Polemicist: Return of the Sophist (out 25th June 2021 on Hessian Firm) In 2019 Polemicist delivered their debut ‘Zarathustrian Impressions’, a more nuanced treatment of my boy Nietzsche’s ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’ than we are used to within black metal. Despite the histrionic tone of the book, it drew together and sharpened the key ideas of... Continue Reading →

A Dutch of evil….because touch, sounds like…Everyone seems to agree that the Netherlands often gets overlooked as a death metal hotspot, usually in favour of Sweden or UK grindcore. But when we look to the likes of Pestilence, Asphyx, Sinister, Thanatos, and Gorefest, the output of our friends across the open sea made a significant... Continue Reading →

Impaled Nazarene: Eight Headed Serpent (2021) Buying into one’s own mythology is a common symptom of aging without grace. It seems to be a congenital condition amongst bands that cracked an idiosyncratic formula within a very specific set of parameters early on in their career. From the first note of ‘The Rack’, Asphyx emerged with... Continue Reading →

It’s taken a couple of weeks to articulate the sour taste left after reading another article from The Guardian on metal’s onward push to diversify. I certainly don’t bear any of the bands featured in this article any ill will, or their fans for that matter. Despite the important message behind these artists’ work, their... Continue Reading →

Article by Jason, aka Lonegoat from the Necroclassical project Goatcraft and the host of the Necropolis podcast Music is the only form of art which is expressed in time more than in space. In Kant’s philosophy, time and space are a priori, meaning that these fundamental aspects of reality are grounded in intuition. Our understanding of... Continue Reading →

Deathvoid: Semaphore (4th June 2021) “Rawness” is a relative quality. This is known. So when I say the latest demo from the Italian/Swiss trio known as Deathvoid is “raw black metal”, I am left deeply unsatisfied with the descriptor. ‘Semaphore’ not only operates on the borders between black metal and noise, it is a noise... Continue Reading →

Why a farewell to Norway? I write this piece with nothing but my usual good will to Norwegian black metal. But there’s a sense in which the hegemony of Norway as the central creation myth of black metal is beginning to slip with each new generation of fans. The allure of the scene, replete with... Continue Reading →

Anatomia: Corporeal Torment (2021) Veteran Japanese death/doomsters Anatomia return with their latest LP ‘Corporeal Torment’, and what a treat it is. If previous efforts from this outfit were a compellingly creepy blend of Autopsy and diSEMBOWELMENT, this album sees them flirt with drone. The underlying formula may still be intact, but Anatomia seem intent on... Continue Reading →

Given my unhinged tirade of last month of thought it pertinent to check back in on this whimsical little dungeon synth project. And sure enough, after less than a month I am two albums behind on Garden Gnome’s output. Notice the variations on a theme with the album titles, ‘True Gnomewegian Dungeon Synth’, and now... Continue Reading →

30 Immolated ; 16 Returned: The Burial of the Dead - Excerpts from Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (2021) It’s seems oddly fitting that avant-garde metal has led us to Stravinsky. Taken one way, 30 Immolated ; 16 Returned’s latest EP ‘The Burial of the Dead - Excerpts from Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring’ is... Continue Reading →