Krolok: Hričov – Súľov – Lietava
Out 25th September on Osmose Productions
Slovakia’s Krolok continue to grow into their skin with this third offering. A finely balanced ingredients list drawn from central European black metal, from Graveland, to early Root, Cult des Ghoules, and ethereal folk elements lifted from Romanian acts like Negura Bunget. But ‘Hričov – Súľov – Lietava’ emerges as an entity all its own within this broad tradition, one that knits together the primal darkness of the deep forest unique to black metal from this region, alongside a more pompous swagger of orchestration, and a swirling, reverential mysticism at once active yet ancient.
This album is a perfect example of how to offer the listener something new, something we haven’t yet heard from this artist, but in a manner contiguous with the identity established on previous efforts. It stretches out stylistically, expanding the compositional reach but also the complexity of arrangement, and even developing some of the interlude material into fully realised pieces in their own right. But the overarching atmosphere binds everything together into a cohesive whole, one that stays true to the lawless, active world of woodland terrains, the illusions they provoke within us and the life that thrums within them, whilst reaching for the heavens in a literal and metaphorical sense. Symphonic lines and soaring guitar harmonies ride atop the grounded organicism of the rhythm section in great builds of cathartic light to offset the dread of what lurks within the shadows.
The production reflects this endeavour, offering a panoramic mix able to contain the many disparate ambitions behind this material, but not so polished as to suck out the oxygen necessary for the mould and mildew at the beating heart of this earthy form of black metal. Drums provide the key anchor here, with any enhancements kept to a minimum. Reverb is kept at bay, the shading across the entire drumkit is relatively straightforward, allowing us to ground ourselves in the soil. Guitars are equally true to the spirit of primitive black metal, convincingly articulating simple punk derived runs or galloping heavy metal link phrases, allowing the liberal helping of keyboards to do the work of fleshing out the atmospheric layers of the mix. But occasionally a lead guitar line will step up to the plate and delivery a centrepiece, well crafted melodic threads captivating in their simplicity, or enormous harmonic lines that swagger across the terrain, forcing all to match the momentum in their wake.
From sprawling atmospheric sequences, such as the album’s opening on ‘Hričov’, to more intricate folk driven melodic lyricism, and the dark, claggy animalism of the forest that Central European bands are so adept at giving voice to, ‘Hričov – Súľov – Lietava’ offers a totalising experience of expressive black metal delivered within an efficient forty minutes. The shifts in pacing, theme, mood, and style feel organic, like a well plotted narrative evolving from one act to another. A work whose virtues are drawn from a very traditional hue, but one that updates them in refreshingly imaginative ways, resulting in a work that proudly reasserts the unbridled joy to be taken in black metal at its most playful and theatrical, yet dangerous and spiritually captivating.
Paralicyst: Destruction of Sanity
Out 24th September, self-released
The opening track of this EP ‘Conjure the Flames’ is everything we’d expect from a band made up fans first, musicians second. A random hodgepodge of elements lifted from across the death metal spectrum, leading to a kind of stylistic whiplash, but one the modern listener has no doubt grown accustomed to at this point. But as we move into the rather glibly titled ‘I Just Want You to Die’ the production changes and things suddenly take on more focus. One suspects this material was therefore recorded and possibly written in two separate sessions some time apart. A clear melodic character is articulated, taking on a drab tension thanks to effective use of slower tempos, keeping the listener waiting for a release that never quite resolves. And so it goes as the EP progresses, with tracks taking on a greater clarity, riffs striding through with more identity over and above the legacy of classic US death metal. A fine balance is achieved between an unambiguous celebration of death metal in all its simplicity, and a more contemporary, surrealist approach, bending phrasing and pacing into unexpected junctures. A curious if unfocused EP.
Überchriist: Dæmonic Apotheosis
Out 25th September on Deanwell Global Music
Purportedly this is uncomplicated, vintage melodic black metal most obviously derived from the Swedish style. Light symphonics, some moments reminiscent of ‘Enthroned Darkness Triumphant’ (see ‘Tomb Creeper’ for example), along with some classic era Mayhem, put a bow on it and we can all go home after a job well done. But Überchriist throw as many disappointments in our path as simple pleasures, with some riffs falling into flat, momentum killing physical barrages that seem designed to conjure crowd pleasing moments in a live setting, but on recorded material completely take one out of the moment. For all the competency exercised across the rest of the album, it comes across as cosplay or fanservice more than a genuine expression. The equivalent of a difficult conversation where someone is saying all the right things, but you have doubts as to whether they actually mean it. Überchriist can provide a reasonable simulation of sugary symphonic adjacent black metal, but the experience is too polished, curated, and contrived to allow the listener to truly lose themselves in the moment.
Nerumia: Aliénation
Out 25th September, self-released
Curious combination of Darkthrone derived primitive black metal with odd contouring. Whilst each track is built from a relatively generic riff, the picture is complicated by unexpected interjections of highly melodic content, or breaks into eerie acoustic passages. What results is a prima facie humble slab of old school metal, but once the layers are pealed back a surprisingly wide ranging album is revealed, one taking in more adventurous melodic explorations, direct, folky singsong moments, and the electronica metal fusion of the interlude track ‘K’aos’. Vocals contribute to this eclecticism, sticking largely with an amelodic mid-range bark, but one that seems to revolve round the mix, making use of the stereo effect by emerging from alternating directions and thus disorientating the listener. The result is an album constantly oscillating between a variety of impulses and aesthetics, apparently happy to sit back into old fashioned values only to the extent that they contrast with a much broader stylistic and technical range. The comfort food of basic black metal is imbued with the uncanny, a tension that only extends as the album progresses and Nerumia continue to introduce new sides to their identity.
Deconsekrated: The Inexorable Transcendence of Death
Out 2nd October on Nuclear Winter Records
Caverncore adjacent death metal does little to distinguish itself despite some well placed lead refrains standing out from the general homogeneity. Although generally tedious, tracks do manage to work themselves up to an apparently deliberate finale. There is a telos at work. But in the telling, Deconsekrated feel like a band going through the motions. Alive to the fact that listeners have heard this album a hundred times before. The tension accrued, the stakes built, the catharsis at the crisis point of crescendo. All appears present and correct on a technical level. But soul, life, flair, originality, all are lacking for the sake of this by the numbers exercise in stale, rehashed aesthetic detritus. A rare miss from Chile, a region that usually delivers material well ahead of the pack.
Morbid Stench: Doom Metastasis
Out 2nd October on Nuclear Winter Records
Death/doom that brings a sense of occasion via histrionic delivery and fraught melodic content befitting of the orchestral setting. Whilst the production is somewhat over compressed and clinical, limiting the dramatic potential, it undergirds the material with weight and significance, furnishing us with a full panorama that refuses to be ignored from the moment of hitting play. Drab refrains are stitched together by basic but effective rhythm guitars that work through melodically inclined death metal stretched across depressed tempos, creating a torturous flow. The effect is too overwrought to be tense, but the hesitant pacing juxtaposed with the raw power of the drums and vocals polarises the material, as if it is in conflict with itself, stumbling over itself to bring its message to bear. Morbid Stench have managed to marry the defeatist melancholy of gothic doom with the defiant muscularity of death metal, thus compensating for the shortcomings of these styles at either end of their influence pool. The result, whilst run of the mill, is entertaining enough in the contemporary context.
Firtan: Helios
Out 2nd October on AOP Records
As a bloated piece of stadium pagan metal this is hardly the most egregious thing to come out in 2026. This is music primarily concerned with conveying an aesthetic, or rather a lifestyle concept to its listeners, here rooted in the usual pre-Christian Europe cosplay. As a result it adopts a pick ‘n’ mix approach to riffing, one common to these carnival troops that have paraded across the metal landscape since the turn of the century. Symphonic black metal being the most obvious building material, but melodic death metal, thrash, and some obvious folk oriented heavy metal also rain down sporadically. But Firtan do have a better ear for compositional unity than most within this tier of metal, the bells and whistles are better integrated into the musical mechanics, and each track exhibits its own focus and tightly bound identity, as opposed to the usual random lurches from one crowd pleasing moment to the next. In this sense, as a piece of popcorn cinema it makes for a neat diversion if one were desirous of such a thing in their already saturated newsfeeds.
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