Ultimatum: Among Potential StatesRe-issue out 7th January on Loud Rage Music (originally released in 1996) The mid-1990s were a strange time for death metal. Depending on where you look, the genre was either undergoing a flowering renaissance, the codification of a rigid orthodoxy, or a deeply embarrassing capitulation to various styles emerging at the time,... Continue Reading →

The lads chat non-extreme metal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg56if5_CPQ

Pestilength: Solar ClorexOut 16th February on Debemur Morti Productions Enigmatic death/doom/black metallers Pestilength return for an album wide in scope yet compact in execution. The latter feature certainly deserves accolades, not least because they temper their ever expanding horizons with an awareness and dedication to their own identity. Their strength lies in transferring the older... Continue Reading →

Jason goes rogue! In this episode he conducts an impromptu survey of classical music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVjyuHlpb08

Dark Space -IIOut 16th February on Season of Mist Tobias Möckl's career is essential for understanding the mechanism by which black metal was recast as an aesthetic pursuit. A paragon of third wave black metal, through his flagship projects Paysage d’Hiver and Darkspace he has cranked out a body of work notable for lifting the... Continue Reading →

After a long silence, underground label La Caverna Records returns with a triple hit of demos from the early Colombian extreme metal scene. Liturgia: Sanctum Regnum/In PerpetuumOut 7th February on La Caverna Records (originally released between 1992 & 1994) Columbian death/doom emerges from the meeting point of barbaric purpose and funereal despondency. Basic atonal riff... Continue Reading →

Article by Jason, aka Lonegoat from the Necroclassical project Goatcraft and the host of the Necropolis podcast Disregard any claims you've heard; “industrial metal” is a lie. In fact, one should find their schadenfreude in those who support this meaningless subgenre because industrial music is completely incompatible with metal. The ontologies of the two genres are so severely... Continue Reading →

Grohot/Faunul din Smida: Hranind gurile infometateOut 1st February, self-released Grohot open this split with a suitably feral rendition of lo-fi black metal. Whilst we could roughly locate this in the lineage of Ildjarn, it actually has more in common with collaborator Nidhogg, or even their one off landmark outing as Sort Vokter. Frigid, primitive, rooted... Continue Reading →

Black metal is post catastrophe music. In this, more than anything, it represented a clear break with the past. Whilst death metal frantically gestured at the limits of a society organised around liberal democracy, black metal assumed its failure had already occurred, and sought meaning beyond the collapse. Novel as black metal was in this... Continue Reading →

Cerulean: Carrion AngelOut 26th January on I, Voidhanger Records Taking in the broad spectrum of post ‘Obscura’ metal, it’s clear that ‘Carrion Angel’ sits at the less efficient end. Its cluttered tangents betray an overeagerness to please. But whilst it may be in need of some ruthless editing and trimming - the hallmark of modern... Continue Reading →