Devil's Horns Zine

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 ...

AEONS ABYSS - Resurrection album review By Mark Jenkins. The Dead Rise with Razor-Sharp Intent Rating: 5/5 Australian extreme metal has always punched well above its weight class, and Aeons Abyss proves once again that the land down under harbours some of the most ferocious sonic architects in the underground. Resurrection isn't just another album title playing on death-and-rebirth imagery—it's a mission statement, a rallying cry, and a middle finger to anyone who thinks the old ways are dead and buried. What immediately sets this Melbourne outfit apart is their refusal to plant their flag firmly in either camp. This isn't pure death metal worship, nor is it a straightforward thrash revival—it's something far more interesting. Aeons Abyss have crafted a sound that exists in that hallowed territory between early Death, Possessed, and the more violent edges of German thrash. Think Leprosy-era Chuck Schuldiner jamming with Kreator circa Pleasure to Kill, and you're g...

Conjurer - Unself album review. Words spewed forth by Mark Jenkins. Conjurer - Unself  (Nuclear Blast) There's a moment about two minutes into "Hang Them In Your Head" where everything collapses inward before detonating outward—a gut-punch transition that encapsulates what Conjurer have been chasing across three albums: the space between suffocation and release, the razor's edge where brutality becomes catharsis. Unself, their third full-length and most uncompromising statement yet, exists entirely in that uncomfortable in-between, refusing the tidy compartmentalisation of "post-metal" or "sludge" to instead carve out something more feral and urgent. Since 2018's Mire established their bone-crushing bona fides and 2022's Páthos expanded their atmospheric palette, the Rugby quartet have been steadily dismantling whatever expectations we've placed on them. Unself completes that demolition. This isn't evolution—it's exorcism. Vocal...

NEW RELEASE REVIEWS: BRAINWAVE, BLACK JESUS, TOXIC THRILL, TUMANDUUMBAND, TV CULT, PRIMITIVE KNOT, GOROTICA, HELLSTORM APOCALYPSE, BLOODY SADISM, SOULFLY, PERTURBATOR, AUTHOR & PUNISHER, AND (ONE OF THE YEAR'S BEST RELEASES) AGRICULTURE. ALL WORDS SPEWED OUT BY MARK JENKINS. BRAINWAVE - Ill Intent Brainwave crashes through your skull like a sledgehammer wrapped in barbed wire. Ill Intent is thirty minutes of pure, unfiltered aggression—crossover thrash that doesn't fuck around with intros or atmospheric bullshit. From the opening riff, they're out for blood, channelling that classic DRI/Municipal Waste energy but with production thick enough to choke on. The guitar tone is caustic, the drums sound like someone's kicking you down a flight of stairs, and the vocals spit venom like a cornered animal. Tracks like The Truth and Bleak Reality hit with unrelenting force, zero fat, all fury. This is pit music, pure and simple. No pretence, no progression—just raw, ugly i...

ALBUM REVIEWS: UNEARTHED FROM THE UNDERGROUND; TWO DOUBLE BANGER TWO KILLER RELEASES FROM BAD MOON RISING RECORDS:  MISANTHROPIC IMPERIUM / RISPERIDONIA Blind Legions (Split)   Bad Moon Rising 惡月上昇 | December 2024  Black/Death Metal | Indonesia/France Three continents collide in a psychotic maelstrom of remastered hatred on this devastating split between Indonesian blackened death terrorists Misanthropic Imperium and French death metal pharmaceuticals Risperidonia. The Malang-based destroyers revisit tracks from their 2019 *Legion Luxferre* EP, injecting fresh venom into already lethal compositions, while their French counterparts deliver a prescription of old-school brutality with severe side effects. What makes Blind Legions more than your standard split release is the collaborative chaos—featuring guest vocal annihilation from Nuurisk and cross-pollination with Japanese black metal entity 正殿 across multiple tracks, including "Psychotic Warfare," "Immolation G...

MORTUARY SICKNESS - Terminal Sickness (Live EP) Recorded live at the Barwon Club, August 22, 2025 There's something beautifully rotten about a band that knows exactly what kind of filth they're peddling. Mortuary Sickness isn't here to reinvent the wheel—they're here to drag it through a slaughterhouse and leave it festering in the sun. Terminal Sickness is three tracks of unvarnished savagery, captured live with all the warts, feedback squeals, and crowd noise intact. This is the anti-production death metal record: no studio polish, no second takes, just the sound of a band in a room making an unholy racket. Opening cut "Terminal Transcendence" hints at where the band's headed—cosmic death metal that still reeks of the grave. It's got that cavernous, suffocating atmosphere but shot through with enough hooks to keep your head moving even as your stomach turns. This is apparently a taste of what's coming next, and if the full release hits this hard,...

POSSESSED - Jeff Becerra Interview | 40th Anniversary Seven Churches Australian Tour:POSSESSED - Jeff Becerra Interview by Mark Jenkins. When POSSESSED released "Seven Churches" in 1985, they didn't just create an album – they birthed an entire genre. At just 16 years old, Jeff Becerra unleashed some of the most savage, groundbreaking vocals metal had ever heard, literally coining the term "death metal" and setting a new benchmark for heaviness that bands are still chasing four decades later. As the originators of death metal, POSSESSED carved out territory that DEATH, MORBID ANGEL, and countless others would later explore. Their influence on the Bay Area thrash scene alongside METALLICA, EXODUS, and TESTAMENT is undeniable, but POSSESSED went darker, faster, and more brutal than anyone else dared at the time. Those guttural growls, breakneck speed, and occult themes on "Seven Churches" were absolutely cutting-edge – this was uncharted sonic territory,...

FLESH AND STEEL: COMBICHRIST DECIMATES MAX WATTS Combichrist + Witchgrinder + Our Last Enemy Max Watts, Melbourne-Saturday Night Massacre Words and Photos By Mark Jenkins Some lineups are just fucking perfect on paper. Saturday night at Max Watts proved that theory in the most visceral way possible, delivering a triple-threat assault that left the venue's concrete walls practically bleeding sweat and the crowd questioning whether they'd just witnessed a gig or survived a beautiful apocalypse. OUR LAST ENEMY - SYDNEY'S SONIC ASSASSINS Sydney's Our Last Enemy kicked things off like a sucker punch to the solar plexus. These cats have clearly been sharpening their blades in the underground, and it shows in every calculated groove and industrial pulse. Their sound is a seductive hybrid – industrial metal backbone with that thick groove metal DNA, all wrapped in gothic dancefloor sensibilities that recall the glory days of Ministry's club bangers meets the rhythmic swagge...