Hindsight’s a wonderful thing. Looking back over the decades we can see metal’s development carried out in waves rather than a simple timeline of clear, deterministic steps. One thing that always correlates however, is when the money is followed over artistic intent, quality is reduced to fluke. We see it in metal’s inception in the... Continue Reading →

Sorgelig: Sorgelig (2020) Greece’s Sorgelig return with a self-titled EP; a final offering dropped into our laps for us to explore before going into hibernation to escape the old Rona-19. This sees them further elaborate on their densely packed but fluid approach to no nonsense black metal, in the tradition of early Gorgoroth amongst others.... Continue Reading →

Of all the old school revivalist trends of the last decade, the return to pre-1990 blackened thrash metal has to be one of the most successful. Not only in pulling black metal back from the brink of disappearing completely up its own arsehole, but also by reiterating the true roots of black metal it brings... Continue Reading →

Despite boasting some of metal’s most ground-breaking albums over the years, the UK has never really had a handle on black metal. Why is that? The lush green countryside has never inspired the same awe and reverence as the rest of Europe? More twee than grim? Soul crushing urban life has dominated the extreme end... Continue Reading →

Zealotry: At the Nexus of All Stillborn Worlds (2018) Zealotry’s third LP ‘At the Nexus of All Stillborn Worlds’ is a many tentacled beast of elastic progressive death metal mastery. It’s an album that reaches for the very top of the shelf when it comes to high concept, otherworldly death metal, heavily referencing the rhythmic... Continue Reading →

It’s a question that remains at the very heart of punk ever since its inception. For every single offshoot of punk over the years, the looming spectre of uncertain longevity has all but killed off the promise of evolution. The germinal of every punk movement is primitive, reactionary, but also hamstrung from the start by a... Continue Reading →

HOR: Exitium (2019) HOR is new black metal outfit from Greece, which – based on the increasing number of newer Greek bands making headways overseas – is quickly reasserting itself as a black metal hotspot. ‘Exitium’ is their debut LP released in 2019. A streamlined and direct battering of four songs that stretch to just... Continue Reading →

Two more Swedish death metal offerings that have rightly been canonized, although, due to the relatively brief careers of the bands that spawned them, it’s arguable that the albums themselves are revered over and above the artists. They tap into an informal trend within death metal in the early 1990s that seems to have all... Continue Reading →

Sweven: The Eternal Resonance (2020) The long awaited follow up to Morbus Chron’s revered 2015 offering of the same name, Robert Andersson returns with new project Sweven, and a new album: ‘The Eternal Resonance’. Much like the album itself, my feelings on this are a flaccid cocktail of meandering, unfocused, directionless non-events. In one sense... Continue Reading →

It’s been a tough decade for black metal. False profits have lurked round every corner. Reasonable metrics of quality have been dismissed as the elitist ramblings of arbitrary cultural gatekeepers, or worse, just plain backward looking. This has allowed shallow novelty or avant-garde free-for-alls to define not only what counts as new and innovative, but... Continue Reading →