It is fascinating to consider how quickly homogenisation can set in. Over just a few short years death metal went from being the outward frontier of metal to a rigidly prescribed set of rules and expectations that – when not met – buried many creative avenues before they were able to reach fruition. Fledging careers... Continue Reading →

Immolation: Acts of GodOut 18th February on Nuclear Blast Immolation make for an interesting case study in the phantasmagorical journey that death metal has taken since the 1990s. Steered by the nicest power duo in metal in Robert Vigna and Ross Dolan, they can lay claim to a lengthy run of consistently seminal albums from... Continue Reading →

#41 - Sam Biles: Sam Biles from Hideous Mangleus and Goblin (US) joins Necropolis to talk about his exploits, the old days of death metal in the US, the PA scene, some elements about Gary from Goblin being someone truly unique, some of his philosophy about why new “old school” death metal misses the mark,... Continue Reading →

Sinoath: Portraits of Personal DarknessOut 26th February on Hessian Firm Metal is not a style that lends itself to freeform improvisation. Whilst it certainly creates space for elaborate soloing and lengthy instrumental segments that might look like improv, as soon as these elements are committed to record and subjected to the scholarly study of its... Continue Reading →

The term blackened thrash warrants closer scrutiny. Today it’s considered a subgenre, and one that contemporary fans seem to have a near limitless appetite for despite the endless conveyor belt of colour-by-numbers artists that are currently flying its colours. But a strong argument could be made for this being the black metal archetype. Given the... Continue Reading →

#40 - Goths: Shelley (hatemeditations.com) takes the lead today for an outside of the box episode focusing on goth culture. Tim, aka The Blogging Goth, runs a popular goth blog https://theblogginggoth.com/ which focuses on news, commentary, and upcoming events in the UK goth scene. Whenever a major media outlet does a feature on goth culture,... Continue Reading →

Kurokuma: Born of ObsidianOut 4th February, self-released Eight years and a small collection of promising EPs later, Sheffield’s own Kurokuma have landed their debut album in 2022, entitled ‘Born of Obsidian’. Although aesthetically their take on sludge/stoner doom borrows from a wide pool of punk and metal influences, their approach has always been one of... Continue Reading →

Theandric: Flight Among the TombsOut 11th February, self-released The fact that a band like Theandric with an EP like ‘Flight Among the Tombs’ can exist in 2022 is a source of both hope and exasperation. Hope (and confusion) that there are still far flung corners of the world – Detroit no less – where this... Continue Reading →

What the left gets wrong about black metal’s latent radicalism Thus far, the left’s attempts to develop a political counterweight to black metal’s far right tendencies have misunderstood the radical potentials inherent in black metal itself. Rather than jettisoning the deeply problematic elements of black metal’s history wholesale and seeking to build on new, politically... Continue Reading →

Theomachia: The TheosophistOut 4th February on Xenoglossy This conceptually weighty EP self identifies as “gnostic black metal”. Borrowing artwork from William Blake, and drawing heavily on ancient Roman and Greek esotericism, one could be forgiven for thinking that ‘The Theosophist’ would be a confused exercise in sensory overload so common to modern extreme metal with... Continue Reading →