Armchair rhetoric on extreme metal
Gloombound: Dreaming DelusionOut 21st November on Gruesome Records Scrapes together the more downbeat elements of death/doom as a means of conjuring up a foundation for self-indulgent, achingly tedious balladeering. Much like Ahab before them, the pacing and content of these compositions is a hollow faรงade, leaning on depressed tempos to contrive tension and drama where... Continue Reading →
Pลรญliลกnost (Excess)Out 7th November on Willowtip Records Coming off the back of the adventurous โรpalโ in 2023, the latest offering from Kostnatฤnรญ is a case study in growing pains. Todayโs release incontinence epidemic has rendered the difficult second album a thing of the past. There is no build up of digestive materials before the ultimate... Continue Reading →
Death Summer 2025 was not kind to metal. The death of Ozzy was every bit as a dramatic and stage managed as expected. Somehow surprising us all despite the very literal realisation of the inevitable. The suicide of Nisse Karlen prompted me to undergo a detailed re-appraisal of Sacremantumโs discography. Their set at Septemberโs Cosmic... Continue Reading →
Seven Bloodied RampartsOut 14th November on Caligari Records (originally released in 2010) This reissue of British crust oddity Bretwaldas of Heathen Doom gives us the opportunity to scrutinise what is essentially Amebix reimagined through the lens of Time Team (a twee as fuck 90s TV programme about archaeological digs, for any non British readers), and... Continue Reading →
Depths of SufferingOut 31st October on Lavadome Productions The rough presentation of this album cloaks a well oiled machine of dramatic, borderline orchestral death metal. The musicโs darkness emerges not from a drab, introspective melancholia, but from a pervasive, ambient gloom, as if we were in the presence of some unknowably vast presence, be it... Continue Reading →
SAD: Fullmoonโs Bestial AwakeningOut 31st October on Purity Through Fire SAD continue their quest to appropriate generic second wave black metal sweet-nothings into what is essential punky rock โnโ roll. Despite the length of this album, and indeed the considerable girth of the tracks within, there is little to suggest they have expanded into a... Continue Reading →
Ialdabaoth: G.O.A.T. / S.C.O.P.E.Out 13th March on All Is Threat Lo-fi, frantic black metal pulling from the futurist undercurrent of the genre, here reimagined as a random, feral entity, defined by illogical fits of violence, laboured interludes of despair, and uncanny structuralism. Despite the demo quality production โ something utterly incapable of containing the flamboyant... Continue Reading →
Christus VenariOut 12th September on Personal Records Choppy, frantic death metal channels the frenetic energy of early Deicide into an explicitly gothic darkness. Borrowing the aesthetic material accrued from more populist extreme metal strains in the form of early 2000s Behemoth, refocusing what was previously empty fanfare into an efficient, tight, yet no less diverse... Continue Reading →
(There are only four) Metal subgenres donโt exist. I think weโve imagined them all. Iโve run the numbers, and by my count thereโs only ever been four. โHow could we have been so wrong about this?โ you ask. I donโt know, but Iโm going to expend considerable effort wildly speculating regardless. I curse my spare... Continue Reading →
UnwellOut 31st October, self-released Somewhere between jazz, industrial, progressive doom, and ambient comes this concept EP preoccupied with the theme of mental degradation. The narrative follows an elderly dementia patient in a nursing home, โhaunted by the spirits of two children who claim he murdered them decades agoโ. In keeping with the artistโs moniker, the... Continue Reading →
Hate Meditations 