Armchair rhetoric on extreme metal
Oh no, a cheap clickbait listacle! Fear not, however, I come with good intentions. Staying abreast of new material in 2026 feels like navigating a tiny dinghy through a great storm of biblical scale. All you can do is cling on and stay the course through the sensory overload. The annual AOTY roundup functioning more... Continue Reading →
Dire Garden of the AgesOut 29th May on Naturmacht Productions The second album from this Irish solo project could be framed as a transfer of styles from one zone to another. Whilst the debut behaved like an epic fable heavily rooted in Viking and Celtic metal stylings, the follow up offers a rather dramatic volte-face... Continue Reading →
Words by P.B. Elsewhere in this blog, it has been said that there are four metal subgenres -- heavy, speed (incorrectly called โthrashโ), death, and black.ย However, in the article where this was first put forth, little justification was given as to why there were this many subgenres, and what the lines dividing them were.ย ... 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 →
Fournier: DemoOut 22nd May on Caligari Records Angular, tangential death metal chases the dragon of compositional unity meshed with explicit complexity in the spirit of Immolation or Morbid Angel. The production is relatively tinny by modern standards, even for a demo. With a metallic snare cutting through the factory settings distortion, and choppy bass lines... Continue Reading →
The Secret of DeathOut 21st May on Xtreem Music Since the departure of Jarno Nurmi in 2016, Tommi Grรถnqvist has steered the good ship Desecresy in painfully incremental steps from one album to the next, a process that feels like itโs finally bloomed on their latest album โThe Secret of Deathโ. ย Namely a synthesis of... Continue Reading →
MournholdOut 15th May on True Cult Records Following a promising debut that stitched a foggy haze of thrash and melodic death metal with a thread of black metal, Tyrannus push this loose alliance to breaking point and gamble it all on the second album. Approaching โMournholdโ is akin to taking the first few sips of... Continue Reading →
Mรถhrkvlth: Gwenojennoรน An Ankounac'hOut 5th May on Antiq Sickly sweet post hardcore rendered in black metal form. Every riff geared toward emotional catharsis, achieving nothing as a result given the fact that no room is left for conflict, tension, strife, contrast. The total lack of patience demonstrable in the melodic signature of modern black metal... Continue Reading →
Permit me to perform a magic trick. Having not listened to a note of Darkthrone's latest album, behold, as I begin typing a review: โanother fearless, authentic, and infectiously fun tour through classic 70s and 80s metal, track X leans more into the classic doom direction of the last three albums whilst track Y takes... 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 →
Hate Meditations 