The end result is a raw, almost desperate affair brimming with stellar riffs, engaging caterwauls and an adrenaline-pumping pace virtually absent since thrash’s formative years.

While it’s questionable whether the band haven’t left behind one set of stereotypes only to embrace another, what isn’t questionable is that Imperium Dekadenz have produced an awesome album that is one of the best that the black metal genre has to offer so far this year.

All in all, Charred Walls… is a solid piece of all-out metal from a seasoned group of players who fit really, really well together.

The EP’s six tracks showcase Fuck the Facts’s brutal approach, incorporating a spectrum of everything grinding, deadly, and black. The songs are shockingly tight, and surprising at every turn.

The very recently released Arsis album, Starve for the Devil manages to fast and provide guitar parts that are memorable. The vocals are good and growley sounding but listening closely the words are almost understandable.

The concept of the covers album is a risky one. Nothing wrong with slapping one on as a B-side or extra track. But to propose a whole album of covers often begs the question, “What? Have they run out of their own material already?” When you decide to make the cover album an ongoing series, you run the risk of self-parody; Six Feet Under are getting dangerously close to that point with Graveyard Classics III.

With the Olympics in full swing, I didn’t wanna miss a gold medal performance by Canada to watch a black metal doc. (On the other hand, had they been screening Such Hawks, Such Hounds I woulda been seriously conflicted…) But as the Royal extended its run into early March, I started reading some of the reviews and interviews about the flick, and decided to check out its final screening on Thursday.

Symbol of Salvation will always go down as Armored Saint’s definitive album, but you’d be hard pressed to find a record more concise, focused, and flat-out fun than La Raza.