DARKLON Mind Reaper No Remorse (2025) Rating: 8/10 With their third studio album, Greek metallers Darklon ensures that their armour still glistens like the sun. With swords and instruments raised high, the Athens-based combo is now armed with a new vocalist in the form of Billy “The Kid” Chrepas (Wildfire). Chrepas replaces Nikos Migus A. […]

STEEL ARCTUS Dreamruler No Remorse (2025) Rating: 7.5/10 With their third album full-length album in five years, Greek metal fantasists Steel Arctus dazzle the eyes with some truly striking cover art while the ears are frazzled by a Savatage-esque tirade of epic, snarling metal. I’m happy to twin these dudes with fellow Greeks Darklon, although […]

STRUCK A NERVE Struck A Nerve Listenable (2025) Rating: 8/10 Striking hard and fast with their debut full-length outing, UK thrashers Struck A Nerve make up for in sound what their moniker doesn’t. Combining their snapping fury with Power Trip and the archetypal rage of Slayer, this album certainly ticks all the boxes when it […]

BLISTEROUS Grotesque Prosection EP Headsplit (2025) Rating: 6.5/10 This relatively short six-song debut EP from Finland’s Blisterous begins with a sound best described as a bucket of soupy vomit being stirred. Sludgy, gloopy… in fact, I’m actually disappointed when the bubbling slop turns to a fast whisk of blast beats. Grotesque Prosection is very much […]

EXXECUTOR Into Hellish Domains Fucking Kill (2025) Rating: 7/10 Everything about this debut full-length release screams aggression, even the record label it’s on sounds hostile! Exxecutor (yes, with two x’s) waste no time in obliterating ears with an environment best described as scorching. The opening title track rips into your chest cavity like a scolding […]

DEGRAVED Spectral Realm Of Ruin Dark Descent / Me Saco Un Ojo (2025) Rating: 7.5/10 Armed with torch, crash helmet and paracetamol, I hesitantly descended the archaic slopes into the turbulent domain of Degraved’s debut full-length album not realising just how unprepared I was for the bludgeoning I was about to receive. Half a decade […]

OLYMP Rising Metalizer (2025) Rating: 7.5/10 Two years after their self-titled debut full-length album, German heavy metal clan Olymp brings us more yarns of mythology. Sebastian Tölle (lead vocals and guitar), André Möbius (bass and backing vocals), Armin Feigl (guitar) and Dominik Rankl (drums) all previously featured for progressive metallers Moral Hazard so there’s no […]