SHADES OF BLACK: THE STONE, NIMBIFER, SYLLOGOMANIA, RAAT, ANAGNEIA

(written by Islander)

Only five selections today, but there’s still a lot here — three EP-length records and a complete album, in addition to a lead-off song by a respected Balkan band from their next full-length. (Having more time to pursue my own perfidious activities is one silver lining to the personal cloud of enduring my wife’s absence while she’s off partying with one of her two sisters in Nevada this weekend.)

 

THE STONE (Serbia)

Because I’m lazy as well as frenetic, I might as well repeat my introduction to this important band from a time when we premiered a song from their 2017 album Teatar apsurda:

Serbia’s The Stone is one of the longest-running, still-active extreme metal bands in the Balkans. Originally launched in the old Yugoslavia in 1996 under the name Stone To Flesh, the band have pursued their musical inspirations for two tumultuous decades that saw the re-establishment of an independent Serbia, brutal conflict in neighboring Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, and cycles of political upheaval within the country as well.

Eight years have passed since then, and I negligently failed to pay enough attention here to their intervening album Kosturnice (2021), but won’t make the same mistake for their new one, Kletva. Just a few days ago their label Immortal Frost Productions premiered a song from the new album named “Kletve lovor“.

There is always a risk with underground metal bands who have long careers that the music will become formulaic as the passing years inevitably divert attention to jobs and families and also leech energy, spirit, and a desire to challenge oneself. The Stone don’t seem to have fallen prey to that risk.

They come storming right from the start in this new song, but even then the riffing mercurially whirls, rises, and falls, simultaneously creating auras of intrigue, glory, and maybe even despair — as well as viciousness.

The drums vividly and variably kick the pulse; the gritty, savage snarls and howls are authentically inflamed; the music expands to near-panoramic proportions, but also rapidly throbs and becomes dark and menacing. The song also includes a magnificent guitar solo, leading to further twists and turns in a jaw-dropping finale.

Nope, nothing formulaic or dull about this song. It’s an elaborate thriller.

Immortal Frost will release Kletva on November 28th.

https://lnk.to/kletva
https://immortalfrostproductions1.bandcamp.com/album/kletva
https://www.facebook.com/thestonehorde
https://thestonehorde.bandcamp.com

 

NIMBIFER (Germany)

We’ve written about all of Nimbifer‘s releases since their debut demo in 2019, most recently Dan Barkasi‘s review of their 2024 debut album Der b​ö​se Geist. Two days ago they followed that album with an EP released by Vendetta Records. Its name is Vom Gipfel; an online translation tool tells me this means “From the Summit”.

In line with that title, the first song is “Der Berg” (The Mountain). Although the drums steadily clop, the bass is feverish, and the riffing submerges us in dense, corrosive blizzards of sound — sounds that channel feelings of melancholy and sorrow. The drumming eventually becomes frantic as well, just in time for wild, reverberating cries to further intensify the increasingly stricken nature of the music.

When the drums slow again, the riffing becomes slightly less expansive and immersive but no less powerfully moving in its apparent expression of regret, yearning, and grief. The rhythm section’s elaborate performance is worth special attention — though the surround-sound nature of the wave-like riffing may make that difficult on a first listen. Only near the end do the music and gasping vocals become more poignant and haunting as the drums rattle on.

The EP flows seamlessly from that stunning first song to “Das Ende“. Deftly picked notes with a folkish but still moody resonance introduce it against a glimmering ambient backdrop. Shrill feedback severs that spell, and the music then suddenly flares and flows in tremendous cascades again, propelled by blasting beats and fronted by unbridled yells of wrenching torment.

As in the first song, the rhythm section’s variable maneuvers are worth special attention, but once more the dense riffing, increasingly distressing in its moods, has a wholly engulfing impact. Somehow a striving lead guitar pierces through the tempest and the tumult, fiery and feverishly flickering.

Sounds of cold wind at the end of “Das Ende” flow into the final song, “-Rückkehr-” (which seems to mean “Return”). Nimbifer then introduce a gentle orchestral collage of quivering strings and dark droning that create a mysterious and ghostly atmosphere, apparently repeating their pattern of ebbing their music’s intensity before another wrenching storm surge breaks open again.

But in this case, no tempest lies ahead in “-Rückkehr-“. Yet the ethereal music swells; brightly darting keys (which sound futuristic) emerge along with ghostly wails; and the track ends in a sudden shock. The song isn’t nearly as dramatic, as overpowering, or as emotionally compelling as the EP’s first two songs, and that seems like a wise choice. In addition to its role in the musical narrative Nimbifer have created, it allows a space for the listener’s recovery.

https://vendetta-records.bandcamp.com/album/vom-gipfel
https://www.facebook.com/vendettacult

 

SYLLOGOMANIA (Poland)

Man, how to sum up this next album? That’s proven to be a brain-wracking exercise. Well, here’s how my interweb friend Rennie did it in his starkweather Substack a week or so ago:

Syllogomania is Anna Irena Groo’s psychotic black metal project where the Krakow native has thrown down the gauntlet, guitars, bass, drum programming to document “the daily life of a child raised amidst mould, bugs, tight corridors of bags and dusty boxes that no one could touch.” Sinister, frantic and hell bent on rubbing our faces in urban blight.

This is what you expect from the Polish scene – dissonant, hypnotic, reeking venom. Great riffing, nicely textured detailing, the bass carries a lot of weight and melodic undertow. Final song is to die for, in keeping with code-nouveau gloaming gloom and dis-chordant melodicism and a vocal assist from Stawrogin (Gruzja, Odraza, Totenmesse.) Impressive debut outing.

I should just leave things there, but of course I won’t.

The first song is the one that hooked me hard. In addition to being in first position, it shares the name of the band and the album title, so I guess they intended it as a signpost of what they’ve gotten up to on the album.

Rhythmically, “Syllogomania” (the song) sounds like a folk dance, like a polka perhaps, and the mournful melody hints a bit at Klezmer music — though I hasten to add that I’m no expert in either tradition. The music’s intensity grows and grows until feverishly rippling dual guitars, blasting drums, frightening howls, and raw roars take over. That’s an electrifying but also disturbing change, one that seems to channel both desperation and rage.

The music’s fevers manifest in different ways, including through the bass patterns and the drum variations, until a moaning and wailing solo guitar pours out its misery — soon joined by exhilarating drum-fills, vividly chiming and swirling guitar-leads, and an expansive overflow of intensity — but with folkish strumming seeming to dance again at the end.

The temptation is great to continue going track by track — and I hope you’ll do that through listening but I won’t do it through words. I’ll only reinforce my urging by calling out that the vocals remain usually raw and raging, but with some variations (still harrowing, even in the stirring guest singing that arises amidst the final song); that the drumming has a visceral immediacy; that the bass performances, while subtle in sound are nimble in execution; that the guitars intertwine tones both corrosive and piercing; and that the moods of the remaining songs, rendered with stylistic diversity, are in line with the inspiration quoted way up above — desolating moods of bleakness and bitterness, of degradation and pain, of disgust and furious defiance.

This isn’t an easy ride, but I found no temptation to tear myself away from it despite how tormented and grim the music often is. The songs are very well-written, produced with power and nuance, and dynamically create troughs and crests of sound and emotional intensity that help keep one rooted in place.

https://syllogomania.bandcamp.com/album/syllogomania
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550110088744

 

RAAT (India)

You already know I love Raat. Or at least you do if you’ve spent more time than is healthy sneaking your head under these Sunday carnival tents I stick up and stretch out. I’ve yet to be disappointed, even though I’m never entirely sure (which is part of the attraction) what Raat‘s alter ego Sushant Rawat is going to do from one release to the next.

The newest release is White Fire, an unsurprisingly very impressive four-song strike launched on October 16th.

The long title song which opens the EP is incendiary, the guitars creating fire-bright and blazing sensations above groaning low frequencies, furious blast-beats, and thunderous double-bass munitions, coupled with white-hot screams. But it’s also mystically splendorous, thanks to beautifully chiming and mysteriously sparkling notes, daunting and majestic musical cascades of panoramic swath, and notably nimble bass nuances. There’s a detectable ebb and flow in the song’s energy and scale, but mainly it’s flat-out breathtaking.

“Crystal Dream” is another long one, but still shorter than that opener. Initially it presents a more celestial, more cosmic, aspect, something in the vicinity of the Vangelis musical nebulae, but it also evolves. Bright notes ring and dance; the bass is a warming presence; and the drumming favors moderate rocking cadences; but around and beneath them the backing music seems to become heavy and ominous. Even those brightly ringing notes begin to sound sorrow-bound. The vocals eventually arrive in the distance, and they’re shattering. A very dark journey indeed.

You might be in need of a bit of uplift after that one. I’m not sure the relatively brief “Quiet” will provide it. It’s ethereal, delicate, beautiful, but also sizzling and gasping, a very moody meditation.

And then the EP closes with “Haven“. It seems to pick up some of the sounds and moods of both “Quiet” and the overture of “Crystal Dream,” but it intensifies. The dense, swarming riffage is caustic and borderline-deranged, the kind of derangement caused by confusion and pain — and the vocals are once more terrifying in their larynx-shredding explosiveness. The song continues moving between these phases of wonder and torment, like a continuing inner struggle, and also brings them together.

https://raat.bandcamp.com/album/white-fire
https://linktr.ee/raatzone
https://www.facebook.com/raatzone/

 

ANAGNEIA (France)

It might tempt some people to sum up Anagneia‘s demo 2025 (released in September) as raw, depressive black metal, but that would sell it short. I’m not even sure that shorthand would tell people very much, but anyway, there’s a lot more going on here besides abrasive sounds and broken moods.

In the first place, not all the sounds are abrasive, as will quickly become apparent in the long opening song “Car il n’est qu’un maudit“. There’s certainly a corrosive lo-fi quality to the dense riffing that immediately assaults the senses, but from within that scalding morass ethereal synths wondrously shiver and soar. Likewise, the distorted vocals are tremendously ugly, venting the words in strangled, croaking snarls, but wildly fervent cries also rise up.

The encompassing harshness of the music there doesn’t completely blow away the heavily undulating bass, the muffled pop of the drums, the lividly whirring and dismally throbbing contortions of the lead guitar (also harsh in tone), or the mystical, tidal course of the keys. Undeniably, the mood is depressive and disturbing, but also vast and unearthly, and in some respects even neoclassically elegant.

If that opener doesn’t strike a chord within you, the rest of the demo won’t either, but if it does you’ll want to continue, because in the other songs Anagneia continues intertwining the same ingredients, albeit in slightly different formulations. And although the moods rarely reach a point of holding out much hope, there’s something gloriously thrilling about the exotic ecstasies in the higher audio reaches of “La Laguna Negra“, as it approaches the end, and in the closing instrumental “Aube“.

The contrasts between caustic corrosiveness and glittering sheen persist throughout. Sometimes the harsh riffing viciously drills or slowly moves in dark and dramatic waves as well as brutally scathing like sandstorms or convulsively slithering, and sometimes the shrill tones weirdly and frantically quiver or wail as well as cinematically flow. The near-clean vocals sound frighteningly fanatical as they chant in “Akelarre“; the ugly ones remain as macabre as gargoyles.

Yes, the music has the potential to crash your eardrums like a highway pileup, but I have found it completely captivating. Despite the fact that I’m constantly flitting like a fly from one musical thing to another, this one I’ve gone back to more than once, like the odd captive who escapes and then begs to be captured again.

P.S. Anagneia describes itself as “the projection of Nyctarath‘s thoughts, musical heritage. French literature, rewilding activism.”

https://anagneia.bandcamp.com/album/anagneia-demo-2025

Whew! Well, that’s it for me today. Hope you enjoy what’s left of your weekend, and GO MARINERS.