rating: 8/10 If ever there was a band that still sounds as fresh as the day it was born, it’s Testament. Para Bellum is the 14th full-length instalment in the illustrious career of the California band that arguably deserves the same levels of success as the so-called “Big Four” […]
HYDRA VEIN Perpetual Violence Machine EP Iron Shield (2025) Rating: 7.5/10 Following their woeful return in 2022 with the Unlamented album, once cult UK thrashers (now based in the Netherlands) Hydra Vein issues a new EP. With its generic cover art and daft, formulaic title I had little hope for this release, but was somewhat […]
SANGUISUGABOGG Hideous Aftermath Century Media (2025) Rating: 7/10 Another album of slobbering grind is upon us as Ohio’s Sanguisugabogg slithers back into the recording studio to cough this cyst up. Hideous Aftermath is a bit of a strange one though because while previous efforts were beer-soaked bludgeoning marrying death metal, slam and hardcore, this one […]
VILE APPARITION Malignity Dark Descent / Me Saco Un Ojo (2025) Rating: 7.5/10 Very much anchoring themselves to a mid-to-late 90s death metal aesthetic, Melbourne, Australia-based Vile Apparition conjures their full-length sophomore Malignity. This is one of those surprisingly vibrant extreme metal albums which literally hammers from the off to the very end. I’m thankful […]
HOODED MENACE Lachrymose Monuments Of Obscuration Season Of Mist (2025) Rating: 7.5/10 Getting more unorthodox with each release, this latest opus from Finland’s Hooded Menace tests my patience somewhat, and not just with the cover rendition of Duran Duran’s 1982 pop classic ‘Save A Prayer’. I feel that with Lachrymose Monuments Of Obscuration we are […]
AGARTHA The Hidden EP No Remorse (2025) Rating: 7.5/10 Six years after forming, the ex-Grave Ritual and Abysmal Lord duo of Ryan Evans (vocals) and Jeremy Berry (guitar and drums) bring forth The Hidden, a rather emphatic return that gets the heart thumping, the swords clashing and the flags waving. If you like metal such […]
TEMPERED Cruel & Unusual Punishment Cavernous / Macho (2025) Rating: 7/10 Right, I’m going to address the elephant in the room immediately; I don’t like the vocals. There, I said it, so if the Glasgow, Scotland-based band wants to send their parents, grandparents, neighbours and their dogs down to Metal Forces HQ then so be […]
CATHEDRAL Society’s Pact With Satan EP Rise Above (2025) Rating: 9/10 As soon as I heard this was a lost Cathedral song from the sessions of the UK band’s final full-length studio opus The Last Spire (2013), my mind immediately envisioned a scenario similar to the classic 80s horror movie The Evil Dead. My imagination […]
UMULAMAHRI Learning The Secrets Of Acid EP Ordovician (2025) Rating: 8/10 I assume the weird cover art aids the experience as this brand spanking new U.S. avant-garde death metal act issues its debut EP. Shrouded in mystery, Learning The Secrets Of Acid is the creation of Doug Moore (vocals; Pyrrhon / Seputus / Glorious Depravity […]
