(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 »
artwork by the legend Frank Frazetta
(written by Islander)
I hope those of you who celebrated Halloween got through it with all your fingers intact. Oh wait, that’s a different holiday. But the wish still holds, even if the risks of losing digits might not have been as great. It all depends on where you put them and what you hold and whether some masked goon is firing rubber bullets at your raised fists.
I got through Halloween with all my digits intact, and the three I use for typing have been busily pecking away at this Saturday collection. It comes later than usual because I got a late start and was really confounded in deciding what to pick.
I was pretty thorough in saving links and files this week, which meant there were a fuckload of them staring at me this morning, and I had only sampled a small number of them during the week. I would say that more than half of them were of the black metal persuasion, so I shoved off a lot of those candidates (but not all of them) for tomorrow, which is also therefore guaranteed to be confounding. And there’s a bit of a curveball at the end, of course.
On we go…. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
The Polish musician (or musicians?) Ø Grémium has (have?) many guises, creating music under the names of such bands and projects as Ùna, Toska, Nocte, and Etěr (whose debut album of avant-garde death metal we recently reviewed here). And now another name will be added to that list: CAŁ●.
On November 3rd, the debut album of CAŁ● — Ludzie błądzący w nocy (“People wandering in the night”) — will be released by Devoted Art Propaganda in the EU and by Fiadh Productions in the U.S. As for what inspired it, we’ve seen this cryptic question: “Can the band’s ethos be captured with the words: ‘In rapture, against unity, before the guards, it drips inwards, CAŁ●?” And we’ve seen this statement by CAŁ● (translated from the Polish):
Standing on the shoulders of giants: Jan Kasprowicz, Jerzy Żuławski, Józef Jedlicz, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Jorge Luis Borges, Teofil Kwiatkowski, Władysław Wankie, Andrzej Wajda, Jerzy Kawalerowicz
As for the music, we’re premiering a full stream of the album today, preceded by more than a few thoughts about its dark and unsettling and equally invigorating sounds. Continue reading »
Recommended for fans of: Oranssi Pazuzu, White Ward, Grey Aura
It’s been a busy month, and time is short, so let’s dispense with the preamble, shall we?
Suffice it to say that if you’re looking for some richly textured, darkly evocative music that combines the best bits of “Blackened Post-Metal” and “Post-Black Metal” (of the more avant-garde kind, rather than the more populist one) into something that can best be described as “post-genre”… then Poland’s Gorycz might just be for you.
And with their third album, Zasypia, having just been released back at the beginning of the month now seemed like the perfect time to shine a spotlight on the band.
(written by Islander)
In June of last year Gilead Media announced that it would be releasing a collaborative album by Mizmor and Hell (Alluvion, which hit the streets in April 2025) — and explained that it would be one of three final new releases leading up to the label’s closure. Whenever that day comes, it will leave behind for me, and for many, many others, a host of great memories assembled over the course of dozens of records wonderfully curated and provided by Gilead over an almost 20-year period, as well as some equally indelible memories of Gilead Fest.
One more powerful memory is about to be added to all the others.
Today, October 31st, Gilead Media is making a surprise release of the second of those three final albums, Confusion Gate by New York’s Yellow Eyes. It marks a continuation of a relationship between the band and the label that led to Gilead‘s release of Sick With Bloom (2015), Immersion Trench Reverie (2017), and Rare Field Ceiling (2019), as well as vinyl editions for Hammer of Night (2013). I’ve been fortunate to hear Confusion Gate before today, and have some thoughts to share. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
It’s always a pleasure to adorn our page with a painting by Paolo Girardi, especially when it’s as monstrously grotesque as the one that leaps off the cover of Depravity’s new album, Bestial Possession.
It’s also always a pleasure to re-connect with the music of this Australian death metal band, which we’ve been covering in our articles beginning in 2011, and to host a premiere of their songs (today’s is our fourth Depravity premiere since 2016).
It’s been a bit of a wait since our last encounter with Depravity, due to the five-year gap between their last album (Grand Malevolence) and this new one. But in the case of Depravity, it’s true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, assuming one is fond of getting musically mauled and mangled.
Speaking of which, the song from Bestial Possession that we’re premiering today is named “Awful Mangulation“. Continue reading »
Photos by Lars Gunnar Liestøl
(In September Season of Mist released a new album by the Norwegian progressive metal band Green Carnation, the first album in a three-album trilogy. Below you’ll find Comrade Aleks’ interview with the band’s vocalist Kjetil Nordhus, a discussion that delves into both the new album and the status of the ones to come.)
Initially, the name of the Norwegian band Green Carnation was firmly associated with its founder, Terje Vik Skye, better known as Tchort. He already had a reputation for his work with Emperor, and his new project, at the intersection of doom metal and prog rock, broke the mold. A series of successful albums in the 2000s earned Green Carnation a reputation as an artistic, emotional band with a keen eye for good melodies and well-developed ideas, so their departure from the scene in 2007 was not taken lightly.
However, Green Carnation returned ten years ago, and after a long hiatus, they released not just a new album, but the first part of a trilogy—the progressive and melancholic A Dark Poem Part I: The Shores of Melancholia. The band’s vocalist, Kjetil Nordhus, agreed to shed light on some details of this release, and the opportunity was unmissable. However, not everything is ideal in this world, and the interview could have appeared a few weeks earlier, but the situation was out of my hand. So here we go. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Vox Nostra (Latin for “Our Voice”) is a Texas band that began to take shape in 2022, founded by vocalist Nathan Buckhoff and former bassist Jay, and then fleshed out with drummer Steven Pedini, guitarist Juan Diaz, and later guitarist Andrew Dahdouh in 2024.
They released two singles in 2023 (“Façade” and “Synthetic Womb“), and today we’re premiering a lyric video created by Scott Rudd (SR Films) for a third one, “Vita Dantis“, which we predict will appeal strongly to fans of emotionally evocative technical death metal. The band have given us this description of the song’s subject matter:
“Vita Dantis, in Latin ‘The Life of the Giver’, reflects a world where the working class is subjugated to weaponized AI by the ruling class. It’s the moment right before awareness turns into unrest.” Continue reading »
(Andy Synn recommends three short-but-sweet releases from the UK Metal underground)
Let me start off today with a little announcement of my own… sadly, for reasons beyond our control the third and final part of the Beyond Grace EP trilogy (which will also, Voltron-style, form our third album when all connected together) won’t be out this year.
I know, I know… I’m as disappointed as you are… but having lost most of September due to two different weddings (including my own) and their accompanying stag-dos/bachelor parties, and then struggling to book studio time for the drums, it really couldn’t be helped.
We’ll still be releasing another cover track, most likely at the start of January (and quite possibly as part of an awesome charity compilation), and then following that with another video prior to the EP/album release (where you’ll be able to get the digital version of the new EP and the collected CD/LP version, at the same time) but I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait a little longer for your next fix.
But don’t worry, because today I’m bringing you three other short-form releases from three other killer British bands – including one we’ve toured with before, plus another that we’re hoping to tour with next year – that I’m hoping will help ease your obvious disappointment!
(We’re living in an era of resurgent demand for vinyl records, but one now marked by pressing-plant delays and challenging costs. Friend of the site Jon Rosenthal provides a vivid glimpse inside the business and technology of pressing vinyl through the following interview of two people involved in starting up and operating the LA-based vinyl plant ONYX.)
Opening a record pressing plant takes loads of effort. The record pressing process itself is an intense mix of humanpower, expertise, and correct, necessary machinery – now, make a facility dedicated to that craft, staff it, and get all that machinery. Losing your patience yet? Luckily, the newer LA-based pressing plant ONYX has taken on this process as part of an emerging wave of new US pressing plants. In a new interview, two of ONYX’s proprietors – musicians Moe Espinosa and Surachai – answer questions about the record pressing process, as well as what drove them to open a plant of their own. You can learn more about ONYX at their website. Continue reading »