Mistigo Varggoth DarkestraInsatiable Moon It’s amazing how far a light sprinkling of percussion will go. A distant, shuffling drum loop allows Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra to transform a set of directionless semi-improvised synth meanderings into a piece of minimalist ambient with real menace to introduce this old school DS album. That maybe slightly disingenuous. The loose,... Continue Reading →

Hail Conjurer: Earth PenetrationOut 23rd September on Signal Rex/Bestial Burst The latest album from Hail Conjurer offers an interestingly brief blend of entropic, repetitive black metal, loosely strung together via Black Sabbathian rhythms seemingly designed for informal and unstructured jams normally considered out of place in a setting such as this. Tonally the music is... Continue Reading →

Tales of the Mad MoonHospital Productions Lengthy compilation of older compositions offers an interesting degree of coherence in spite of the foregrounding of structurally disconnected sound tapestry. There is a clear Lustmordian influence at play here, as deep, swelling, tectonically slow waves of noise form the backdrop for the majority of these pieces, trading on... Continue Reading →

Hadopelagyal: Nereidean Seismic EndOut 19th September on Amor Fati / Ván The debut album from these German blackened noise metallers sees earthy textures re-morphed into an abrasive riff setting where conflict abounds. Basic ascending patterns are thwarted by an irresistible drive down to the subterranean via the philosophy of grind. Despite the clear death drive... Continue Reading →

Medieval Demon: Black CovenOut 16th September on Hells Headbangers There is comfort to be taken from the fact that the unashamedly camp eccentricities of a band like Medieval Demon still have a place within the extreme metal zeitgeist of 2022. Their latest album ‘Black Coven’ opens with a track entitled ‘Where Witches Dwell and Labyrinths... Continue Reading →

Skare: SkareOut 12th September on Amor Fati Australia’s Skare deliver a near flawlessly executed slab of bracing melodic black metal for their self-titled debut. This is an exhilarating, cold, soaring, tight collection of soundscapes that consolidates the best elements of the genre, binding them into an austere package that is no less lacking in activity... Continue Reading →

By Keith Kahn-Harris, 2007 Reading ‘Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge’ in 2022 is an odd experience, juxtaposing the quaint with the prophetic. Quaint that there was once a time when such an academically thorough survey of extreme metal was even possible within one compact volume. Prophetic because extreme metal – ever the... Continue Reading →

Táltos: Érezd hogy élszOut 4th August, self-released The latest EP from this Hungarian outfit presents a rich sonic brew of dissonant black metal, tribal rhythms, throat singing, didgeridoos, and unusual percussive philosophies, at least within a metal setting. It takes seriously the folk and regional connections forged by extreme metal movements over the decades, and... Continue Reading →

The UK never had much luck with death metal. There is a sincerity that sits as a hidden requisite beneath the delivery of this artform that the Brits never really nailed. The big three in Carcass, Napalm Death, and Bolt Thrower were all infinitely more interesting when playing less structured forms of grindcore and punk.... Continue Reading →

Heilung: DrifOut 19th of August on Season of Mist With the amount of clutter that surrounds this artist it is tempting to review any new release from the perspective of the hype rather than the actual output. But given the inflated sense of their own worth, amplified by their many high profile cheerleaders, addressing the... Continue Reading →