“What does black metal mean to you?” The phrasing of this question implies that musical messages are not just inter-subjective, but utterly atomised. Music and culture hold no collective meaning, but exist solely to serve individual egos and their alleged stake in the zeitgeist. Culture becomes nothing more than a means to furnish one’s personality … Continue reading A return to humility: Ancient and Ulver

Galvanizer: Prying Sight of ImperceptionOut 30th July on Me Saco Un Ojo / Everlasting Spew Prima facie, the second album from the Finnish outfit known as Galvanizer is another shameless old school offering no different from the last ten to come out this week. So given the fact that I enjoyed ‘Prying Sight of Imperception’ … Continue reading I like the beats and I like the yelling: Galvanizer, Fulanno, Nigrum Pluviam

Necromantical Invocation: Dogme et Rituel de la Haute MagieOut 24th July on Helter Skelter Productions This debut demo/mini album originally released back in February 2021 sees a CD and vinyl release on Helter Skelter this week. Necromantical Invocation is the brainchild of one Echetleos, who is something of a polymath in the Greek scene at … Continue reading I like the beats and I like the yelling: Necromantical Invocation, Remote, Evocator

This series is a result of one of many book clubs that formed during lockdown. A friend put forward a book by music journalist Simon Reynolds’ called ‘Retromania’, an exploration of the nostalgia cult within pop culture. Many of the themes outlined by Reynolds resonated deeply, and his implicit invitation to his readers to apply … Continue reading Metal’s Retromania Part VI: until the light takes us

Thecodontion/Vessel of Iniquity: The Permian-Triassic Extinction EventOut 3rd September, CD release on I, Voidhanger Records, cassette release on Bad Moon Rising (Taiwan)/Dead Red Queen Records (USA) As the march of history continues apace, beyond our control or understanding, extreme metal’s quest for new sonic pastures to capture the moment can sometimes look like panic. In … Continue reading I like the beats and I like the yelling: Thecodontion/Vessel of Iniquity, Exil, Krossfyre

Nordic folk seems to be the agreed umbrella term for the wave of artists currently putting out sonic facsimiles of pre-Christian pagan music. But genre tags aside, this style sure is getting lapped up by metalheads these days. Given metal’s affiliation with pagan spirituality and culture, along with its frequent appropriation of regional folk music … Continue reading Future of the past: Heilung and Byrdi

Drawn and Quartered: Congregation PestilenceOut 2nd July on Krucyator Productions Seattle based death metal veterans Drawn and Quartered return with another taut punch of drab chaos. I’ve always likened these guys to an Incantation if they were stripped of all doom elements. The meditated discordant riffs, the angular shifts in tempo, the undercurrents of dissonance, … Continue reading I like the beats and I like the yelling: Drawn and Quartered, Hnagash, Marras

Warmoon Lord: BattlespellsOut 25th June on Werewolf Records Here’s a novel thing: traditional Scandinavian black metal with an original sense of melody. Warmoon Lord’s latest offering ‘Battlespells’ is a tour de force of classic northern European iterations of black metal, but onto this familiar foundation is stamped a marked identity of its own. The backdrop … Continue reading I like the beats and I like the yelling: Warmoon Lord, Institution D.O.L., Tyrannus

It’s interesting to document the geographical chronology of the second wave of black throughout the 1990s. From the earlier offerings to come out Norway, Finland, Greece, and the US, considered to be the bedrock of our understanding of black metal’s different shades to this day. Through to the mid-1990s with France, Austria, and Poland all … Continue reading Ukrainian folkways: Khors and Kroda

LUM: L’Feu e la StriaOut 24th June on Nigredo Records LUM are a brand new black metal project out of Turin. Their debut EP ‘L’Feu e la Stria’ offers a striking mix of atmospheric and raw black metal. It’s as if Ildjarn, instead of working with the melodic riffsmith that was Nidhogg, had instead taken … Continue reading I like the beats and I like the yelling: LUM, Beyond Man, Stench Collector