Garden GnomeG.S.S.R. (Gnomewegian Soviet Socialist Republics) Trust an outfit like Garden Gnome to take dungeon synth – a micro-genre already straining at fanatical irony's leash – and shove completely up its own arse. This project started out as a relatively measured take on dungeon synth back in 2021, despite its obvious tongue-in-cheek attitude to the... Continue Reading →

S. Craig Zahler (director of Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cell Block 99, Dragged Across Concrete, etc) returns to Necropolis to discuss his new graphic novel ‘Organisms from an Ancient Cosmos’. We chat about what the creation process was like, why he prefers ‘hard’ science fiction over more fantastical takes on the genre, our disbelief in... Continue Reading →

Nocturnal Departure: Clandestine TheurgyOut 30th December on Hells Headbangers A pleasing blend of energetic, riff based black metal of the dirtiest order meets the refinement of the genre’s more cinematic aspirations on the latest album from Canada’s Nocturnal Departure. ‘Clandestine Theurgy’ is a diverse beast despite its relatively primitivist presentation. Riffs move from busy melodicism,... Continue Reading →

Hate Forest: InnermostOut 21st December on Osmose Productions Hate Forest shed their reverential grandeur and delve back to the earthy aggression of their formative years for their latest album ‘Innermost’. If ‘Hour of the Centaur’ struck a rather stirring, defiant tone, here we see Roman Saenko turning Hate Forest into an expression of wanton despair,... Continue Reading →

Absolute Key: The Third Level of DecayOut 21st December on Signal Rex ‘The Third Level of Decay’ is another one of those albums that poses as a parody of music, but here the joke is extended to the point where it looks something like sincerity. It’s as if a mysterious alien race were attempting to... Continue Reading →

40: Fiat Nox: Demanifestation (Hymns of Destruction and Nothingness)Crawling Chaos Records Fits comfortably inside the modern penchant of modern extreme metal for oppressive aesthetics, favouring dissonance and density as ends in themselves. At the borders of death, black, and doom metal where listeners are permitted to luxuriate in an overtly apocalyptic vibespace. But Fiat Nox... Continue Reading →

Article by Jason, aka Lonegoat from the Necroclassical project Goatcraft and the host of the Necropolis podcast The second graphic novel by director, screenwriter, cinematographer, novelist, musician and extreme metal enthusiast S. Craig Zahler, Organisms from an Ancient Cosmos is a synthesis of classic science fiction and horror exhibited in a good-looking hardcover. Precisely as with his first... Continue Reading →

On the left, it’s a generally accepted norm that small-c conservatives do not produce good art. This refrain is regularly trotted out to demonstrate not only the moral bankruptcy of conservatives, but also their cultural bankruptcy. To be conservative is to live without the ability for self-critique, vulnerability, or creativity. The ultimate “gotcha”. The analysis... Continue Reading →

DrunemetonRecital to the Shining Moon Breaking with dogma somewhat (and in 1996 no less), Drunemeton attempt to exert a degree of organic musicality across ‘Recital to the Shining Moon’ by sincerely engaging with the alleged neoclassical lineage of dungeon synth. An album constructed almost entirely from piano licks, but one that deploys organs, orchestra hits,... Continue Reading →

40 of the best - part 4 of 4 10: Marthe: VictimizedSelf-released Marthe’s intoxicating blend of Bathoryisms and loose psychedelia only intensifies on this single. ‘Victimized’ picks up exactly where the ‘Sisters of Darkness’ EP left off, marrying foot stomping heavy metal with Viking intensity, soaring guitar leads rich in bracing spirituality yet minimal in... Continue Reading →