Armchair rhetoric on extreme metal
Benediction, Part IIOut 5th December on NoEvDia The second instalment of the Benediction series sees this Polish entity expand on their torturous, laboured brand of black metal ritualism, pitching a mood somewhere between depressive black metal and second wave Norwegian trademarks. Mayhem stands as an obvious influence through clever manipulation of ringing, open strings to... Continue Reading →
Malign ApotheosisOut 28th November on Hells Headbangers What โMalign Apotheosisโ lacks in fresh ideas it makes up for in just how tight and focused the music is. Vintage Tampa style riffing โ most obviously Morbid Angel, but vestiges of fellow Morrisound regulars Malevolent Creation make their voice heard โ collide with modernist percussive death metal,... Continue Reading →
Aurรซ EntuluvaOut 27th November on La Caverna Records Itโs been a while for Cรณndor, but I feel that with album number five this Colombian outfit have finally made a listener friendly album. Cรณndor articulate a form of ambient metal with tools normally associated with melodic death/doom. A liminal, veiled quality cloaks the music, as if... Continue Reading →
Verdadero PoderOut 19th November, self-released The second offering from this Chilean powerhouse of speed metal smooths off the rougher edges of the debut, seeing a more focused, weighty, yet no less frantic entity come into sharp relief. Letalis thread the needle of maturity by employing a fatter production, tighter songwriting, and a more intentional flow... Continue Reading →
The Descent of Mortals PastOut 14th November on I, Voidhanger Records Following the outpouring of material from the Midnight Odyssey camp in recent years itโs probably about time Dis Pater took his foot off the gas with his flagship project. Itโs not so much the amount of releases that was causing a problem but the... 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 →
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 →
Poems of SpellcraftOut 24th October on Chaos Records The debut album from this German entity draws on a thread of UK black metal (such as it is) most infamously expressed by Cradle of Filth and Hecate Enthroned, later by Old Corpse Road and A Forest of Stars. Histrionic, gothic, and unconcerned with what the listener... Continue Reading →
Pestilential HymnsOut 20th October on Memento Mori Thaumatrugy upgrade themselves from the competent but commonplace chasmic death/doom of the debut into a more holistic statement of extreme metal. Reinvigorating the increasingly murky territory between black and death metal with a clarity that can only come from a rigorous riff discipline. The demo phase of Swedish... Continue Reading →
Hate Meditations 