Live Inferno is nothing less than a send-off from the canonical Norwegian black metal band.

It’s not clear at this point whether this new offering has enough unique staying power to ensure that, once the dust of its release has settled, its cuts will stand out from the rest of the band’s music. It’s a great listen for the first few times, but then it begins to feel a little too familiar.

“I like the situation I’m in now with the solo thing. With this last album in the trilogy, it’s kind of a natural development from angL and The Adversary. I think they all kind of tie in together, but After is not the most logical step from the two other albums. It’s so different that it points in another direction and leaves the next one a little open ended.”

On the eve of the release of his new album After, Jonathan Smith speaks to former Emperor front man Ihsahn about his burgeoning solo career, the progressive nature it has taken and the surprising use of saxophone on his latest solo effort.

The good news if you’re a Defiance fan is The Prophecy is 100% Defiance and there should be no surprises or complaints. If you’re looking for aggression, innovation or even progression from the 80’s Bay Area thrash scene, The Prophecy will just to serve as a nostalgia piece.

The full-length debut from UK’s Savage Messiah, Insurrection Rising is a decent cut of thrash metal that ultimately doesn’t transcend its sub-genre.

From the bleak opening riffs to the lingering saxophone notes that close it, After is a fascinating listen that gets better every time it’s played.

Yep, Fear Factory’s Burton C. Bell is reunited with the band’s original guitarist Dino Cazares. And it feels so good. Hellbound spoke to the influential frontman about Mechanize and its place amidst Fear Factory’s creative 90s triumvirate of Obsolete, Demanufacture, and Soul of a New Machine.

Chicago’s The Atlas Moth emerge from the gate with a debut full-length album that is pretty entertaining at both it front and back end, but which has a more ambiguous middle that is much more tedious than it should be