Ereb Altor – Hälsingemörker (2025) – Review

Ereb Altor - Hälsingemörker - Album Cover

At first, the RMR crew froze in place. Ereb Altor‘s newest and best Hälsingemörker sports a whopping 21 minutes of extra airtime over Vargtimman. In other words, the band went from a perfectly timed piece to bloatware jungle camp. And there are two lines of thought to this. Either they completely lost it in the self-edit department, or their song-smithing skills increased in spades to spare us from withering away from sheer boredom. So, what’s it gonna be?

The only way to find out is to give this piece here a few spins, painful as they may be. … [...] Click to raid more!

Opeth – The Last Will and Testament (2024) – Review

Opeth - The Last Will and Testament - Album Cover

Okay. We already screwed up with a prog piece in 2023. And this was Haken’s Fauna. For some reason, the album got lost in translation and was only rediscovered in early 2024. To our chagrin, this album turned out to be a pretty snazzy masterpiece that would have made it onto the Top 10 list. Would. Could. Should. Right?

So, to avoid the failures of the past, the RMR crew finally decided to tackle Opeth‘s latest piece The Last Will and Testament. The fact that the band decided to reinstate growls after a very long wait did … [...] Click to raid more!

Kanonenfieber – Die Urkatastrophe (2024) – Review

Kanonenfieber - Die Urkatastrophe - Album Cover

A relatively large portion of RMR’s 2024 crop o’ records originates from the predominantly German-speaking part of the world. Bands like Ellende, Weltenbrandt, or again Agrypnie come to mind. And now, late in the year, Kanonenfieber1 finally appeared dead-center on our radar. And I reckon they deserve a spot on our august list of bands on this year’s roster.

The band’s bread and butter in metal or, more accurately, guns and bullets, comfortably settles in darkly colorful depictions of war, notably the terrors of World War I. A storyline that eerily reminded this crew of the meatgrinder … [...] Click to raid more!

Panzerchrist – Maleficium Part I (2024) – Review

Panzerchrist - Maleficium Part I - Album Cover

Panzerchrist arrived @ RMR Central with a thunderclap amid the summer heat of 2023. After 10 years of metal Gehenna, the band reemerged with Last of a Kind, complete with witches on the rack and other atrocities. A true Holy Metal Cow moment that finally made it onto our 2023 Top 10 as well. Given the name of the band, I was initially taken aback by the ferocity of the assault. First-rate Extreme Metal roared out of our loudspeaker, at a level of intensity and proficiency seldom delivered to our hidden doorstep.

And the obsession with witches and past

[...] Click to raid more!