Hadopelagyal: Haematophoryktos
Out 19th September on Amor Fati
If we were to regard this in terms of presentation alone we would come away with the impression that Hadopelagyal are interested in little more than showcasing chaos. The ethos of blackened grind inflicted on dirge ridden black metal riffing to conjure a sense of random, nihilistic violence without purpose. But despite the near constant blast-beats, heavy handed reverb, bottomed out guitar tone, and fuzzy mix that seeks to obscure the granular detail in favour of broad brushstrokes, there is a clear logic at play here. Early Finnish black metal, specifically Belial and Beherit, are updated into a modernist, fatalistic setting. The riff patterns may be simple, but focusing on their throughline across each track helps us to navigate these choppy waters, revealing a monomaniacal artistic intention almost akin to drone. Drums offer little more than ambience in this regard, the frequent crash cymbals muddying the waters alongside aesthetic choices at the mixing desk and the distant urgency of the low, distorted vocals. In this regard Hadopelagyal are the realisation of what an artist like Teitanblood promises but always fail to deliver. The reason being that the former builds a strong foundation through simple but effective riffcraft, and knits in chaos as ancillary material, whereas the latter inverts this process, and lacks any coherent musical identity as a result.
Ritualhammer: Grand Pestilential Flame
Out 26th September on Werewolf Records (originally released in 2024)
Updates the Angelcorpse formula by marrying the informal theatre of blackened thrash with the rigid structuralism of early death metal. In this endeavour they achieve a greater degree of flamboyance and colour than many comparable releases. Speed and aggression are foregrounded but not treated as ends in themselves. The music is peppered with interesting melodic licks seasoning the raw material of thrash riffs undergirding each track. Vocal eccentricity is also used to great effect here, with a range of distorted outbursts bringing the at times dry mechanicalism to life, along with some well placed clean crooning lines. Energy, moods, and themes are effectively developed throughout each piece, threads survive tempo changes and shifts in pitch, being picked up and restated from multiple angles. It’s this, along with a heavy dose of anarchic fun across this album, that elevates ‘Grand Pestilential Flame’ above a lot of retro oriented blackened death metal coming out of the underground these last few years.
Inritvm: Ex Nihilo ad Nihilum
Out 3rd October on EAL Productions
If death metal in the 2010s will be remembered for its nostalgia, black metal took a different route. Whilst there was no shortage of retro outfits, the creative thrust of a genre trying to renew itself was found in whittling down the generalist statements of the 1990s to a place of specificity. The musical language that came out of second wave black metal appropriated, honed, and mutated in service of highly bespoke conceptual statements drawing from religion, history, mythology, and philosophy. It’s a project that has continued into the 2020s, maybe even amplified by the surplus spare time that begun the decade, allowing more hours for research into all manner of niche topics. Inritvm are a prime example, lifting a suite of riff styles from classic era Mayhem and repurposing them into a modernist and conceptually incoherent statement of nihilism. Whilst the music is competent enough as a showcase of frigid, meditatively aggressive black metal, it amounts to little more than a restatement of things past. It attempts to cloak its derivations with a marked aesthetic character and frequent interludes of dark ambience. But the resulting material presents as little more than filler between what is essentially a pleasing yet redundant celebration of Euronymous’s legacy (amongst others).
Illusive Key: Consume Us
Out 8th October on Amor Fati
Attempts to funnel the universalist, impersonal nature of black metal into a specific statement of human despondency. Whilst the music itself is more energetic than something like depressive black metal, which approaches the genre from a similar angle, the result is no less monotonous and barren of joy. I mean joy in the broadest aesthetic sense, art capable of leaving a general lasting impression on the listener. The music obviously sets out to be as bleak as possible. But the sculpting, the construction, the arrangement, all are stripped of any sense of purpose, development, or engagement for the sake of bleeding out these extended, administrative exercises in overworked mood music. As a result there is nothing useful to be garnered from the experience. The music is neither incompetent nor incoherent. But it remains dry, incomplete, only half formed for the sake of foregrounding dramatic statements of emotive despair.
Morke: To Carry On
Out 10th October on True Cult Records
Running over this artist’s back catalogue reveals a largely plodding, boring attempt at atmospheric black metal. A trajectory that is largely broken with this latest release in favour of essentially being Obsequiae. And indeed Tanner Anderson contributed guitars to this album. Maybe his approach rubbed off on Morke to such an extent that they completely reengineered their creative identity. Bands sounding like other bands is hardly a revelation, but Obsequiae’s style is so distinct and recognisable that aligning with it so closely has effectively swallowed what little identity Morke had prior to this, maybe revealing how weak this identity may have been all along. It’s not a poor imitation by any measure. The unique melodic signature drawn from medieval and folk traditions is all there, along with the sharp, glistening guitar tone and playful rhythmic bounce. All make this an enjoyable affair for anyone already amenable to this style. But whatever Morke is outside of this approach has been entirely lost in the shadow of a far stronger artistic identity.
Vile Apparition: Malignity
Out 10th October on Me Saco Un Ojo/Dark Descent
Achieves a convincing synthesis between the cold, mechanical clarity of brutal death metal and the more organic undulations of Lovecraftian surrealism popular in modern death metal. Vile Apparition tend to veer between polarities, being too repetitive one moment then too random at the other. But from this confusion a sense of balances arises. Riffs are well thought through, often lasting for a few more measures than expected each time, allowing the drums to articulate longer looped patterns, giving the pacing an unsettling, tugging flow. Spacey Azagthothian solos utilise the space created by this tense push and pull, veering from illogical surrealism to unique melodic signatures with ease. This is punctuated by choppy, fast paced passages that create a sense of clutter and activity to offset the allusions to the boundlessness of space. Vile Apparition demonstrate their attention to detail across these tracks, as individual moments are painted with an array of activity and life, complementary but in conflict, allowing that rare thing for modern death metal to emerge between the cracks, a sense of possibility.
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