Armchair rhetoric on extreme metal
Words by Jason Kiss Only Death is Real “Only Death is Real” is one of the most endearing slogans of the extreme metalunderground. The phrase was first brought into metal lexicon by Hellhammer, later reformed as Celtic Frost, in the track “Messiah” on their 1983 demo Satanic Rites. Since then, it has become a sacred... Continue Reading →
Eldur: Rituals of Death and NecromancyOut 25th August on ATMF Combines the purposeful militarism of simplistic Swedish black metal with a mystical eccentricity borrowed from modern occultist metal. Whilst balancing these two competing forces occasionally pays off, Eldur lean into basic thrash or melodeath riffing to plug the gaps, thus rendering what could be quite... Continue Reading →
All Powers of DarknessOut 22nd August on Hells Headbangers Medieval Demon, erstwhile outliers of the classic Greek scene, continue their eccentric second life with a run of occultist horror metal pitched plumb on the border between the sublime and the ridiculous. Where 2022’s ‘Black Coven’ was an articulation of shamelessly confident traditional gothic horror tropes... Continue Reading →
Sacrilege InfernusOut 25th July, self-released Access to culture has never been easier. Deciding what to access and spend time with near impossible. People idolise the traditional underground for its asceticism. The implied discipline required to enter an obscure channel of culture. The music itself a challenge of dense, alien sounds born of a hermetically sealed... Continue Reading →
Lord of NightmareOut 25th July on Hessian Firm (originally released in 2006) Endless Dismal Moan, the brainchild of one Chaos 9, who sadly took their own life in 2008, was an enigmatic Japanese black metal entity that typified or even perfected the dark, urbanist turn the genre took in the early 21st Century. Hessian Firm’s... Continue Reading →
Décryptal: SimulacreOut 11th July on Me Saco Un Ojo/Rotted Life Attempts to forge links between the old and the new in death metal via a survey of muscular old school traditions through the crushing swing of the Earache crowd to darker 2010s caverncore. In this endeavour it retains a refreshing focus and coherence, marking it... Continue Reading →
Mortalha Negra: NecromanteOut 18th June on Helldprod Records Essentially a thrash metal rendering of ‘Under a Funeral Moon’. Excitable yet austere, riffs reach through the old school filter, reinjecting archaic speed metal elements into an unambiguously black metal setting. The latter elements of which are deployed as developmental material. This in turn injects the music... Continue Reading →
Vomitum TempestasOut 30th June on Nuclear War Now Productions Texan death metal engages in a distant but often proactive dialogue with the genre’s macabre roots. Blaspherian, Condemner, Imprecation, all are muscular, direct, energetic iterations of death metal. But on closer inspection it becomes apparent that their raw physicality is a façade, a delivery mechanism designed... Continue Reading →
Grog: Sphere of AtrocitiesOut 13th June on Helldprod A collection of generic brutal and semi technical death metal furniture, delivered with the random freneticism of grindcore. Swirling between ideas, Grog are just as liable to hack up the momentum with abandon as they are to repeat themes and riffs in order to hammer them home.... Continue Reading →
Nithe: Funeral DeathOut 30th May on Caligari Records Standard retro black/death/thrash metal conceals a more active imagination than is typical for this beaten and very much deceased horse. Each segment revels in its simplicity, but as an excess of ideas unfurl across each track, one can at least admire the attention to detail in constructing... Continue Reading →
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