In terms of being recognized as a major force in the world of extreme music, Finland can often be overshadowed by its Scandanavian neighbors Norway and Sweden. Although the Land of a Thousand Lakes has its fair share of metal stalwarts both past and present—Sentenced, Children of Bodom and Finntroll, to name a few—it’s fair…

Portland’s a sweet city. It’s got a well-titted public transportation system, a record store for every sub-sub genre (except for Mozambique deathfolk, which is unfortunate.), a zoo, and Powell’s City of Books. Of course, it has other things, too. Like guys with 18th century moustaches in little girl pants, but so too does every city…

I haven’t kept up recently on where urban black metal sits in the kvlt spectrum, but these two tracks by Brooklynites Mutilation Rites sound like they were recorded in a sewer and mixed in a crematorium. This is Side B of Devoid, the 12″ EP from Forcefield Records, and shows the band throwing jagged chunks…

Eleven full-lengths spanning two decades in the silly and oft-lethal record business requires a bit of fortitude and self-reinvention. Well, Unleashed — long known for pre-dating Super Wario Amon Amarth with their tales of Viking plunder and intrepidity — has fortitude in spades. Blonde-haired and Viking-large Johnny Hedlund’s been at the death metal game longer…

Formed in the Virginia/DC area in the mid-’80s, a region then more known for its hardcore punk than metal, Deceased slowly built a loyal local fan base as that decade came to an end, kids attracted to the band’s unique take on the nascent death metal sound.

All it took was one six-minute video by comedian Dave Hill to reveal what we’ve all suspected: Black metal fans lack the “humor” gene. When presented with anything— a Youtube video of someone getting hit in the nuts with a ball, for instance—that requires their grim face to contort into something ungrim, and simultaneously makes…

“When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you,” Nietzsche promised in Beyond Good and Evil, but Mr. Philosophize with a Hammer never did recommend any appropriate mood music for making goo-goo eyes at the infernal regions. Which is why it is such a great thing for we lovers of darkness…

Strange Matter Venue Richmond, VA What kind of a venue could possibly serve as home base for the Monster Manual-toting, frost giant-destroying, death/thrash purveyors Battlemaster? Some sort of Gollum cave or elven hideaway? Wrong you are – the nerd rage brought on by this Richmond wrecking crew fits snugly into local watering hole Strange Matter,…

It’s pretty hard to to determine Cannibal Corpse’s most endearing personality trait. Oh, what’s that: they’re all real nice guys? Oh come on, surely it can’t be that surprising that guys who have made a 24-year career out of writing death metal songs about extreme (and fairly esoteric) murder scenarios could be normal dudes/responsible dads….

The last time we at the dB HQ heard Seattle’s Samothrace was, well, last week, but the last time the quartet made scene-like waves was way back in 2008, on the Life’s Trade LP. What has Samothrace been up to in the years between? Probably writing an epic of Grecian proportions. Actually, that’s exactly how…