(written by Islander)
For today’s Part 12 of the list I had enough time to pack in four songs, and I wanted to get these four songs out together because (at least in my own mind) they have a kind of throughline of visceral appeal. The first and last one are just batshit wild, while the two in the middle are more mid-paced but are real good neck-punchers, and kind of crazed in their own ways.
To find the preceding 11 installments of this list, use this link. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
With a pair of launching-pad EPs behind them, the Italian hellraisers in Spoiled are now on the verge of releasing their debut album Collapse, which will be discharged in February by the Portuguese labels Gruesome Records and Selvajaria Records. The labels preview what’s coming with this description:
This release delivers 15 tracks of blistering, violent, and fast-paced Thrash/Crossover at 250 BPM. Inspired by legends such as D.R.I., S.O.D., Slayer, Iron Reagan, Crumbsuckers, Ratos de Porão, Raw Power, Nuclear Assault, and Municipal Waste, Collapse is a high-octane homage to the genre’s greats.
Today we have a more concrete preview, as we premiere a video for the album track “Zombie Hunters” — a song that uses familiar legends of the ghoulish undead as a metaphor for a different kind of plague. Continue reading »
Photos by Anna Vibeke Johansson – Nation North
(Following their It Never Ends… comeback album in 2022, which arrived 30 years after their debut, the Danish death metal band Maceration will soon return with a new one named Serpent Devourment that’s set for release by Emanzipation Productions on January 31st. What we have for you today is a very good interview by our contributor Zoltar of Maceration‘s Jakob Schultz.)
So yeah, fuckin’ sue me: I never really liked Maceration‘s 1992 debut A Serenade in Agony. Ok, let me correct this: I liked it but I never loved it you know? It felt exactly like what it was supposed to be, that is, an almost too-ambitious-for-its-own-good attempt by some locally popular thrashers (in that case, Invocator), after having sniffed in the air that the tide had turned to catch up with the times and thus what was THE thing back then, aka death metal.
But the production somehow didn’t fit and the songs were too long, the biggest draw for me being the presence of then nineteen-years-old Dan Swanö from Edge of Sanity and the fact that his trip to Denmark to meet up and record his vocal parts allowed him to quickly snap a picture of an eerie layer of clouds from the plane’s window which ended up as the cover artwork for Pan.Thy.Monium’s debut album Dawn Of Dreams (yes, I’m that kind of nerd, sorry not sorry).
So even with the surprising return, yet still as a session member only, of Swanö three decades later on their comeback album It Never Ends… I didn’t have high expectations to be fair. That is until I saw Ola Larsson‘s sublime Cthulhuesque artwork and listened to its opening track, “Lost In Depravity”. Full of, wait, freakin’ drenched in, HM-2 delight and far more in-your-face and damn brutal than its clumsy predecessor, it simply ripped. And on the top of it, Swanö gave one of his (and it seems last as a growler) vilest performance ever, as if wanting to show his former friends in Bloodbath how it’s done. Did I like it? Boy, I freakin’ worshipped that album from the get-go. Check mate. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
In yesterday’s installment of this list I think it’s fair to say that I spelunked pretty far underground with the selections, and (to mix my metaphors) veered off the beaten paths we usually beat around here. And so it seemed appropriate today to bounce back with songs from two bands of long standing and widespread veneration, both of whom released standout albums last year (though the first one wasn’t without its fan controversies).
I should add another explanation for today’s choices: I listened to hundreds of songs last year and found many of them infectious, as I define the word, far too many to include all of them in this list. And so part of what I try to do is to make choices that also provide a reflection and survey of metal in 2024, though in all cases my own tastes are still in command.
To find yesterday’s unconventional installment and all the other Parts of this list so far, click this link. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
“Hell ain’t a bad place to be”, they say. Well, it’s probably because Throne are not running the place, because if they were, hell would be really… hellish. Throne are back with their heaviest, strongest and most desperate effort so far and their solid sludge metal morphed into something more sulphureous, more malignant and definitely more feral.
That’s part of how the Dusktone label introduces this Italian band’s new album Ossarium, which they also describe as “a long, painful trip into the territories laden out by Eyehategod, Buzzoven, and Acid Bath but with an evolved take bordering on black metal sound….”
In support of these descriptions, Dusktone has already premiered a first single named “Aten,” and today we bring you a video for a second one — “Morrigan” — the song that opens the album. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
“Punishing in its heaviness, violently deranged in its fretwork, hopeless in its moods, and vocally horrendous, the song takes listeners to a nightmarish place, and freezes us in place while it completes its looming edifice of terror and awe.”
That’s how we summed up the title song to a new EP by the Prague-based blackened death/doom metal band Můra when we premiered it earlier this month. Today we premiere the EP in its entirety, in advance of its release on January 20th by Doomentia Records and Caligari Records. Like the title song, it is a very heavy and relentlessly harrowing experience. Continue reading »
(Andy Synn embraces the chaos and catharsis of Poland’s Uulliata Digir)
It was just last week when I commented that 2025 seemed to be off to a bit of a slow start – usually I’ve encountered at least one new favourite by now – but, wouldn’t you know it, it looks like I spoke too soon!
Bursting out of the blocks with the sort of wilfully unorthodox, genre-blending sound – grounded in the harshness and heaviness of Black and Death Metal, but equally influenced by dark Jazz and doomy drone, while also incorporating passages of post-metallic ambience and abrasively sludgy atmosphere – which defies easy categorisation (“Avant-Garde Extremity” is probably the best way to describe it) the self-titled debut from Uulliata Digir has quickly established itself as probably the best thing I’ve heard so far this year.
And, because of that, I felt like I needed to share it with all of you.
For the last few installments of this list I haven’t had any organizing principle that guided the grouping of songs together in a specific Part. Today I do. But I’m afraid if I tell you why I put these three songs together you might not listen to them (if you haven’t already heard them). Better for you to learn for yourselves, and hopefully to find yourselves as enthusiastic about them as I am.
(To find and listen to all the preceding songs in this list, use this link.) Continue reading »
On their debut album Cycle of Death the Ukrainian band Deus Sabaoth have put purveyors of religious faith in their crosshairs. It’s not an uncommon focus for black metal bands, but this group extends their critique, both philosophically and in their music, in uncommon ways.
Regarding the philosophical concept of the album, the main theme of the lyrics “is to reflect different perspectives on religion and the existential concerns of those who confront their mortality while rejecting any religious beliefs,” and thus they “delve into a personal, internal struggle, exploring the complex emotions and conflicts faced by those who question the very nature of existence.” The following statement from the band develops these ideas further: Continue reading »
(Andy Synn meditates upon the new album from Rudra)
There’s been a lot of talk recently about the role of so-called “AI” is going to play in our lives going forwards, particularly in regards to algorithmically-generated “art”.
And while a lot of the discussion has – understandably and correctly – focussed on the fact that, by their very nature, these generative learning models are incapable of producing anything truly original (with equally valid questions remaining about just how much of what they’re fed on is plagiarised from actual, existing artists), I think a deeper, but no less salient, point tends to be overlooked.
After all, “originality” is not the sole arbiter of great art (we are all the sum of our influences, after all) and there’s a reason that entire movements – genres of music, schools of painting, styles of literature, etc – have taken shape over the years, as the purpose of these “forms” is to allow the artists to express themselves.
That, my friends, is what’s really missing from the debate… an acknowledgement that the purpose of art is not simply to create a “thing” but to communicate, to share something of the artist that can’t be expressed any other way, and that without that soul, that self, on the other end there’s nothing beneath it all. It’s inherently hollow.
And while Rudra‘s eleventh(!) album, Antithesis, certainly doesn’t attempt to break the mould or reinvent the wheel, there’s no doubt that they’ve poured their hearts and souls, and every ounce of their passion, into it.