SHADES OF BLACK: PRISON OF MIRRORS, ERZ, MOTLJUS, LEBENSSUCHT

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Dec 142025
 

(written by Islander)

When you live with another person during “cold and flu season” there’s always the risk that one of you will get sick and then sicken the other a few days later. However, my wife and I gradually began getting sick at the same time last week and yesterday we both simultaneously had full-blown colds.

We’ve tried to figure out who we were both around outside the house when we got infected earlier this week (we’d hate to murder the wrong person). It was probably when we went to our local sports bar for drinks and dinner, but we know lots of regulars there plus the waitstaff, and we don’t remember anyone sounding sick so it’s tough to pin down the culprit. I suppose we could resort to the maxim attributed to Arnaud Amaury during the Battle of Béziers in 1209, but we’re both atheists so the faith-based solution doesn’t seem right. Oh well, guilty people often escape retribution. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SODALITY, GORRCH, THE RUINS OF BEVERAST, SAINTE OBYANA DU FROID

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Dec 072025
 

(written by Islander)

Greetings on another Sunday morning. As you can see, I have only four selections to recommend for today, but that’s mainly because two of them are complete albums just released on Friday, and thus it took me some time to get immersed in those and try to wrestle my thoughts about them into some kind of order. I’ve positioned those two as bookends around singles from two forthcoming albums.

I can’t say these choices were the kind that put me in a fugue state. Each one is very different from the others, and the shifts are pretty dramatic, maybe especially the changes wrought by the last one, the debut release of a band I knew nothing about before listening (unlike the first three). But I think you’ll also discover a kind of through-line that ties all four selections together, and I’ll touch on that as we go.

As always, I hope at least one of the four, if not all four, will resonate with you in some powerful way. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: UMBRÍO, MOON WISDOM, ULTIMA NECAT

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Nov 302025
 


Valerius de Saedeleer (Belgian, 1867–1941) – “A Winter Landscape”, 1931

(written by Islander)

That painting up there popped into one of my news feeds today. I saw it on my phone this morning as I was sitting outside having a cup of joe and a few smokes before daybreak, with the outside temperature at 37°F. With about 17 hours to go at this point before December begins, that all seemed like fitting synchronicity.

Where I live in the Pacific Northwest we’re well into what everyone here calls The Big Dark. No snow (that rarely happens), but the days are short and usually beset by wet gloom even when the sun is (allegedly) above the horizon. Perfect days for chilly and gloomy music, but also good days for music that lights fires. What I’ve picked for this column today manifests in both those ways.

Of course, December brings more than The Big Dark in the earth’s northern latitudes. It will also bring a rising tide of year-end lists. Tomorrow we’ll be re-posting one from another site much larger than ours, and also asking our visitors to share their own. And then one week from tomorrow we’ll begin rolling out the lists of our own writers, beginning with Andy Synn’s usual weeklong takeover. (Actually, it will probably begin this coming Friday, if Andy does what he usually does and shares his list of the year’s best EPs in advance of his main list week.) Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ASTERIAE, OPPRESSION, WORM

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Nov 232025
 

(written by Islander)

Greetings again on another Sunday, or whatever day it might be when you find your way here. Today’s collection is shorter than I would like it to be, because I have plans for the morning with my spouse that will take us out of the house, and I wasn’t able to spend much time pulling this together yesterday.

I’m beginning with an album released one month ago that I’ve been meaning to say something about for at least that long, and then following it with singles from two forthcoming albums that sound pretty exciting. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: THE STONE, ENTHRONED, BURIAL GIFT, WIJRA, MORBONOCT, REMAINING WARMTH

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Nov 162025
 

(written by Islander)

If you missed yesterday’s roundup of new music you missed some very good and very diverse tunes. You also missed my alert about a request for help I’ll be making to our readers tomorrow. Catch up on all of that if you can.

For today’s assembly of black and blackish metal I picked four songs from albums that will be released later this month or in December, plus two EPs that I caught up with in the last couple of days. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: PSICOSFERA, VARMIA, KREYLL, FLOWERS OF RUST, VACUA, HAKLA

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Nov 092025
 

(written by Islander)

Like yesterday, I got a late start on today’s column, due to festivities with spouse and some new friends last night. Like yesterday’s column, this one includes more full-length releases than normal (alternating with some single songs), and I only have time enough to offer some impressionistic thoughts about them rather than carefully thought-out reviews.

My overarching impression is that most of what you’re about to hear sounds… possessed. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: 夢遊病者 (SLEEPWALKER), MISOTHEIST, DARVAZA, MARTRÖÐ, JZOVCE, ARCANE MARROW, SEDNA

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Nov 022025
 

(written by Islander)

Like yesterday, today I had enough time to include a lot of new music and to spill a great volume of words about almost all of it.

For reasons I’ll explain, I’m beginning with a new album that’s well outside the usual parameters of this column, but then launching straight into a sequence of black metal songs (in varying shades of course) that are fantastically thrilling, and sometimes unexpectedly sublime. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: BLUT AUS NORD, KRALLICE, THOKKIAN VORTEX, ETĚR, TEUFELNACHT, NATTRADIO

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Oct 262025
 

(written by Islander)

This has been one of those rare weekends when, due to some other plans falling through, I had a ton of time to immerse myself in new metal and spew out a bunch of thoughts in print. Yesterday I compiled music from 8 bands, and today I’ve got 6 (I did have 8 but ran out of writing time). These bands, of course, exhibit their creativity through varying shades and phases of black metal — except the last one, a final curveball for you.

This collection includes three complete EPs as well as enticing excerpts from records not yet out. I hope you’ll give them all a chance. Continue reading »

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

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Oct 192025
 

(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.) Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DIMHOLT, POKUTA, EMBRACED BY DARKNESS, HAMMERFILOSOFI, HUBRIS, POGARDA

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Oct 122025
 


Dimholt

(written by Islander)

In compiling this Sunday’s column I can’t say that I intentionally searched for unsettling music, but that’s where the listening trail led me — in directions that were chilling, depressive, and enraged.

Time being limited (as always), I left a few discoveries behind that were especially raw and abusive, in addition to being unsettling. I hope to get back to them later. One thing that struck me about what I didn’t leave behind is that all the music that follows turned out to be more multi-faceted than first impressions might suggest. Continue reading »

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