Posts Tagged ‘Melodic Black Metal’

Lutharo – Chasing Euphoria

Lutharo: A timeline, Tarantino style. Rewind to November of 2023 and I happened to see Paladin was to play at one of my favorite venues, Westside Bowl in Youngstown, OH. I gazed upon the digital flyer and saw Lutharo would be headlining. I remembered the band name, thinking someone at this site had reviewed them […]

Stortregn – Finitude

Stortregn’s (‘downpour’) development from a melodic black metal band into a more technical, shredding death metal band with a few black metal elements has been a splendid development, and fittingly with the style shift, the band found themselves on the perfect label, The Artisan Era, literally the preemptive label for shreddy/melodic, sometimes symphonic tech death/black […]

King – Fury and Death

Man, as much as I love reliable old-school school, consistent bands that I’m familiar with and know what I’m getting with every album, I love discovering ‘new’ bands.  Whether the band is brand new on the scene or in the case of Australia’s King, a veteran band with some household names and two prior albums […]

Lightlorn – At One With The Night Sky

I kinda dug, These Nameless Worlds, the debut EP from this atmospheric/melodic black metal duo from Sweden. Despite the light-less moniker, it was a cosmic-themed, uplifting, bright take on the genre with some very pleasant melodies in the vein of Ghostbath, Vinland, Numeron, and Vallendusk. Well here is the full-length debut on the very fitting […]

Sodomisery – Mazzaroth

With a moniker like Sodomisery, I blind-clicked on the promo for the band’s second album fully expecting a brutal death metal album full of ass, blood, and guts-filled lyrics with gurgled vocals. It was not that. Pleasantly so. Then I dug into the band a little and found it a more melodic Swedish death/black metal-based […]

Moonlight Sorcery – Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle

Those in the know and follow symphonic black metal, are aware that since their Piercing Through the Frozen Eternity EP in 2022, Finland’s Moonlight Sorcery has been touted as the next big thing in 90s-styled melodic/symphonic black metal. Some even saying they are going to be the next Dissection or Emperor, with a windy, grim, […]

Avdagata – The Faceless One

As I stated in my review of Drama Noir‘s Night Fall Upon the Asylum review earlier this week, there are two symphonic black metal releases vying for my attention right now. And while the aptly named Drama Noir delivered a solid, bombastic symphonic black metal album, in the vein of Dimmu Borgir and such, Swedens […]

Mist From The Mountains, The – Monumental-The Temple of Twilight

If you have the balls to say “chilling-yet-breathtaking ruminations harken to the golden days of melodic, nature-inspired black metal, back during the mid ’90s. Names invoked include old Borknagar, Kvist, Arckanum, Old Man’s Child, Norway’s Gehenna, and even earliest Dimmu Borgir” in your promotional materials, you had better fucking back it up, and luckily the […]

Huronian – As Cold as a Stranger Sunset

Huronian is an Italian band playing melodic blackened death metal. They released an ep in 2020 and those three songs make their way onto this debut album As Cold as a Stranger Sunset. 9 songs in 41 minutes.  After a brief intro “Portals to the Unspeakable” blasts through the speakers with a great riff and […]

Wormwood – Arkivet

“Our stories won’t be written with ink and mirth. But carved in flesh and the soul of the earth. The whispers of the wind will cease to be. All we hear is the wailing of the oceans plea” – “The Archive”. Arkivet (Archive) is the third album from stellar, fast-rising new Swedish melodic black metal […]

Noctule – Wretched Abyss

Some day we’ll be able to look back at the pandemic and fully realize some of the good things that came out of it. For one – it was a fantastic reminder that, in general, people are fucking gross, and their personal hygiene is not to be trusted. Ever. Remember in the beginning of it […]

Malice Divine – Malice Divine

Someone really wants to be on The Artisan Era. I mean, look at that logo, cover and the music fits the label perfectly being a shreddy melodic form of polished, surgical, blackened, technical death metal that’s in line with the likes of Inferi and such. At that someone is Ric Galvez, who plays all the […]

Shores Of Null – Beyond the Shores (On Death and Dying)

Some three years have elapsed since we last heard from rising Italian crew Shores of Null. Following a confident, hook-laden debut in 2014’s Quiescence, the band’s 2017 follow-up, Black Drapes for Tomorrow, while solid, struggled to capitalise on their impressive first act. Nevertheless, Shores of Null possess an intriguing sound, a brooding mix of melancholic […]

Inexurom – Moonlit Navigation

When it comes to Inexorum, I purchased Lore of the Lakes without hearing a single note, simply based off the description and the high praise of critics. While I did enjoy the album, I was kept from thoroughly enjoying it for one reason: electronic drums. In a lot of instances, they’re fine, barely noticeable, and […]

Atavistia – The Winter Way

There must be a huge Finnish or Scandinavian poplace or cultural influence in Canada right? Other wise  why is there such a surprisingly  large amount of solid Finnish sounding epic/folk/viking bands there? Blackguard/Profugus Mortis, Crimson Shadows, Vesperia/Bolero, Battlesoul. Will of the Ancients, Nordheim, Valfreya just to name a few. Well, add Vancouver’s Atavistia to that […]

Naglfar – Cerekloth

To this day, I still absolutely love Naglfar’s first two albums and Vittra and Diabolical remain two of my very favorite 90s melodic black metal albums. And while 2003 Sheol was a worthy follow up, with the departure of vocalist Jens Ryden, the band fell into a bit of a rut with subsequent albums  Pariah, […]

Stortregn – Evocation of Light LP (Reissue)

Last year, I reviewed the fourth album, Emptiness Fills the Void, (Non Serviam Records) from this Swiss melodic black metal band, And was rather impressed with band’s tight, modern take on classic Scandinavian (Dissection, Naglfar, Catamenia, Dawn etc) melodic black metal from the 90s. So when I heard Non Serviam Records was reissuing the band’s […]

Falls of Rauros – Patterns in Mythology

In my review of Falls of Rauros‘ last record, Vigilance Perennial, I stated: 1) I was listening to something special, and 2) how can that top that album (which was my number 3 album of 2017)?. Well, despite switching from perfectly suited label in Bindrune to lesser known but also solid Gilead Media, they have […]

Sühnopfer – Hic Regnant Borbonii Manes

Sühnopfer (German for ‘Atonement’) is a French, one man black metal project featuring Ardraos, who has been around a while and has surfaced in a number of well known and lesser known French bands like Peste Noire, Aorlhac, Veratyr, Endymion, Antrum Mortis and others. This project, while productive with 2 full lengths and various demos […]

Istapp – The Insidious Star

Last year I went through a pretty hardcore phase of melodic black metal where I was listening to classic like Dissection, Catamenia, Vinterland, and Sacramentum, as well as newer bands like Thormesis, Vindland, Wormwood and Störtregn. Somehow though, I completely overlooked Sweden’s Istapp (“icicle”) and their 2010 album, Blekinge and 2015 album, Frostbitten. But that has […]

Thormesis – The Sixth

The fourth album from Germany’s Thormesis, Freier Wille – Freier Geist, was my first exposure to this band, but that album was on and off my year end list for 2015, though it ultimately didn’t make the cut. The follow up, 2017s Trümmerfarben, didn’t strike me as positively for some reason and I didn’t even review […]

Absence Betrayal – Emotions

I’ve always been pretty knowledgeable when it comes to heavy/extreme metal and all its facets. All through my life, my fellow metalhead friends have referred to me as a metal encyclopedia. Like many die-hard metalheads, my affiliation with the genre has always been one from a “love and collect” aspect as opposed to merely a […]

Obsequiae – Aria of Vernal Tombs

It has been more than a thousand years since the minstrels, troubadours, and minnesingers of the Middle Ages strummed their lutes and cooed their poetry to eager and usually royal ears. Obsequiae, if they could travel back to those days, would have lulled the lords and ladies of court into wondrous reverie with a gentle opener […]

Oubliette – Apparitions

An oubliette, from the French word ‘oublier’ – to forget – is a dungeon. A particularly horrible and lonely sort of dungeon, little more than a hole in the ground. In you go, curled and cramped, and then a lid or stone is slid across the opening, trapping you in blackness while your body succumbs to pain, hunger, […]

Naglfar – Teras

Naglfar’s second album, Diabolical, is still one of the most successful ‘cold’ purchases I’ve ever made. And by cold, I don’t mean frosty black metal, although that obviously applies. No, in this case, I mean that I’d never heard the band before, and bought the album on a whim. This was back in 1999, the […]