KoboldThe village in the frozen mountains The description for this release ends with the sentence “short dungeon-pop compositions in 16-bit style and magic melodies that will transport you straight when you was young and carefree” (typo retained for clarity). Never has a blurb for an album been more nakedly honest. Kobold resides in that corner... Continue Reading →

Sarpa: Mauta TalaOut 17th February, self-released The number of modern artists that take to the smorgasbord of history to serve as their creative muse is telling. Concocting uncanny blends harvested from different eras and regions piecemeal . Even more telling is how explicitly many of them are in admitting that this is precisely what they... Continue Reading →

The lads chat Immolation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKCb140_Ccs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw7cPOzg-sY&t=17s Twenty years on from the release of Arch Enemy's fourth album 'Anthems of Rebellion', we discuss one of the most heavy handed pieces of content curation in extreme metal history.

Sodality: Benediction, Part I Out 20th January on Norma Evangelium Diaboli From Polish black metal pedigree Cult des Ghoules comes an aching rumination on laboured riff incrementalism, populated with an almost abrasively single minded fixation on operatically occultist theatre. ‘Benediction, Part I’ is the second album from Sodality, which sees rich yet raw black metal... Continue Reading →

I’ll just come out and say, Emperor, Darkthrone, and Burzum were the three most significant artists to emerge from second wave black metal. The lineage of every artist within the genre – outside of Southern Europe – can ultimately be traced back to their work up to about 1994. Anything remotely symphonic owes a debt... Continue Reading →

Conjureth: The Parasitic ChambersOut 23rd January on Memento Mori Conjureth continue their quest to meld ‘Legion’ era Deicide with the out and proud “weird” of early Finnish death metal, stitched together with a healthy dose of dark percussive thrash worked in as the binding agent within this taught recipe. The ingredients are familiar, their combination,... Continue Reading →

Apokatastasis: The Consecratory SecretionOut 20th January on Hessian Firm Daring genre alchemy encased in a remarkably fleshed out aesthetic and thematic package defines ‘The Consecratory Secretion’. This artist is able to leverage elements of symphonic black metal, old school death metal, and riffs bordering on slam (of all things), Frank Mullen-esque staccato vocal hits and... Continue Reading →

Old SorceryRealms of Magickal Sorrow A very wide bridge links black metal to dungeon synth. Sure, each territory boasts many distant realms that would not dream of crossing this bridge, from blackened thrash and raw black metal at one pole, to dino synth and comfy synth at the other. But toward the interior of each... Continue Reading →

Nigrum: Elevenfold TailOut 16th December on Into Endless Chaos Records Offering a tight iteration of cutting, riff laden black metal, the debut album from Nigrum succeeds in spite of – or rather because of – its notably modest packaging. Sharp interweaving guitar lines flow across these tracks with sophisticated grace, but the presentation is one... Continue Reading →