Sanctvs: De l’Abîme au Plérôme
Out 30th January on Osmose Productions
Canadian black metal drawing on the Mayhem school in that the emphasis is more on jagged surrealism and light dissonance over explicit naturalism. This is undergirded by the vocals that adopt a more stretched, throaty howl as if to draw attention to the strained desperation behind the music. But Sanctvs evince a degree of intentionality behind this material that at least marks them out amongst the current black metal crop. Traditional melodic refrains make for a happy contrast with touches of the avant-garde alongside some more abstract impulses. This gives the tracks a welcome topography, landmarks by which to navigate the orientation of a piece, how the riffs and ideas are developing on one another, a much needed sense of direction. This is in stark contrast to aesthetically comparable acts who focus purely on form and delivery instead of content and arrangement.
Evil Damn: Eons of Horror
Out 30th January on Hells Headbangers
The long awaited follow up to 2021’s ‘Necronomicon’ comes in the form this brief EP, but the step up is noteworthy. Peru’s Evil Damn deliver a compelling package of violent, thrashing death metal that combines the raw physicality of blackened thrash with a strained desperation. One can even hear a latent grindcore influence lending this music a forward momentum borne of latent primitivism. This, combined with the frequent siren wail guitar leads and the densely packed riffs delivered in restless blocks of energy come across as a death metal version of Absu circa ‘Tara’. The thrash DNA of South American death metal is writ large across this music. And whilst there’s nothing obvious that Evil Damn are doing to set themselves apart at the material level, there is something to the performances and delivery that brings this music to life, a cut above standard dark, frantic death metal fair. Vocals go some way to bringing this idea to bear, offering strained, desperate wails of insistent postulations, as if the message of the music is at once of grave importance, complex, and strikingly urgent. Who knows how long we’ll have to wait for the next statement from this outfit. But based on this EP they still have plenty of gas left in the tank.
Mascharat: Ars Aurea Mortis
Out 31st January on Remparts Productions
Italian black metal that draws primarily on the sparse Ukrainian style, using flat, grey tremolo runs as a foundation onto which are placed a more eccentric melodic character, drawing on symphonic black metal as much as folk permutations. The drab atmosphere serves to contain these more elaborate gestures in a dignified, understated package that nevertheless expresses a degree of intoxication borne out by its occultist source material. Acoustic guitars work alongside the strong interaction of lead and rhythm to flesh out this music as dynamic, alive and on message, all whilst maintaining the strict minimalism of the substrata. This latter feature exercises its influence not just through the austere riff shapes but also through repetition, as simple lead refrains are repeated ad-infinitum, evoking a sense of ritualism and occasion as they are met with deliberate, subtle, yet effective development. A curious melting pot of styles all working to complement one another in a studied yet modestly original iteration of contemporary black metal.
Voidhämmer: Noxious Emissions
Out 9th February on Caligari Records
Lurchcore, in that it lurches between disconnected and shockingly stale ideas, and is death metal that explicitly signposts the listener to their grind and hardcore influences. I’m not really sure what this release is supposed to achieve in 2026, beyond reminding us how tedious Undergang and their ilk were at the height of their powers. Derivative, flat, superfluous, the delivery is about as unenthusiastic as they come, begging the question whether these musicians even care about the music they are apparently attempting to contribute to, or whether these musicians are seeking easy accolades in a style they view as low hanging fruit. Whatever the answer, this EP is best avoided as a symptom of OSDM’s final collapse into lazy, handwaving bureaucracy.
Winter Eternal: Unveiled Nightsky
Out 13th February on Hells Headbangers
Another bout of transparent, unthreatening melodic black metal from Winter Eternal consigns this artist to the forgettable bucket on a semi permanent basis. There are worse iterations of this style at large in the scene. Winter Eternal at least display an internal consistency in riff construction and arrangement. But the material itself, when not generically disposable, is predictable, accessible, obvious. Simple, poppy chord sequences given a black metal sheen via effective but obvious harmonic scoping, lyrical and playful, but always oriented toward safe, comforting cadences that let the listener know they will not be challenged or inconvenienced by this material. What we have here is the degradation of black metal to a series of mantras, reassuring the listener that all is well, they will not be harmed by the music in any way, offering as it does a warm blanket of the familiar. The twisting of black metal’s imposing energy, sweeping naturalism, and sense of adventure into a domesticated, unthreatening pet, called upon when the listener is in need of a mood boost.
Ernte: Der schwarzen Flamme Vermächtnis
Out 13th February on Purity Through Fire
For all the visceral energy, the razor sharp guitar tone, aggressive vocals, and attempts to combine a dark atmosphere with a violent immediacy, Ernte seem unsure of how to translate this into a coherent statement. As with much modern extreme metal, taken in isolation there are many effective ideas across this album, well composed, performed with competence, and mixed in such a way as to bring their best qualities to the fore. But they are forever unsure of how to develop them, either by offering variations on a theme or additional, contrasting material that builds on the foundation as established. In lieu of this they instead fall back on off-the-shelf two chord riffs or derivations of Darkthrone and Mayhem et al. The result is metal by aphorism. Compelling statements abound. But there is nothing to link this into a thesis. A shortcoming that all the conviction in performance and aesthetic detail cannot salvage.
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