After the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, movements within metal tended to follow the same lifecycle of gestation, consolidation, and renaissance. After this creative and artistic peak genres would invariably meet a fork in the road. One path was to court major label attention, who would in turn dictate the terms of the metal’s... Continue Reading →

Kodu: Unusta kõik (2021) Unusta kõik – the debut album from the Estonian black metallers known as Kodu – is one of those albums that adopts a specific philosophy of composition, and uses this to frame the music writing process. Said philosophy is at its most explicit on the closing track ‘Laotus’. A muffled and... Continue Reading →

Olde: Pilgrimage (2021) The dirty little not-so-secret of stoner doom is that it’s an atmospheric genre at heart. This does not preclude the possibility of chunky riffs by any means, but part of the appeal is the immersive experience, a broad brushstroke of themes and moods as opposed to the forensic riff tessellation and melodic... Continue Reading →

Cruel Life Inside: Eclipsis Vitae (2021) Despite having the name of a mid-2000s emo band, Cruel Life Inside are another package of reforms aimed at making something of “positive” black metal. We could spend all day descanting on what we mean when we say music is “positive” or “negative”, and whether black metal even conforms... Continue Reading →

Darkwave is another genre tag that is easy to dismiss as superfluous. But the more you dig, the more it becomes a useful way to cordon off a set of artists that arose out of the 1980s in the wake of goth, post punk, and the first wave of neofolk. Equally, owing to this broad... Continue Reading →

Sinoath; Research (1995, rereleased on Hessian Firm 27th March) “Reissue” is a dirty word in some circles. A way for labels to suck every last penny out of long dead artists, an endless cycle of dredging up old material in new wrapping. All the more need to reiterate the original and frankly nobler purpose behind... Continue Reading →

Allow me to indulge in a Wikipedia definition to kick this one off, which describes the avant-garde as “people or works that are experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society. It is frequently characterized by aesthetic innovation and initial unacceptability.” The reason for setting out the *define-your-terms* stall at the outset... Continue Reading →

HOR: No Birth nor End (2021) Greek black metallers HOR return with another compact selection of orthodox black metal with their difficult second album entitled ‘No Birth nor End’. Their approach to the form is worth paying attention to if for no other reason than to hear a classic style played with conviction. Both the... Continue Reading →

Plague Weaver: Ascendant Blasphemy (2021) ‘Ascendant Blasphemy’ is the debut LP from this Canadian outfit. It’s a forceful mix of cyclical Rotting Christ style riffs, with the oppressiveness of early Samael, and some riffs even reaching all the way back to Celtic Frost in their relentless and dronelike qualities, as if they being dragged along... Continue Reading →

The first iterations of symphonic black metal – or rather any black metal that leans heavily on keyboards – was too advanced for its time in many ways. The tech available and affordable in the mid-90s was limited and clunky when put in service of the grand operas many underground artists – those without label... Continue Reading →