SHADES OF BLACK: LUCTUS, NATÜRGEIST, MANIA, ARKHAAIK, TRYPANON, DOWNWARD

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Jul 132025
 

(written by Islander)

Although this Sunday’s collection includes varying shades and phases of black metal I would say they have unsettling sensations of madness and murder in common, and most of them feature a muscular heart-hammering punch as well as abundant doses of crazed ferocity and mind-bending psychosis.

In many instances you’ll also encounter some of the most unhinged vocals you’re likely to find outside the hideous real-world history of self-immolation.

Only in extreme metal could an introduction like that qualify as “enticing,” but I know our audience well enough that I’m sure it will be. Continue reading »

EMBERTHRONE: “CURSIVE”

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Jul 112025
 

(Sacramento-based DGR reviews a very recently released EP by Sacramento-based Emberthrone, and comes away happy.)

Sacramento’s Emberthrone are one we’ve kept a curious eye on for a little bit now. Part of a small-town-sized wave of deathcore-leaning projects that sprang up in the lockdown years wherein a lot of people suddenly had a bunch of free time out of nowhere for some reason, Emberthrone seemed like a solid union with a lot of potential just based off of its lineup alone at the time. Uniting some of the scene’s workhorses for vocals and drums in the form of Monte Bernard and Gabe Seeber, the group’s complete portrait included bassist Quentin Garcia and guitarist Martin Bianchini.

Their group’s four-song debut Godless Wonder found them a home on Seek & Strike, a label that has slowly developed an arc for being the home of boutique ass-kickers in prefix-core heavy form. Godless Wonder was a reliably solid brick of music that fell perfectly in line with a lot of the bruisers that’ve emerged from California’s filing cabinet over the years. In the three years hence, though, the lineup for Emberthrone has remained fairly solid save for what seems to be a new face behind the kit, translating into an interesting round two for the band.

Now more matured and gelled together as a band, Emberthrone returned in early-July with a second EP bearing the name Cursive that seems to be forged by experience and a stronger vision of what sort of project they want to be, while also much more determined to throw its heft around than they did before. Continue reading »

ABIGAIL WILLIAMS – A VOID WITHIN EXISTENCE

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Jul 102025
 

(Andy Synn provides some advance insight into the new album from Abigail Williams, out 18 July)

Let me be frank about something… I have been lucky enough to have had access to this album for much, much longer than most people.

Long enough, in fact, for me to fall in love with it, fall out of love with it, rediscover it all over again, and have the opportunity to totally reappraise it in light of my long-running relationship with the band and their music.

And, let me tell you, there’s a chance that maybe… just maybe… this will finally be the album which garners Abigail Williams the respect they’ve long deserved.

Continue reading »

IN THE COMPANY OF SERPENTS – A CRACK IN EVERYTHING

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Jul 092025
 

(Andy Synn has thoughts to share about the new album from In The Company of Serpents, out Friday)

This genre that we call “Heavy Metal” (including its various more “extreme” and esoteric sub-genres) is a style of music often acutely aware of its own history and legacy (sometimes to its detriment… but that’s a whole other discussion we won’t be having here).

That doesn’t mean that other artists other genres aren’t just as knowledgeable about their past by any means, it’s just worth pointing out that – in my experience, at least – most Metal bands, and most Metal fans, tend to have a deep appreciation for the acts who went before them and paved the way.

What’s less-commonly talked about, however, is the variety of inspirations these self-same seminal names (you know the ones) took from all sorts of other different styles of music – since “Heavy Metal” itself had, of course, yet to be invented (and there’s still some discussion to this day about who really did it “first”) – and the ongoing role these ancestral, pre- or proto-Metal, influences continue to have on the genre to this day.

But this is something you can’t help but consider when listening to the latest album of sludgy, doom-laced grooves and moody, Americana-tinged melodies from In The Company of Serpents.

Continue reading »

DEFILED SERENITY: “WITHIN THE SLUMBER OF THE MIND”

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Jul 082025
 

(NCS writer DGR pays a debt today, finally reviewing a debut album released five months ago by Finland’s Defiled Serenity that he’s been enjoying since then.)

Just in time to be late enough for the bus tracks from the public transit we missed to not only fade away but also be paved over again as the street is resurfaced!

Just before we set off on our jet-setting lifestyles that had a block of this website traveling coast to coast in May to take in only the finest vintages of heavy metal on stage, yours truly set out with a machine to absorb an equally large block of the heavy metal that had been released throughout the year in order to queue up the website to always have something to chat about while we were off wandering venue to venue.

The result was a wide snapshot of the world of underground heavy metal as it had existed so far in 2025, a disorganized ball of chaos that didn’t really have much of a throughline existing in it so far. Some years become reflective of society at large, others take after more recent events, but 2025 has been as odd as your more avant-garde wings of an art museum — somewhat unnerving and almost surrealistic horror-movie in that sort of way. Whatever themes may be developing to define this year musically — not socially, we’ve already landed on “hell” there — they just haven’t congealed yet and are almost refusing to do so.

We have, however, landed within a realm of a few amusing statistical blobs for those who love themselves some numbers nerd-ery, such as how it seems a contingent of Finland decided that all of their projects should see a release in some form or another within the first half of this year. Granted, it’s a wide net to be casting but it’s a pattern I’ve been joking about for months now. Continue reading »

PATRISTIC: “CATECHESIS”

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Jul 072025
 

(What follows is DGR‘s review of the stunning debut album from the Italian band Patristic, out now on Willowtip Records.)

The evolution of black metal as a genre remains as constant as ever. Its grasp is one that artists cannot seem to escape; there is an unholy draw to the offerings of the dramaticism, high-end shrieking, and outwardly reactionary and purposeful abrasiveness of the style. Each person approaches it as if they have something different to lay at its altar (offerings small or large) and thus the genre continues to find itself in a steady yet chaotic rate of high-speed metamorphosis. New ideas are interjected, rejected, stitched onto, and forced into place at times, but all creates this whirling sphere of metal that could eclipse galaxies in utter darkness.

Not every group is original or looking to change the book on things, which is how we’ve wound up with generational views of a genre that is also now well-aged. We’ve codified and crystalized certain styles — hell you could argue some have even ossified to the point of near parody. But the infernal harvest does remain forever fruitful, and whenever an artist you’ve been following for a while decides to take a crack at it, you can’t help but be intrigued.

How does a genre emerge once it is filtered through that particular creature’s viewpoint? Are there changes? Do they seek to just replicate and add to the pile of skulls already creating the throne or are they looking to adapt and bend it to their own ways? Is there a statement to be made in any regard that black metal becomes the only screen through which they push their own music? Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: PESTILENTIAL SHADOWS, SEA MOSQUITO, PROFANE ELEGY, CRUENTATION, BEANNACHD LEIBH, MORTE TRIUNFANTE, ROUGAROU

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Jul 062025
 


Pestilential Shadows

(written by Islander)

I’ve been distracted by the tragic flooding in Central Texas, where I grew up. I still have a brother and sister-in-law in that area. Their property has been hit hard, but they are alive and whole, unlike a lot of other people. The rains continue, and so will the death count.

Nothing much I can do about this up here in the Pacific Northwest other than worry and grieve. The music provides a temporary distraction, and even some moments of catharsis. I hope what I picked today will do you some good too. The collection includes five individual songs, an EP, and an album. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: JUDAS PRIEST, AMPHISBAENA, FAUNA, SUNKEN MONOLITH, MALPHAS, ABRAHAM

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jul 052025
 


Black Sabbath, 1970, photo by Chris Walter

(written by Islander)

Post Fourth of July, I hope you all still have 10 fingers and are non-concussed. Way up here on the northern rim where the day takes its sweet time slipping away, I didn’t stay awake long enough for the sky to turn and finally become a black backdrop for fireworks. But I did do a modest amount of carousing with friends and family before punching out, so it’s another late start for this Saturday roundup.

I’m beginning with a big dose of nostalgia and then shifting into more current generational directions. In thinking about how I’m beginning and what follows that, the words of Isaac Newton come to mind: “If I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” (Though in this context what the successors are seeing is in further darkness.) Continue reading »

UPON STONE: “END TIME LIGHTNING”

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Jul 042025
 

(Here we have DGR‘s review of a new EP by California’s Upon Stone, which saw release in June of this year via Century Media.)

Southern California’s Upon Stone continue to remain an interesting proposition in the world of melodeath. A newer upstart project in a world in which melodeath is starting to see acts of varying throwback styles – it seems right now we have groups specializing in particular ‘eras’ of the genre as a whole – Upon Stone could’ve easily gone the route of being a complete influence-worship act.

Considering that the band’s first full-length arrived early last year by way of Century Media after a single EP in 2021, you could’ve imagined the Upon Stone crew arriving with a gloss and sheen that might’ve blinded people from space. Instead, the band hewed pretty close to the late ’90s, early ’00s melodeath roots and combined it with a lot of gravel and grit that would’ve otherwise been associated with more thrash and trad-metal leaning counter parts. The result was a surprisingly fiery if not equally straight-shooting full-length in Dead Mother Moon and one whose bloody-knuckled scrappiness at least could not be denied.

Upon Stone still had some gas left in the tank though, as late June saw the arrival of a new three-song EP from the band entitled End Time Lightning. Armed with two new songs and a cover of the Manowar song “Outlaw”, it would seem as if Upon Stone felt they needed to resume right where they left off last time, just with a little bit more focus on the double-bass roll because you don’t get to entitle your new EP End Time Lightning without at least one of the songs sounding as if you were riding into a world-ending battle. Continue reading »

BEST OF POLISH: DEVILPRIEST / STELLAR BLIGHT / THANATOREAN

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jul 042025
 

Welcome to another edition of “The Best of British” where I… wait, what’s that?

Yes, it looks like today’s article has officially been hijacked by the Polish, who have come to offer us a bevy of blackened delights courtesy of a mix of established artists and brand-new bands (who, as it turns out, are also made up of some familiar names and faces).

Continue reading »

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