Devil's Horns Zine

MUNT - The World Is Not Yours Grinding Antipodean Fury Finally Captured  A review of a brilliant masterpiece by Mark. J. Melbourne's MUNT have been lurking in the underground's darkest corners since their solo project origins, but The World Is Not Yours marks their most ferocious statement yet—a debut album that doesn't so much arrive as detonate. The band's descriptor "black grinding death" isn't marketing hyperbole; it's a warning label. Across this record, MUNT skillfully utilise the most punishing elements of deathcore's brutality, death metal's riff mastery, grindcore's feral velocity, and black metal's atmospheric dread into something that feels genuinely suffocating. This is extreme metal that earns the adjective—no core-kid breakdowns for easy crowd response, no melodeath safety nets. Just relentless, churning hostility. What separates The World Is Not Yours from countless other bands trafficking in similar sonic violence is...

THE PASS: BLOOD, SWEAT, AND CRYWANK Melbourne's Sludgy Powerviolence Destroyers The Pass are proof that you don't need technical mastery to create something utterly devastating. Born from lockdown necessity and fueled by friendship, this Melbourne collective has crafted a disgusting, punishing sound that careens from powerviolence chaos to crushing doom. Their debut recording—aptly titled after the act of crying whilst masturbating—captures a band finding their voice through pure experimentation and zero fucks given. With a rhythm section holding on for dear life, a self-taught guitarist writing "caveman riffs," and a first-time vocalist channelling inner demons, The Pass are gloriously unpolished, politically charged, and having the time of their lives. You've been mentioned alongside bands like Primitive Man and Iron Monkey. How does that feel? Alana: To be honest, we feel pretty stoked to be mentioned alongside those bands. Hemi: First of all, I don'...

AEONS ABYSS: RESURRECTION AND EVOLUTION An Interview with Paul, the Death Metal Poet In an era where extreme metal can feel like a game of "who can play fastest," Melbourne's Aeons Abyss remember that songs need to actually go somewhere. Their latest LP, Resurrection, is stacked with riffs that cut with razor-sharp intent, songwriting that demonstrates genuine intelligence, and lyrics that explore mortality, existential dread, and societal collapse with actual nuance. This isn't pure death metal worship or straightforward thrash revival—it exists in that hallowed territory between early Death, Possessed, and the more violent edges of German thrash, where brains meet brutality. What truly separates Resurrection from the pack is its lyrical depth. Adelaide-based vocalist Paul brings genuine literacy and thematic cohesion to extreme metal, crafting what could be called "death metal poetry"—metaphor, imagery, and thought in a genre that too often defaults to ...

100 YEARS WAR: THE ENDLESS CAMPAIGN-A RIPPING INTERVIEW WITH MANO. Melbourne's 100 Years War aren't messing around. Members past and present have been kicking around the underground for decades in bands like Grudge!, Desecrator, Vicious Circle, As Flesh Decays, and Cemetery Urn, so when they finally joined forces back in 2019, they already knew exactly what they were doing. The result? A brutal combination of death metal aggression and relentless d-beat crust that hits like a freight train loaded with broken glass. Their debut Stand Amongst the Fallen dropped in 2021 and showed what they were capable of, but it's the evolution since then that's really got people's attention. They've refined their sound into something that's pure d-beat death metal warfare, leaning harder into that driving punk urgency while keeping all the crushing heaviness intact. They've shared stages with the likes of Butcher ABC, Revocation and Psycroptic, toured Japan multiple tim...

You Are Safe From God Here by The Acacia Strain. This album is a vicious, unapologetic juggernaut that pummels you into the dirt with its deathcore-meets-punk ferocity , and it’s got the tracklist to prove it. If you’re ready to get your face melted in a basement show haze, this is the soundtrack to your descent. Kicking off with “eucharist i: BURNT OFFERING,” The Acacia Strain unleashes a sonic crucifixion, blending their signature bone-rattling breakdowns with a raw, almost crust-punk snarl. Vincent Bennett’s vocals are a guttural assault, spitting vitriol over riffs that feel like they were forged in a furnace of despair. “A CALL BEYOND” follows, its relentless chugs and dissonant screeches evoking the chaotic spirit of early Dillinger Escape Plan, but with a heavier, more apocalyptic edge. By the time “SWAMP MENTALITY” slithers in, you’re knee-deep in sludgy, swampy grooves that ooze with the gritty defiance of a punk squat—think Eyehategod’s doom-laden attitude meets hardcore’s ...

IRREPARABLE, INNER LIGHT and MASTIFF album reviews. Words spewed out by mark jenkins. IRREPARABLE - The Fate of All Life Irreparable exists in that shadowy netherworld where black metal's iciest tremolo bleeds into industrial's mechanical pulse and darkwave's gothic melancholy. The Fate of All Life is a genuinely unsettling synthesis—imagine if Godflesh and early Ulver locked themselves in a bunker with a cache of vintage synths and emerged with something that sounds like the heat death of the universe set to a drum machine. The black metal elements are present, but refracted through layers of synthetic decay—those tremolo passages feel distant and spectral, as if they're being transmitted through failing equipment. The industrial backbone provides the rhythmic brutality, but it's the darkwave textures that make this truly hypnotic. Vocals shift between tortured shrieks and detached, almost spoken-word delivery that recalls the bleakest moments of post-punk's ...