I have generally enjoyed anything that German vocalist/ instrumentalist Baptist has been involved with; Mavorim, Eisekult, and this, Atronos, an outlet for more medieval, melodic black metal, founded by guitarist Henker (also in the above two bands as well as Drudensang). But after three good albums, including 2022’s Erwachen, I didn’t see this coming, as […]
The Formula for a raw Black Metal album: take some stomach bile, mix it up with some menstrual blood and a pinch of salt, and pour it on the band members’ heads in some sort of blasphemous ritual. Featuring members of Finnish Black Metal royalty (True Black Dawn, and …And Oceans, to name two). Accelerated […]
I have no idea how I have not crossed paths with Scotland’s Cnoc An Tursa (“Hill of the Standing Stone”) up until now. I know they haven’t been super prolific, with only 2 albums since 2013, but lawd, we have covered them here on their debut The Giants of Auld, and heck, we even interviewed […]
From the Dictionary: The meaning of HUBRIS is exaggerated pride or self-confidence: arrogance. How does that translate into scalding Black Metal from Buffalo, NY? I’ll get to that shortly. Hubris isn’t going to rewrite the Black Metal blueprint anytime soon, but that’s just fine. Acts of Sedition is a satisfying album, a meat and potatoes […]
“This is a big release for them. First in over a decade. Sound of the new single is their best sounding recording. There’s my 2-second review”. Fellow scribe Frank Rini said he would punch me if I didn’t quote him regarding this fantastic new offering from international mutilators (but mostly from Jerusalem/ Bethlehem, having relocated […]
This is my first time reviewing a Darkthrone album. I know, right?! I’m shaking my head too… lame as fuck joke but whatever. I’m pretty jazzed about it. I found out about Darkthrone through the classic Transilvanian Hunger; picked up from an Albuquerque bookstore, used. It wasn’t some hole-in-the-wall store either; no lit candles guided […]
Last year, I reviewed one of the most unusual albums I think I have to this point… The Harvest by :Skull & Dawn: was my AOTY, and it was well-deserved (I even got a victory lap because I got the other guys to like it too). I digress because Twin Serpent is a bit similar […]
So UK’s Venom have been around for a minute, eh?? If we are to look at the first three extreme bands using extreme lyrics, where devils, killing, and all things evil were first written about, the top three bands are: Black Sabbath, The Misfits, and Venom. I mean, with over 15 albums to their name, […]
Lawd. It’s been since 2008 since I last heard Kentucky’s Blackened doom/sludge act Highgate. It was their debut self-titled album on Total Rust Music, and apparently, I really liked it. Now, since their debut, they have released a couple more albums with Shrines to the Warhead , Black Frost Fallout, and their last album, Survival, […]
So, I don’t have kids – and as a 40 year old man married to a woman of the same age, the likelihood of it happening at this point is… not great. Which is fine! We have dogs. We really like dogs! And I’ve been yelled at by more than enough of you parents of […]
Germany’s Schattenvald (Shadowforest) has been knocking around since 1998, but didn’t release an album until 2007, and has released 5 albums since, yet somehow neither I nor any of the staff here has covered them. And we love us some German black metal in these here parts. As I said in my review of Nazghor’s […]
There have been stellar Black Metal bands coming out of the Middle East for years: Melechesh, Akvan, and Orphaned Land, to name three. Nile, while playing Middle Eastern Death Metal, is still from South Carolina, so they barely qualify (in sound only). So, having said that, I’m here to talk about Gomma, a one-man outfit […]
The thing I love about a pepper? A pepper has range. A pepper can be much deeper and more complex than a lot of folks are willing to explore and give it credit for. Sure, a pepper can certainly provide spice – at times, alarmingly so – and if you do happen to be one of those […]
Like a bolt of lightning piercing your eardrums, Texans Necrofier have returned to deliver their blistering third full-length called Transcend Into Oblivion. Twelve saber-toothed tracks of prime USBM, and let me tell you friends and neighbors, it’s a fucking wild animal. There’s nothing better than a solid banger Black Metal album, and that’s what Necrofier […]
After covering 2020s Old Old Death back in 2020, I missed 2023s Fandens Skall, Tulus’s 4th effort since reforming in 2007, after the band’s successful Khold offshoot. As I stated in my review of Old Old Death, Tulus and Khold are/were essentially interchangeable in terms of sound and style; simple, cold, riff driven Norweigian black […]
Norway’s Bizarrekult are back with their third album, Alt som finnes, with the band remaining intact with Adv on drums, Bizarre on guitars, bass, vox, D on vocals, and Ignat Pomazkov on guitars. I reviewed their sophomore effort in 2023, Den tapte krigen, and I really enjoyed their approach to black metal as well as […]
Listen, I know I’m late on this one. I know it’s a pretty high-profile release from a revered band with a tragic backstory. But truth be told, I have not really heard much of this post-Windir act past 2006’s Pitch Black Brigade. In fact, I had no idea they were still active, let alone released an […]
I’ve been trying to figure out how to start this review for Slagmaur and their fourth full-length album Hulders Ritual. The main reason I picked this album is that Black Metal luminary Snorre Ruch (Thorns), one of then liminaries who helped invent the Norwegian Black Metal style and forged a legacy borne in the fires […]
If you were listening to black metal in the mid-90s to the early 2000s, you might be familiar with Germany’s Solistitium Records. They were pretty productive in that time, releasing records from bands like Isvind, Helheim, Darkwoods My Betrothed, Tsjuder, Horna, and even Behemoth’s earlier albums. They went on hiatus in 2006, but reactivated in […]
I quite enjoyed 2021’s Land of Darkness from this Greek (now relocated to Scotland) solo artist (‘Soulreaper’), but for some reason I missed 2024’s Echoes of Primordial Gnosis. So I thought I’d better get to this, his fifth album, before he drops another one. Now, I did listen to Echoes of Primordial Gnosis to be able to […]
There’s rarely anything more satisfying than hearing a band come fully into its own – whose work you’ve enjoyed and admired for years, but for one reason or another, it seemed never quite put all the pieces together in the right order to make it a complete, fully-realized project. Of course, any band or artist’s […]
Coscradh is old Irish for ‘massacre’, ‘triumph in slaughter’. How is that for an opening?! The band hails from Ireland, and Carving the Causeway to the Otherworld is their brand new slab of dark, vicious death metal. Their 2022 debut album, Nahanagan Stadial, was quite a scorcher; the band has bested it with this terrific […]
So, like Sigh’s I Saw the World End-Hangman’s Hymn MMXXV, here is another favorite album of mine from the 2000’s, this time it’s Rotting Christ‘s Aealo from 2010, getting a whole new recording and release. I never covered the original here, as I covered it for a different webzine at the time, but it made […]
Game of Thrones fans will recognize the moniker of this new-ish New York based black metal band that features members of bands like Hollow Voice and Nascentum (neither of which I’m familiar with). And you have to respect the fact that they are leaning into the Game of Thrones thing on their new EP. 6 […]
2024s Black Metal Cult was a perfect slab of French Black Metal from Meyhnach’s Mütiilation, and it was my first time covering one of the long-standing powerhouses of French Black Metal. Pandemonium of Egregores is the more melodic follow-up to that church-burning masterpiece, and it’s a certified crusher. Five tracks in 32:05 is just long […]