Armchair rhetoric on extreme metal
Sepulcrum: LaceratorOut 24th July on Chaos Records Chileโs Sepulcrum land the second album with ease, delivering a near perfect elaboration on 2023โs โLamentations of Immolated Soulsโ without over stretching themselves. If anything they are an even more efficient beast than before, expanding their expressive range whilst keeping the runtime to a crisp thirty six minutes... Continue Reading →
Sallow Moth: Hydrophilous BroodOut 24th July on Willowtip Records Surrealist brutal death metal redrafts elements of โObscuraโ and post 2000s Suffocation, but as with most contemporary avant-garde progressive extreme metal, it conflates stylistic incontinence with a density of ideas. Sure, for solid stretches of this album Sallow Moth work the Rubikโs Cube of tightly packed... Continue Reading →
Death is the Master of this WorldOut 8th July on New Era Productions From the mind of Jan Kruitwagen of Sammath and Kaeck fame comes this new dark ambient project. Split neatly into two fifteen minute segments, in essence what we are presented with is a re-evaluation of ambient black metal. Paradoxically by removing any... Continue Reading →
A hundred death metal albums not from the USA Between 1993 and 1994, death metal popped its head above the underground parapet to peek into the mainstream. From airplay on MTVโs Headbangers Ball, to Morbid Angel being the first death metal band to get major label backing with a signing to Giant Records, to bloody... Continue Reading →
Ultima RequiesOut 26th June on ATMF The third album from this Italian outfit relives the streaming lamentations of the Blazebirth Hall scene, but populates this infamously barren Russian style with stark features by which to navigate. Most obviously via rhythmic variation and clearly marked out phrasing, over and above the addition of rich keyboard decoration... Continue Reading →
Waan van de leegteOut 6th June on Terratur Possessions Similar to the recent Selenite Scrolls in its ability to insert itself into a very crowded style and still find room for a USP. This debut slots in somewhere between early Enslaved and Ulver with a less explicitly folkist orientation. The album washes over the listener... Continue Reading →
Channeling the EgregoreOut 15th May on Medieval Prophecy Records The debut album from this Belgium outfit marries the uncanny, atmospheric mysticism of Beherit and Demoncy with a more symphonic ambition. It borrows the subtle, haunting style of early Ancient or Gehenna, but presents it with a relaxed yet intentional pace. Atmospheric, understated, a little loose... Continue Reading →
ะะฐะทัััััั ะััะฐะฝะฝัะพะผั ะกะฒััะฐะฝะบั (Towards the Last Dawn)Out 29th May on ATMF The debut EP from this Ukrainian outfit is reminiscent of early Abigor in the way it roots a romanticist aspiration in the adventurism of medievally derived melodic lines. But it manages to contain this within an expression of metal at once strikingly energetic and... Continue Reading →
The First GeometryOut 26th April, self-released Somewhere between the arcane mysticism of formative Greek black metal and the barbaric militarism of early Graveland sits this self-released debut. Richly textured keyboard lines dominate the landscape, leaving the guitars to flesh out a more visceral physicality, with ponderous, mid-paced drums furnishing all with a threateningly understated momentum.... Continue Reading →
The dark satanic content mills vs. Angine de Poitrine Never try to go viral. Thereโs a unique embarrassment that comes with trying to go virality. The kind reserved for TV ads that appropriate internet meme culture. An abyssal exercise in the pathetic stemming from the fact that virality, by its very nature, is a freak... Continue Reading →
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