This is the fourth album from US black metallers Crimson Moon.
This is the follow up to 2016’s Oneironaut, which I enjoyed so much that it placed on my end of year list for that year. Mors Vincit Omnia contains 54 minutes of music spread out over 8 tracks. This time the band’s mastermind has a main group of three, including himself, along with guest drums, (Aosoth/Antaeus), and several guest vocalists, (Absu, Archgoat, Demoncy, Kawir). Continue reading
Hexis and Zatokrev are both bands I’ve liked for many years, but filed in the “bands I’ll probably never get to see live” category. I do so enjoy being wrong. On a more negative note, tonight is one of the most sparsely attended gigs I’ve ever been to, which is a huge shame for the bands. Continue reading
Hope Drone are an Australian post-black metal band and this is their second album.
This is easily one of my most anticipated releases of 2019. 2015’s Cloak of Ash was a colossal work, one which I’ve grown to enjoy more and more over the years, and a new album is long overdue. Delivering 64 minutes of material across five new songs, Void Lustre has been worth the wait. Continue reading
Gurthang are a Polish black metal band and this is their sixth album.
Ascension contains 57 minutes of textured black metal modelled on the second wave, but mixed with some more modern influences and enhanced with doom elements in places. Continue reading
This is the second album from Swedish melodic death metallers Frantic Amber.
Boasting ex-members of Insision and Ice Age in their ranks, Frantic Amber play death metal that combines melody and brutality into songs that are well-written and tight. Continue reading
This is the second album from Ragnell, a black/death metal band from Mexico.
This is an enjoyable mix of black and death metal, with the ratio skewed towards to the black side a bit more than the death one. Continue reading
This is the second album from US black metallers Salvaticus.
2014 seems quite long ago, but that was when the very enjoyable Hidden Manna was released. I really, really liked that record, and it even made my end of year list for that year. Over five years later, the band have now returned with Ordo Naturalis, and it seems they have been busy. Continue reading
Abigorum are a black/doom metal band from Russia/Germany and this is their debut album.
Exaltatus Mechanism contains 46 minutes of blackened soundscapes filled with bleak, ritualistic occult atmosphere and daemonic presence. Continue reading
This four way split is between Serpents Athirst and Genocide Shrines from Sri Lanka, and Trepanation and Heresiarch from New Zealand. Each offer up a single track. Continue reading
Kludde are a Belgian black metal band and this is their second album.
Inspired by second wave black metal, this is old-school, raw, and menacing. A death metal influence can be heard in the music, giving it more muscle and thickness than some black metal out there. Pinches of crust’s energetic urgency can be detected too here and there, propelling a particular passage along at a punishing rate. There’s even a doom/sludge influence; this mainly Continue reading
