Willie’s rundown actually has a few great titles we never fully reviewed, plus a little PS with honorable mentions and non-Metal favorites.

Straight from Oslo into YOUR FACE, Mats Johansen reveals the fifteen Metal albums (and three non-Metal albums) that caught his eyes and ears in 2011.

Literally.

Rating: 4.5/5
…
This is no party album, people—these are mediations in the key of despair, and I would not have it any other way. While this record feels like a vast improvement for Tombs, it’s not the sound of a band that has run out of ideas; in fact, it’s the sound of a band developing into its own entity.

Read this Mind Over Metal exclusive interview with Brooklyn’s TOMBS. Philip Eisenhauer exhumes info on their upcoming sophomore release, complete with titles, inspirations, contributors, and more!

Check out the great live pix of both TOMBS and PHANTOM GLUE!

New Orleans, Louisiana sludge metal icons EYEHATEGOD are proud to announce their long-anticipated US tour beginning in June following an appearances at this year’s edition of the Maryland Deathfest

JAVELINA have left their Philly battlegrounds and are currently plowing southward.

Tombs – “Winter Hours” released February 10, 2009 on Relapse This is the album you’d want to create if you dropped acid while standing on a frozen lake and stared at the sun until your eyes burned black. Frenetic tremolo picking and blast beats imported from corpse-painted inhabitants of Norwegian fjords coexist comfortably with the post-hardcore elements of American bands like Isis, and a certain kindred spirit in the psychedelic sludge of Seattle’s Lesbian.  This Brooklyn trio is a formidable new force in Relapse’s roster with this impressive full length debut that also boasts mastering by Alan Douches and [...read more]