(written by Islander)
Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Let’s immediately address what you’re about to hear and then come back and fill in some details about who’s doing it.
Figuratively speaking at least, it might be smart for you to strap on body armor and a tough helmet before you press play on “Umbrage Earned,” the Plague Curse song we’re now premiering, because it’s a roaring blast front of weaponized sound. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
We have for you today what we think will be a big eye-popping surprise, a carnival of musical wonders, something like a black metal rock opera, namely a full stream of the forthcoming second album by the evil Italian wizards in Winternius.
Titled Underwater Darkness, it’s set for release on September 12th by the Dusktone label, and it follows the band’s 2020 debut album Open the Portal and their 2023 EP Kultra Nightmares.
Still at the helm is founder Roby Grinder, also known as Winternius during his time with Sacradis, a band active in the Italian black metal underground from 1996-2011. The lineup through the years has included members and former members of Sacradis, Spite Extreme Wing, Abysmal Grief, and Necrodeath.
Winternius call their music “Black Rising Metal”, and you may understand why when you hear this album. It’s certainly not conventional black metal by any stretch. Up in the first paragraph we’ve already hinted why, but would like to explain in greater (but hopefully not too tedious) detail. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Beginning in 2007 the Crimea-based Ukrainian band Ildverden released four albums, the last of those in 2015. In the 10 years since then, of course, Ildverden‘s homeland has been wracked by increasingly awful upheavals, and yet the band’s sole participant Kvolkaldur has chosen to persist, much as his country has, and so next month will see the release of Ildverden‘s stunning fifth album, Thou Not Shalt.
It should not be surprising that after 10 years — and especially those last 10 years — both Ildverden‘s music and lyrical themes have changed. As summed up by the labels that will release the album, the lyrics “have somewhat moved away from the pagan theme towards nihilism, detachment from what is happening and what exists, reflections and regrets, with moods of existentialist philosophy,” plunging “into melancholic deep reflection on the meaning and meaninglessness of existence itself.”
As for the music, the songs are more compact and reflect the emergence of different stylistic amalgams, of which we provide a stirring example today through our premiere of the album track “Down To the Hole“. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Achathras is the name of a black metal band who surfaced for the first time earlier this year with two singles released in May and August. Cult Never Dies, the label that will release their forthcoming debut album, describes the Achathras three-person lineup as one that “features anonymous musicians from acclaimed and long-running black metal acts.”
And indeed, we don’t know who they are or where they’re located. They apparently want their music to speak entirely for itself, as an expression of their homage to the European black metal scene of the late ’90s. Which is just fine, because the music speaks in ways that really seize attention — as you’ll learn when you hear the band’s third single that we’re premiering today. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
What goes around comes around, and sometimes when fortune smiles the circle shines — though in the case of Wild Beyond‘s music, “shines” isn’t quite the right word. We’ll find some more accurate ones in a minute or two.
What went around the first time was this Philadelphia band’s self-titled debut album in 2023. Gravitating to it thanks to Adam Burke‘s spectacular cover art, we found rumbling and ravaging blackened thrash, but much more intricate and unpredictable in its maneuvers than much of what rips and races along under that genre banner. The music was often vicious and ugly but with a plethora of moving parts that were fascinating to follow. At times it produced hallucinatory effects; at others it became gloriously exhilarating.
And what’s coming back around now is a new Wild Beyond EP ominously named Black Sites In Lower Chambers, which will be released on October 17th in cooperation with Fiadh Productions. For reasons you will soon discover we are very happy to help spread the word through our premiere of a diabolical song off the EP that’s titled “Slaughtering the Lion“. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Even after the enthusiasm that greeted I, Voidhanger Records‘ release of Unsouling‘s 2024 debut album Vampiric Spiritual Drain, it’s likely that the band’s Minneapolis-based creator Andy Schoengrund still remained best-known for his work in Feral Light. That’s likely to change after the release of Unsouling‘s forthcoming second album, Outward Streams Of Devotional Woe, and not simply because Feral Light has split up. As Andy has shared with us:
“Outward Streams Of Devotional Woe differs from its predecessor in that the meandering exploration of the first album has been replaced with a more sure-footed and focused journey. The anchor of black metal with the bleed into gothic, dark wave, and death metal influences is still very much present, but it is more reigned in and pointed.”
The new album will be co-released by I, Voidhanger Records, Canti Erectici, and Unsouling, and to help pave the road toward its October 3 release we’re now premiering the album’s first single, “Your Momentary Passing“. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
At the end of this week, the Bandcamp Friday for September, Willowtip Records will launch pre-orders for a new album from Minneapolis-based Kostnatění. Titled Přílišnost (Excess), it’s this constantly surprising project’s third full-length overall, and follows the blend of technical black metal and Middle Eastern folk revealed in 2023’s Úpal (“Heatstroke”) — an album we described as “extravagantly head-spinning – dizzying, dazzling, and disorienting.”
Willowtip states that on the new album Kostnatění “has packed into this bizarre base an even stranger array of influences that must be heard to be believed,” resulting in “the band’s heaviest, most compact and violent songs to date.”
You will be able to test these claims today as we premiere the first advance track from the album, a song named “Samotář (Loner)“. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
On October 3rd Dolorem Records will release Soul Awakening, the debut album of the French death metal band Horror Within. After listening to the song from the album we’re about to present, it would be a good guess as to why they named it “Tears of Angels” — because they apparently want to make the heavens cry and plead for mercy.
The music, which draws influence from the likes of Entombed and Dismember, is mercilessly mauling, brutally bone-smashing, reflexively head-moving, and as chilling as it is electrifying — and that’s true of the album as a whole. While noting that the band draw on “the roots of Swedeath — that saturated sound typical of the HM-2 pedal”, Dolorem makes another accurate observation about the album:
Horror Within isn’t just organized chaos: it’s a constant search for balance between old-school savagery and a modern aesthetic. Syncopated rhythms, dissonant textures, unexpected breaks, oppressive atmospheres — the band injects contemporary tension into their music, without ever sacrificing coherence or impact.
(written by Islander)
It’s tempting to think of the French artist Hazard as a musical Jekyll and Hyde. In his longest-lived solo project, Les Chants Du Hasard, he is committed to “revisiting nineteenth-century symphonic music in the light of a black metal attitude” (to quote the label I, Voidhanger Productions). In his more recent solo project Hasard (again to quote the label), “the perspective is reversed: the darkest and most dissonant black metal is the fertile ground on which fascinating orchestral melodies with a dark, melancholic and resigned mood flourish.”
And so it’s tempting to compare these two different aspects of Hazard‘s musical talents to the creations of Robert Louis Stevenson (who frantically wrote his novella in the grip of illness or drugs or both) — to compare them to Dr. Jekyll, the educated and erudite Victorian-era physician who was nevertheless beset with persistent urges he considered depraved, and the outright evil and remorseless monstrosity of his alter ego Edward Hyde, in whom Jekyll fruitlessly sought through potion to confine impulses he wished to suppress, an experiment that ended in despair.
I don’t intend to press the comparison too far, despite the fact that photos of Hazard themselves seem to be set in a much older era than our own, but it serves at least a superficial purpose, because it may help you prepare yourself for the ravages of Hasard‘s new album Abgnose, which I, Voidhanger will release at the end of this week (a Bandcamp Friday). Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Ten years ago we premiered Total Vacuum, the debut demo by the Swiss band Antiversum shortly before its release. Almost eight years ago we then premiered the title song from the band’s debut album, Cosmos Comedenti. Finally, Antiversum are coming back with a second album, this one named De Nemesis Omnes et Omnia, set for release on September 19th by Amor Fati Productions, and once again we have a premiere.
Upon learning about the album I couldn’t resist investigating the meaning of its title. It’s not a classical Latin phrase, but seems to be Antiversum‘s own construction. Most likely, it literally translates to “Of nemesis, everyone and everything”. An AI comment I didn’t ask for when google-searching suggested that it means “all people and all things are either subject to or derived from nemesis,” and possibly as “a declaration that divine retribution and vengeance apply to everyone and everything in existence.” I suppose the reference to divinity derives from the fact that Nemesis was, after all, a Greek god.
These interpretations of the album title, though unconfirmed, would be in line with the fundamental nihilism inherent in Antiversum‘s profoundly disturbing musical representations of horrifying menace, cosmic collapse, and the vast maw of the void that awaits. Continue reading »