Mortify – Buzzsaw Ritual

Artist: Mortify Country: Japan Label: Obliteration Records Formats: CD Year: 2026 With nearly ten years and just as many releases under their belt, Mortify is, of course, no longer a new name to the seasoned Death/Grind fan. The Japanese band…

Spiritual Healing – Spiritual Healing [Demo]

Artist: Spiritual Healing Country: Japan Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2026 As a Death Metal band, calling yourselves ‘Spiritual Healing’ is a bit of a tricky business. Being compared to one of Death’s finest albums is, of course, inevitable,…

Pharmacist – Vertebrae After Vertebrae

Artist: Pharmacist Country: Japan Label: Hells Headbangers Records Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2026 From the moment the band burst onto the scene, Pharmacist became an absolute crowd-pleaser for anyone who considered themselves a fan of the…

FesterDecay – From Demo To Rot [Compilation]

Artist: FesterDecay Country: Japan Label: Relapse Records Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2026 I can’t remember the last time I reviewed two good albums from Relapse Records in such a short space of time as the latest…

Funeral Fire – Demo 3 [Re-Release]

Artist: Funeral Fire Country: Japan Label: Rat Covenant Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 In the summer of last year, Funeral Fire’s debut demo was reissued through the German label Menscheinfeind Propaganda and in the waning moments of 2025 the same honour befell the band’s last…

Dark Fog Eruption – Decline [Demo]

Artist: Dark Fog Eruption Country: Japan Label: Self-Released Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 Dark Fog Eruption started sometime in the late 2010s and has been around for a while now, yet I haven’t really paid much attention to them. And…

Remina – Crypts Of Spectral Cries And Astral Dreams [EP]

Artist: Remina Country: Greece / Japan Label: Menschenfeind Propaganda Formats: Cassette EP Year: 2026 Rather hot on the heels of the band’s debut EP, the duo returns with their second EP. With a duration of half an hour, ‘Νεκροταφείο Αγγέλων’…

Remina – Νεκροταφείο Αγγέλων [EP]

Artist: Remina Country: Greece / Japan Label: Metal Throne Productions / Rat Covenant Formats: Cassette EP / CD EP Year: 2025 In spring 2025 Menschenfeind Propaganda released a split tape between Eternal Ice from Japan and Yūrei, that, even though…

Eternal Ice – Demo 2025

Artist: Eternal Ice Country: Japan Label: Self-Released Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 With six splits and short players in 2025, it is safe to say that this Japanese duo is not lacking enthusiasm and inspiration. Founded in 2024 the band released one demo tape in…

Mortify – Drowned In Muck [7″ EP]

Artist: Mortify Country: Japan Label: Sewer Stench Records Formats: 7″ EP Year: 2025 With titles like ‘Grotesque Buzzsaw Defilement’ and ‘Buzzsaw Sickness’ in their back catalogue, you might already have a clue where this is heading. And you are quite…

Sabulturath – Demo MMXXV

Artist:Sabulturath Country: Japan Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 It’s perhaps not such a crazy assumption that the name of this band sounds a bit like that annoying drunk guy at the concert who keeps shouting in your ear that he thinks “Sepultura”…

Funeral Fire – Demo [Re-Release]

Artist: Funeral Fire Country: Japan Label: Menschenfeind Propaganda Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 Originally ‘Demo’ was first available in summer last year as a self-released demo tape, but early 2025 it saw its reissue through Germany’s Menschenfeind Propaganda. A collaboration that is not too surprising,…

Eternal Ice / Spiralen – Dream Cries [Split Tape]

Artist: Eternal Ice / Spiralen Country: Japan / Germany Label: Menschenfeind Propaganda Formats: Split Cassette Year: 2025 Only a couple of weeks ago I reviewed Eternal Ice’s ‘Curse In The Sky’ EP, released by Elff Eggs, an EP that followed shortly after the band’s debut…

Eternal Ice – Curse In The Sky [EP]

Artist: Eternal Ice Country: Japan Label: Elf Eggs Formats: Cassette EP Year: 2025 Although Eternal Ice already released a demo tape in autumn of last year, the band didn’t caught my attention yet. But even though that demo was only distributed in extremely…

Sex Messiah – Sexus-Mortem, Ouroboros

Artist: Sex Messiah Country: Japan Label: Sex Desire Records Formats: CD Year: 2024 Without a doubt, Sex Messiah is one of Japan’s finest products of uncompromising Extreme Metal. With a much more Death Metal driven sound in their early stages the band…

Tormentador / Sex Messiah – Split 7″ EP

Artist: Tormentador / Sex Messiah Country: Brazil / Japan Label: Sex Desire Records Formats: Split 7″ EP Year: 2024 This release may be a bit older, but as a fan of the 7” EP format and the underground qualities of…

Parasitario – Rehearsal Demo 2024

Artist: Parasitario Country: Japan Label: Self-Released Formats: CD Year: 2024 After the well-received F.D.A. Records and Obliteration Records released ‘Everything Belongs To Death’ debut album, the Japanese Death Metal trio returns with a new demo. It is scheduled for a…

Immortal Death – Immortal Death [Demo / Re-Release]

Artist: Immortal Death Country: Japan Label: Werewolf Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2024 Just as the name of this Japanese Death Metal band holds some contradiction, this re-release is also not devoid of surprises. Werewolf Records is not exactly…

Sabbat – Sabbaticult

Artist: Sabbat Country: Japan Label: Evil Horn Records / Iron Pegasus Records / Nuclear War Now! Productions / Old Library Records Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2024 As one of the stalwarts of the First Wave of…

Coffins – Sinister Oath

Artist: Coffins Country: Japan Label: Relapse Records Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2024 Although ‘Sinister Oath’ is the band’s sixth full-length and I have picked up quite a few of their smaller releases over the years, it…

Anatomia / Eternal Rot – Split

Artist: Anatomia / Eternal Rot Country: Japan / Germany/United Kingdom Label: Behind The Mountain / Gurgling Gore Formats: Split LP / Split Cassette / Split CD Year: 2024 While Anatomia might forever be regarded as Coffins’ little brother, they have…

Coffins / Gravavgrav – Tribute To Grave [Split EP]

Artist: Coffins / Gravavgrav Country: Japan Label: Lycanthropic Chants Formats: Split 7″ EP Year: 2024 For the revered Japenese Death Metal band Coffins is this split 7” EP the latest chapter in a long tradition of splitting EP’s, this time…

Mortify – Grotesque Buzzsaw Defilement [EP / Re-Release]

Artist: Mortify Country: Japan Label: Headsplit Records / Horror Pain Gore Death Productions / Obliteration Records / Psychocontrol Records / Red Truth Production / Septic Aroma Of Reeking Stench Formats: CD EP Year: 2022 Mortify’s ‘Grotesque Buzzsaw Defilement’, originally released…

FesterDecay – Reality Rotten To The Core

Artist: FesterDecayCountry: JapanLabel: Everlasting Spew RecordsFormats: LP / Cassette tape / CDYear: 2023 The infamous ‘Gods Of Grind’ tour in 1992, featuring Confessor, Cathedral, Entombed and Carcass, turned out to be an event of great prophetic value. Not so much…

Parasitario – Everything Belongs To Death

Artist: Parasitario Country: Japan Label: F.D.A. Records / Obliteration Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2023 The Japanese Death Metal band Parasitario sounds anything but Japanese. Well, if there is a distinct Japanese sound to begin with, it certainly is…

Sigh – Shiki

Artist: Sigh Country: Japan Label: Peaceville Records / Ward Records Formats: Cassette EP Year: 2022 Last year, Japan’s most enigmatic metal band, Sigh, now signed to the British Peaceville Records label, returned from a five-year silence. Its latest feat, ‘Heir…

Sex Messiah – Metal Del Chivo [EP]

Artist: Sex Messiah Country: Japan Label: Austral Holocaust Records / Nuclear War Now! Productions / Sex Desire Records Formats: 12″ EP / Cassette EP / CD EP Year: 2022 I once read an article that Japanese would be the most…

Necrophile – Dissociated Modernity [EP / Re-Release]

Artist: Necrophile Country: Japan Label: Xtreem Music Formats: 10″ EP Year: 2021 The Japanese extreme metal scene has always been rather limited in the amount of bands, but they always tended to bring something different to the table. The Japanese…

Sigh – Requiem For Fools [EP / Re-Release]

Artist: Sigh Country: Japan Label: Deathheadz Formats: Cassette EP Year: 2022 From such a populous country as Japan, there are remarkably few extreme metal bands. Yet a lively metal scene has existed there since the 1980s, at least, it seems.…

Pharmacist – Carnal Pollution [EP / Re-Release]

Artist: Pharmacist Country: Japan Label: Bizarre Leprous Production / Black Hole Productions / Grindfather Productions / Gurgling Gore / Sevared Records Formats: 10″ EP / Cassette EP / CD EP Year: 2022 Over the past two plus decades I have…

Cutthroat – A Decade Of Dishonour 1998-2008 [Compilation]

Artist: CutthroatCountry: ChinaLabel: DeadheadzFormats: Cassette tapeYear: 2022 Cutthroat were a Japanese ‘all-star’ band, with members of Abigail, Barbatos and Sigh, featuring genre legends such as Yasuyuki Suzuki (Abigail and Barbatos) and Mirai Kawashima (Sigh, Necrophagia). In the years between 1998…

Eternal Rot / Coffins – Split LP

Artist: Eternal Rot / CoffinsCountry: Poland / JapanLabel: Behind The MountainFormats: Split LP / Split cassette tape / Split CDYear: 2021 Coffins should require no introduction, not only have they released a couple of outstanding full-length album, they also left…

Funeralizer – The Eternal Carnage [Demo]

Artist: Funeralizer Country: Japan Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital demo Year: 2022 We’ve known for years that Swedish Death Metal doesn’t necessarily have to be Swedish. In the meantime, some pretty good clones have come out of all parts of the…

Coffins / Depression – Split LP

Artist: Coffins / DepressionCountry: Japan / GermanyLabel: Hells Headbangers Records / Headsplit RecordsFormats: Split LP / Split cassette tape / Split CDYear: 2020 Two of Death Metal’s most prolific bands teaming up on one split release. What can possibly go…

Funeral Moth – Funeral Moth [EP]

Artist: Funeral Moth Country: Japan Label: Weird Truth Productions Formats: CD EP Year: 2022 Already released as a two-track demo-tape, this Japanese ultra-slow funeral doom act got its first official release with this two-tracks mini CD. Though Japan is not…

Butcher ABC – Maryland Deathfest 2006 Promo [Compilation]

Artist: Butcher ABCCountry: JapanLabel: Self-ReleasedFormats: CDYear: 2006 Japanese grindcore/death metal act Butcher ABC are preparing a new mini CD and wanted to promote that release on their trip to the prestigious Maryland Deathfest earlier this year. It is very unlikely…

Barbatos – Fury and Fear, Flesh and Bone

Artist: BarbatosCountry: JapanLabel: Agonia RecordsFormats: CDYear: 2005 Remind yourself, when was the last time you bought an album and noticed on the band pictures in the booklet (or the inlay in the case it was a vinyl record, which is…