Rating: 4.5/5

Black metal is one of the farthest-reaching genres in all of metal. It manages to put in question many of the ideas of what we think of as metal. The Ruins of Beverast is currently doing this more so than anyone else. Could this sound be the future?

Rating: 4/5

I have now heard the album many times and I like it more with each listen. “For Aeons Past” is closer to the Scar Symmetry sound that so many of us grew to love, much closer than that band’s first post-Älvestam output, “Dark Matter Dimensions”.

Rating: 4/5

What Persefone does is take Dream Theater’s use of keyboards and progressive elements, Avenged Sevenfold’s melodic hard rock-meets-metalcore ability, and The Black Dahlia Murder’s razor-sharp ferocity and make an entire sound based on it. Once again, this looks horrendous on paper, but they execute it so well that I’m even close to putting this up as a best of 2010 nomination.

Rating: 3.5/5

“Rekreatur”, or ‘recreation’ is a slightly deceiving name for the album. Though a solid and enjoyable listen, it sounds like an extended version of “Sagas”, except maybe with slightly less passion.

Rating: 4/5

There are plenty of Metal fans out there that worship Sleep. Many of these same folk also have great reverence for both of the bands birthed from its dissolution: Om and High on Fire. And I never thought I wanted to hear a happy medium between that divide, yet that is exactly what Zoroaster delivers.

Rating: 1.5/5

My original 2/5 felt generous. This is the Christian metalcore quintet’s fifth effort; if all they can scrape together is faux-brutality, tired breakdowns, and aping a variety of styles, then count me out.

Rating: 4/5

Overall, Istapp’s debut full-length is amazing, especially when there’s so many unoriginal melodic Black Metal acts out there. It may not touch the greats of old, but that’s fine with me, because it’s obvious that they’re looking to do something fresh and new.

Rating: 4/5

When mediocre bands inch their evolution forward, the result is tediously agonizing for those that have the misfortune to hear. But when you have classic masters––still forging their legacy, and not merely riding their own coattails in some bizarre metallic mobius strip––the result is just this good.

Rating: 4/5

What continues to be refreshing about Misery Index is their ability to craft meaningful, well-balanced songs with just the right mix of technicality, catchiness, and straight-up brutality.

Rating: 4.5/5

When listening to ’342′, the best advice I can impart was once given to the White Rabbit by The King of Hearts: “Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” It is exhausting yet exhilarating art, passion without pretense.