Armchair rhetoric on extreme metal
Hail Conjurer: Abyss & EkstasisOut 23rd September on Into Endless Chaos Records / Crypt of the Wizard Over several albums, Finlandโs Hail Conjurer have been offering curiously deconstructive takes on black metal, pivoting on doom metal pacing, depressive moods, and dominant yet oddly fragile synth tones offering an eerily mournful counterpoint to the distorted backdrop.... Continue Reading →
What does the metalhead do on their day off and why is it ambient? I listened to all the โblack ambientโ releases from the 90s to find out. Black metal ambient (Partย I) In Part I we ranged through Central Europe, taking in the Austrian syndicate, on to the bonkers peripheries of Franceโs already bonkers Les... Continue Reading →
What does the metalhead do on their day off and why is it ambient? I listened to all the โblack ambientโ releases from the 90s to find out. If you were to press me on a pithy definition of metal, I would say it's music written through the organisation of riffs. This means it can... Continue Reading →
Mittags-Abgrund: Mittags-AbgrundOut 15th September on Darkness Shall Rise Productions True to the legacy of Russian black metal, this is a piece of impeccably landscaped material, conjuring a fully scoped out environment before our eyes, vast and inhospitable whilst compelling the listener onward, provoking their impulse for exploration. However, Mittags-Abgrund go further in populating this terrain... Continue Reading →
In a follow up to our episode on US Power Metal, Joseph walks me through the more obscure corners of 80s European Heavy Metal. Horrors and wonders await. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2md-ertltQ
V baลพinรกch vฤdomรญOut 10th September on Me Saco Un Ojo / Dark Descent Records Itโs been a long time coming, but finally Czechiaโs Snฤลฅ deliver on the second album. The upgrades to the debut may be modest given the five year gap, most notably some cosmetic tweaks and slicker production values, but itโs enough to... Continue Reading →
Why millennials can't grow up, and why this matters Itโs a self-evident truth that young people do things incorrectly. As the young form their identity in adolescence their elders place them in a kangaroo court. Why does the millennial eat so many avocados? Why are they so preoccupied with representation in media? Itโs a rite... Continue Reading →
Summer festival season has wrapped up, so Shelley and Joseph take the temperature of the festival circuit. Are big outdoor festivals becoming little more than package holidays? Is "social media-ification" ruining the festival experience? And where did all these children come from? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BknjivdF1yY
Atomic Aggressor: The Occult ForcesOut 28th August on Hells Headbangers With a history stretching back to the mid-80s, Atomic Aggressor are arguably one of the first to enter Chileโs death metal race along with Pentagram. But following their reformation in 2007 this is only their second album, which may partly explain why they haven't receive... Continue Reading →
Rahaty: Bestial LustmordOut 28th August on Sentient Ruin Another attempt to bleed the deathgrind sponge dry without refreshing the underlying template. This time by taking things in a blackened direction in the Finnish mould. Although this album nails a certain cavernous aesthetic, the underlying architecture fails to trouble anyone accustomed to the extremity foregrounded across... Continue Reading →
