Where do I start? My oscilloscope reads saw-tooths everywhere, which is a good start. Heavy metal/Doom inspired chiptunes. Sounds cool? It is. I'll be playing Ghost'n Goblins with this in the background for months to come.

Psyclon Nine's remastered number is the Aggrotech you know and love. If this doesn't get you stomping and headbanging, nothing will. Five neotech gasmasks out of five, as long as you stay away from the cybergoth industrial dancing.

Every once in a while, you just need some solid, good quality technical death metal. And Harbinger delivers in spades. 4 out of five grinding chords.

Excellent tech death from Canada. Consistently good throughout the album, with strong riffing and musician-ship. Listening to the whole album in one go, I find myself lost in the melodies and it is all over much too soon.
4 out of 5 mangled distortion pedals.

I don't know why, but the jolly chiptunes just makes me happy. It deludes my mind that I'm back in that 10 year old body who didn't know the troubles of the world; who just wanted to finish school so he could go home and play more Mega Man and Super Mario.

Jared Dines isn't just a funny bugger on youtube, he is also a talented shredder and vocalist as demonstrated by his first ep. Indulgent confessions in The Clown and The Psycho hits a raw edge and Demogorgon just blasts a devil horned hole through my ear canals every time. 4.5/5 dead core modules.

I really liked Derelict (see below) and this is their front mans next project. Samskara delivers similarly intense metal, but with a slightly more modern "core" sound but without yielding to stereotypes. Samskara demands a good dose headbanging and I'm happy to provide. 4/5 frenetic whammy bars.

Khemmis is continuing their epic resurgent doom. The sound is reminiscing of classics like Candlemass and Dio era Sabbath, but strikes new ground in many ways. Easy album of the year contender with a well deserved 5/5 mortal cantrips.

2016 was a great year for video games, as expertly documented by Gavin who's musical talent grows with each level. Four out of five craptastic puns.

It isn't often that I get blown away by a pure power metal album, but I feel that sunburst is blowing life into a somewhat stagnant genre with Fragments of Creation. Four out of Five god-rays.

There are a few misses on this album, but the hits still make this a worthy member in my biblioteque, hell, Microspic is alone worth the price of admission.

I've been a long time follower of the space ambient channel on YouTube, and when one of the songs from this album came up in my playlist, I was instantly hooked by the alluring, sometimes doom inspired cosmic sounds and rhythms. Four and a half cosmic rays of extraterrestrial nihilism.

Black metal vocals, djenty death metal guitars, massive EBM inspired synths with brutal and intense drums. This is the start of the resurgance of industrial metal music. Get in while it is fresh. Five out of five pneumatic tectonic pistons of death.

The epic, soaring doom of the 80's seems to be on the upswing with this candlemass inspired album.
Conduit is an absolutely brilliant addition for King Goat and lays ominous waste to what was becoming a stale period in the genre.
Four out of five decapitated goats.

I sort-of wish this album had a more aggressive EBM feel to it, but the soundscapy base laced with techno style beats kept me coming back for more.
Sonic Mayhem keeps this album short and sweet, and the absolutely stunning vocals by Malukah on Bleed Forever blends so well with the darkwave style synths which is a welcome surprise compared to her lone guitar/acapella stuff.
Well worth checking out, I give Doomsday a solid four and then some nukes out of five.

Doom. Taste the word. Doooooooom. Add groove that shakes the earth. Well, at least my headphones bob up and down as I fail to restrain myself from rocking along to these grinding riffs with subterraneanly pulsing beats.
Khemmis ripps. Five out of five buxom fantasy warrior babes.

On MoS game inspired Level UP albums, all my favourite tracks have been Gav's powermetally and djenty songs, like Wake the White Wolf, Sovnegarde song and Kalros.
Here is an album with only songs like that. What's not to love?
Four and a half steins of nord mead.

Epic, soaring and slightly pretentious. This isn't criticism: If the name isn't obvious, the exquisitely sculpted tracks reveal we are dealing with future masters at their craft.
This is progressive death metal at its finest. NAMI shatters my preconceptions and seamlessly blends brass into their melodic narrative making it sound even more sinister.
Loosely comparable to early Opeth, the Faceless and Mastodon. But this is unfair since NAMI has a rare, unique sound. Five pretentious bitch-slaps.

Excellent debut EP from Exgenesis. Melodic death metal that infuses the whole genre with well needed hope.
I hope these guys do well, they deserve it and I'm looking forward to more wicked shreds in the future.
Four out of five scary owls.

If you like Gavin's previous work, you'll like this one too; this is easily representing his strongest work in the gaming inspired genre by far.
Some poppy stuff, which is nice and all, but there are some gems infused with long haired, bare chested warriors crying their defiance to the wind on top of a mountain, axe held high. The power metal is strong with this one.

After being completely smitten by uneven structure's later album, '8', it's time to check out the origin stuff.
Definitely not disappointed, I love the dynamic between the tracks and how the songs flow into each other seamlessly. This is also an album you sit down and listen to in its entirety.
The typical chuggha-chuggha baow-baow djenty sound is well crafted but the mellow instrumental sections really lifts the heavier parts to lofty heights indeed.
4 spine crushing riffs out of 5.

Gothy and doomy. Old school in a good way. The blend of forlorn violins and crushing guitars is just right, as is the mix of clear, beautiful female vocals and death growls.
They sound like I wish Nightwish would sound like.
Four out of five melancholic bats.

It's remixes of the soundtrack to the best game series ever. What's not to love?
Also, I don't give a flying fuck if you didn't like the ending; you will never be better than commander Shepard. And that's that.

I'm not exactly sure how to genrify Infra Versus Ultra, but there are industrial metal as well ebm and electro stuff mashed together.
Varying degrees of aggressive metal beats with angry guitars with sections of mellow melodic sections paints a varied but sometimes lost landscape.
Overall though, this is a solid album. Four out of five cyber matrices.

Technical and inventive, you never get bored with these brutal tracks.
Don't let the oddly cover fool you, this is premium grade technical metal.
Four out of five brutal noodles.

If you think these guys look like massive nerds, it's because they are. Massive death metal nerds.
If I was going to compare their uncompromising sound to anything, I think they sound a bit
like old-school Opeth mixed with Decapitated. It's fast, unrelenting and constantly surging.
Cascus rules; five stars. The end.

The face of tech/melo-death has a new guise, and it is this super talented and surprisingly unsigned brutal quartet.
Every song from this kickstarter sponsored album feels like it's own finely sculpted piece of malevolent art.
Nobody likes an overly long positive review, so I'll stop gushing right now. However, you are doing yourself and your music library a disservice by not immediately getting this album.
Demons is probably album of the year for me; five out of five sullied sunrises.

This sludgy doom from New Zealand can only be likened to tectonic plates grinding together. The baseline is so deep and unforgiving, it would surely make Sauron himself crap his evil pants.
I find myself with a sense of impotence in the face of an ancient power. Not typically what I would go for, but the epic grind almost forces me to award this four out five facial tentacles.

David makes me reminisce of a more innocent time, when Yngvie Malmsteen was a hero and ace noodling was king.
Those were good days.

Tech metal has been a long enduring love of mine. This instrumental album might not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you like your tea filled with led and mercury, Abolish the Echolon might work for you as well.
Four out of five cases of heavy metal poisoning.

Miracle of Sound continues his epic saga of making surprisingly exquisite tunes based on pop-culture; mostly video games and movies.
The range and width of different music styles Gavin picks up and effortlessly twists and molds into his own signature style is amazing. Just compare City of Night, Dream of the Sky and Rise. The only thing they have in common is the fact that they are excellent. I could go on, but I won't bore you to tears. Just listen to it already.

It's Be'lakors first album. It has all the trappings of a first album, except there is a distinct lack of naivety.
These guys take themselves seriously because they know they have the credibility to carry it of.
This is where their signature sound started taking form and it's amazing.
Five brutal tides.

If you like Death (the band and the genre), this is a pretty safe card. Really, really good tech death that will keep you from sleep, nights on end. Four out of five decapitated busts.

Gorguts take death metal to a new and interesting level. This stuff is hard, fast and brutal. Give it a go, but don't blame me for your imploded and bleeding ear drums afterwards.
Four and a half bleeding intestines.

The precursor to the sublime 2012 album 'Of Breath and Bone' set the stage for great things to come. Great technical melodic death metal. Who cares about grades and scores? Just buy it already!

Talk about misnomer; there is nothing cluttered about Clutters super-tight djenty, progressive metal. I would write more, but I'm busy listening to 'Dream Wanderer' over and over again.
Four out of five disorganized dismemberments.

If you are as annoyed as I am by Bloodbath's irregular and slow release schedule, Nebulous is a more than adequate substitute. Proggy and heavy as all buggery, The Quantum Transcendence Of Death stand proud in my collection.
Four out of five shades of Azathoth.

These fellas obviously listen to a fair bit of Dimmu and Opeth. Not a bad combination if you like a symphonic orchestra with your brutal espresso.

Heavy, majestic and epic; I bestow upon thee four out of five flameberges of dark decapitation.

I suppose speaking a different languages make you think different about certain things, but it certainly seems to affect how the creative juice makes the music flow. Fractal Gates both innovates but also stays true to the traditional Melo-Death sound.
The Guitar riffs feel firmly grounded in good old rock'n roll, only brutalised to suit the brutal vocals, which sometimes blend over what is a very competent clear-ish, rocky vocals.
This is an excellent follow up to their debut; 4/5 gates.