Møl – Diorama
Here’s a band and album specifically for those that want older/early Deafheaven back and thought the new album, Infinite Granite was ….not good (but that’s a whole other discussion…). And yes count me...
View ArticleVorga – Striving Toward Oblivion
Germany’s Vorga burst into the scene about 6 years ago and released an EP, but Striving Toward Oblivion is their debut full length album and showcases a trailblazing style of black metal. Opening this...
View ArticleFalls of Rauros – Key to a Vanishing Future
I’ve been a big fan of Maine’s Falls of Rauros for a while now with the band’s last 2 efforts, 2017s Vigilance Perennial and 2019s Patterns in Mythology making my year-end lists, with the former being...
View ArticleBlackbraid – Blackbraid I
Heading into 2022, I had no idea that this was going to wind up being my most heavily anticipated album of the year. Granted, I’d have to have been some kind of all-seeing mage or wizard or whatever,...
View ArticleAnd Now The Owls Are Smiling – Epitaph
Can someone in the Norfolk (UK) area please go and check on NRE? Seriously, from what I’m hearing on his sixth and final album under his And Now The Owls Are Smiling moniker, he must have undergone...
View ArticleToadeater – Bexadde
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I blindly hit ‘play’ on Bexadde, on Germany’s FDA Records after getting the CD in the mail along with the new Slaughterday. With that moniker, I was maybe expecting...
View ArticleIzthmi – Leaving This World, Leaving It All Behind
In 2020 I reviewed Seattle’s atmospheric black metal band- Izthmi’s impressive debut The Arrows of Our Ways. The band had only released a prior demo and I had never heard of them before and was blown...
View ArticleLightlorn – These Nameless Worlds EP
With a name like Lightlorn ( ‘having no light’ or ‘bereft of light’) you’d think the debut EP from these Gothenburg atmospheric/post black metallers would be a truly grim, depressive affair. However,...
View ArticleWitcheR – Lélekharang
I heard a couple of great Summoning inspired bands back in 2021; Norway’s Urdôl Ur and their debut, Seven Portals To The Arcane Realms and Withered Land‘s The Endless Journey. But nothing so far in...
View ArticleFirtan – Marter
Germany’s Pagan/Black Metal act, Firtan return with their third full-length album – Marter. I am new to the sounds of Firtan and the Pagan/Black Metal influences are something I am starting to enjoy,...
View ArticleLunar Mercia – Leaving the Fragile Space
A late 2022 release that I got my hands on even later in 2022, Lunar Mercia is a post/atmospheric black metal band from Birmingham in the UK, and resides in the same dark, dreamy, melodic, jangly space...
View ArticleWoods of Desolation – The Falling Tide
It’s been 9 years since the Australian one-man project (aka D.) Woods of Desolation dropped As The Stars, one of 2014’s more critically acclaimed black metal albums that leaned hard into the Ghostbath,...
View ArticleCarathis – Moonstone & Amethyst
Carathis is a one-man project helmed by one, Erech Leleth, who also serves in Grandeur as well as Ancient Mastery, Narzissus, and Golden Blood. He’s been pretty prolific since 2021 with a hand full of...
View ArticleNumeron – Road to Valhalla
Indonesia Vallendusk is one of my favorite atmospheric black metal bands, so when I heard that Numeron was from also Indonesia, played the same style of black metal, AND have a concept album based on...
View ArticleFathomage – Autumn’s Dawn, Winter’s Darkness
Fathomage is a one-man, Australian, self-confessed Orthodox Christian who goes by the name of ‘Akul’. But don’t let the orthodox Christian thing put you off, as his music isn’t preachy ‘white metal’ at...
View ArticleBlackBraid – II
Anyone who’s paid any attention to the world of metal music in the last two years probably needs no introduction to Blackbraid at this point which, in and of itself, is pretty astounding. In fact,...
View ArticlePasséisme – Alternance
It still amazes me, even 2 years later, 3 Russian death metal dudes (all three are in the HM2 worshipping Wombripper) delivered one of 2021’s best black metal records in Eminence. And it still stands...
View ArticleWooden Throne – Eternal Wanderer of the Night Sky
I usually check out almost all of the Purity Through Fire promos we get, as I usually know what I am getting; frosty or raw, or some sort of decent to excellent quality old school or second-wave...
View ArticleSühnopfer – Nous sommes d’Hier
I didn’t discover this French one-man (Ardraos) melodic black metal project until the third album in 2019, Hic Regnant Borbonii Manes. However, I really enjoyed it (honestly, I’m not sure how it didn’t...
View ArticlePrimordial – How it Ends
In the end, how do you want to be remembered? Will you be remembered at all? The ultimate weight of our own legacy hangs like a formless specter, bearing down on us with every waking moment, growing...
View ArticleFélonie – De sève et de sang
I grabbed the prom for this Swiss one-man project as the moniker, album title and French song titles screamed Antiq Records-styled medieval, epic, and atmospheric black metal (i.e Passéisme,...
View ArticleLightlorn – At One With The Night Sky
I kinda dug, These Nameless Worlds, the debut EP from this atmospheric/melodic black metal duo from Sweden. Despite the light-less moniker, it was a cosmic-themed, uplifting, bright take on the genre...
View ArticleIhsahn – Ihsahn
I don’t know if Ihsahn’s new album qualifies for one of my most anticipated of 2024 because I received the (streaming-only) promo slightly before it came out. It still hit me out of nowhere. I will...
View ArticleRotting Christ – Pro Xristoy
35 years. Existence and longevity come from quality and excellence. Releasing album after album with diabolical precision has been the Rotting Christ ethic throughout their career, since 1988 when they...
View ArticleAcathexis – Immense
I went blindly into the promo for this release, as I have been in an ‘atmospheric black metal’ mood of late. But then I dug into the project more and was even more excited as it’s a multinational trio...
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