Contributing to a French heavy music scene that has burgeoned in the last decade, Breton occultists Huata offer a full hour of drug-induced, ouija board-directed sludge and doom on their début full-length, Atavist of Mann. ‘Lord of the Flames’ stumbles through the opium den door resembling a doped-out Goatsnake, before melting in to a bean bag at the rear with an extended mid-section that is almost parlour-like in atmosphere, and akin to something from Opeth’s Damnation. It is here that Huata’s fondness for organs is most obvious, as well as on ‘Testi Sum…

The abdication of the throne in 2001 by Norwegian black metallers Emperor left a gaping hole within the realm of extreme metal. The trio went their separate ways, and after three successful records in five years with Zyklon, guitarist Samoth moved briefly on to Casey Chaos’ underwhelming Scum project before collaborating with fellow Scum member Cosmo to create The Wretched End. Inroads, the sophomore record from The Wretched End, continues on a path first tread eleven years ago with Zyklon’s debut, World ov Worms, anchoring the record in fearsome concoction of…

Rounding out a trio of re-releases to commemorate the tenth anniversary of their denouement, Noothgrush's Live for Nothing is a compilation of live sessions recorded directly from the mixboards of two college radio stations. While never emulating the commercial success of Eyehategod, the West Coast natives forged an underground legacy for themselves at the cement-thick, ultra-heavy end of sludge, and these two recordings book-end their prolific middle era in the late 1990s, during which they released eight split EPs in three years.

Opening with 'Sith' and ‘Jundland Wastes’, two of the many…

Entering their twenty-eighth year of hard graft, Dave Mustaine leads his Megadeth charges once more unto the breach to cry God for all thrash metal with Th1rt3en. Bassist David Ellefson is back amongst the cavalry after a decade-long absence for their ‘imaginatively’-titled thirteenth full-length release, and the result is one of the most impressive Megadeth records since Cryptic Writings.

Despite having built a career on fostering an ‘us against the world’ mentality, right from the circumstances surrounding the band’s formation, Megadeth have rarely gone against the grain in the last ten years. Instead, Mustaine has focused on refining…

An elegant opening to Damnation's 2011 instalment is provided by A Forest of Stars, who squeeze on to the Zero Tolerance stage decked out in full waistcoats and shirts, for half an hour of black metal that is completely at odds with their impeccable appearance. A rambling introduction seems to misfire, but from there onwards this unique fusion of black metal and foppish Victoriana is as emphatic as it is daring. It is in much the same vein that Shining (the Norwegian one, not the Swedish one with the on-stage self-harming and fighting with fans) hit the Terrorizer…

Armed to the teeth with spiked gauntlets, firebrands and an unhealthy daubing of corpse-paint, Throne of Katarsis are as staunchly and unashamedly black metal as a band is ever likely to be. Pulling absolutely zero punches, Ved Graven is a primal ritual that reaches deep in to your chest and drags out a pestilence-ridden, maggot-infested soul ripe for sacrifice at the black metal altar.

Influenced heavily by black metal stalwarts such as Emperor's Wrath of the Tyrant and Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, as well as later era bands such as 1349 and Tsjuder, Throne of…

With any half-decent record, a strong opening track colours your perception of the rest of the album; think of how well 'Angel of Death' sets up Reign in Blood. So when Beyond Creation's The Aura opens with the muddled 'No Request for the Corrupted', it seems that it will be a long fifty minutes. Their technical ability is present in spades, and there are plenty of great ideas, but none of them are given time to settle and develop, and the modus operandi seems to be to disorientate listeners.

The crucial first impression is…

Returning five years after the much-lauded Voice of Omens, Arkansas' doom/sludge merchants Rwake present Rest, a record that expands on every aspect and concept of its predecessor with remarkable results. Rwake's movement further away from their sludge core can be traced through each song on Rest, and first-time listeners expecting an Eyehategod/ Iron Monkey-esque emotional meltdown will be sorely disappointed. Instead, opening piece 'It Was Beautiful, But Now it's Sour' offers sludge shot through with black metal, and much of the guitar work on 'An Invisible Thread' resembles a…

After putting their signature to Roadrunner's legal papers, abandoning Paul Romano's trademark artwork and almost completely jettisoning any song longer than five minutes, some naysayers declared that the sirens had finally tempted Mastodon towards the rocky shores of commercialism and mediocrity. One listen of The Hunter will rightly show up the naïvety, short-sightedness and utter stupidity of all those who seriously believed that negative hype, for this is already a firm candidate for album of the decade. This is nothing less than a masterpiece, a careful distilling of it's four predecessors that will be sweeping up awards come the year's…

From the freezing and frost-bitten kingdom of… Texas… come Bahimiron, who, with song titles such as 'Goathorned Messiah of the Seven Gates' and 'Bestial Raids of Antichrist Darkness', are unashamedly and unmistakably a no-frills satanic black metal act. At close to ten years of raising merry hell in this particular department, Bahimiron have distilled their sound in to a fiery combination of crust and black metal, and the Texans rarely stray beyond this narrow path.

Having previously lit up the black metal underground with the outstanding full-lengths Southern Nihilizm and Pure Negativism, as…