Featuring Brouillard from many other projects in the black and doom world (Alukta, Les Légions du Déclin, Transcending Rites...the list goes on), French duo 1928 give us all a respectful nod to the old school with this their debut full length album.  Following on from their 2024 EP, Les meutes sé​ditieuses this album is advertised as raw French black metal.  In reality, I have heard rawer, but that's not to say that the conventional black metal that is coupled on occasion with some black 'n roll isn't thoroughly entertaining.  There is a lot of heart behind what 1928 put together here and it is clear where Déclin and Brouillard's passion lies.  Whilst this release does not quite keep up with the likes of Altar of Woe from this year, the intent to do harm is clear and present at all times.

With an album cover not dissimilar to the 2021 album by Spectral Wound, A Diabolic Thirst 1928 possess a similar potency in their attack without quite straying into the more melodic teritory inhabited by Canada's black metal terrors.  With Brouillard on vocals, she rasps and howls her way through nine resplendent tracks of black metal.  The album detail I have does not specify who plays what on the record in fact.  Whomever it is who is howling their very soul out, props to them.  The punky/black 'n roll riff that opens ' Le royaume incondé' catches you off-guard at first but then the track soon settles down into a mid-paced mauling before increasing the tempo later in the track.  In short, 1928 keep things interesting.

Opening the album with a short burst of the French national anthem is another unexpected moment, and one that threatened some concern from me in that this was going to be a theme for the album.  It isn't.  This is perhaps one of the more immediate and direct balck metal albums of 2025 if I am honest.  These two aren't here to fuck around after all.  If I am being picky, I think it could benefit from a more raw sound than it has, and I acknowledge there is a decent level of rawness here already.  I think the direction here is clearly supposed to be a dark and scathing one and the production job does not necessarily do justice to that ethos.  Still, I cannot shy away from what is still agreat record though, and on which has been on rotation for a solid couple of weeks already. 

Listening through Vemod by the now sadly defunct Solbrud earlier today, I was struck by how such rich textures could be created from such chaotic sources. With a sixteen-minute plus length track sat during the record, it is testimony to the quality on display that my attention could be held for the entire duration of the track. This incursion into Danish black metal reminded me that I was overdue another run through of the latest album from fellow Danes, Sunken. Lykke is made up of tracks that are all over the ten-minute mark, and so my earlier session with Vemod served as good training it seems.

Sunken occupy a more atmospheric space than their fellow countrymen and as a result their sound has the requisite expansiveness that one would expect from such a style. Lykke successfully combines the misery of DSBM in the vocals with the vast open spaces that get conjured from the music of WITTR. The harrowing vocal performance on ‘Og det er lykke’ that contrasts with the atmospheres of the track gives a real sense of the futility of howling into the void. Yet at the same time it is impossible to deny the comfort I find in those very same textures. In fact, the album title translates in English as “happiness”, which is one of the rarest of emotions to explore in black metal. However, Sunken do this to great success I feel. My overall experience of the record is that I find it a very uplifting experience.

The Afsky influence is there (the band shares live members with Afsky) but there is a lot more density to this record. The weight of the ocean is obvious in Sunken’s sound. This is an album of unfathomable depths that does not assume darkness to be the overarching theme to such unseen realms. Whilst melancholy is certainly one of the key themes of the sound, it is not entirely painted in noir shades. The grey instead facilitates reflection within that pensive sadness, as opposed to just blind acceptance that it is happening, regardless of often not knowing the cause. Take a moment to revel in the glory of ‘Glædesfærd’ with its slow to mid-tempo balancing the weight of this emotion perfectly.

Over the past year, I have become more interested in Danish black metal, and Lykke is one of the albums that typifies why I find it such an interesting scene. Whilst I cannot deny the size of the sound that is present, it possesses real subtlety at the same time. The immense opening of closing track ‘Når livet går på hæld’ stays with me long after the track and indeed the album has finished. This experience is common amongst the Solbrud, Afsky, Gespenst and Glemsel releases I have listened to recently, all of which leads me to believe that Denmark is a gem of a country for black metal that needs further exploration.

Veilburner seem to occupy the same rarified atmosphere within which I would normally encounter Blut Aus Nord, Dødheimsgard, Deathspell Omega or even Oranssi Pazuzu. They are distantly rooted in black metal yet at the same time are multiple football fields away from the genre. On the death metal side of things there are comparisons I could draw with Akercocke and Portal, which are fine benchmarks to be scored against. With this being my first ever listen to the band, my early impression was that this was not a duo that was with or indeed without their own sound or style. The mish mash of influences that had leapt out at me from what at the time of typing this had been just four tracks was intriguing to say the least. Yet, whereas on other, more avant garde releases I would have either hit the skip button multiple times or simply switched off altogether, there was something that kept me in the room with Longing for Triumph, Reeking of Tragedy.

Now, it could have been that after consecutive days of listening to conventional black metal, I was just more open to something different. Those dissonant tremolos certainly made short work of the seconds as they danced chillingly along my nerve-endings, whilst those squally riffs seemed to rapidly grow a horrifying backdrop of noise for the more extrovert elements to sit atop of. Yet for all the individual elements that are in play at any given time, I have found it very easy to plot my way through the tracks as they pounce on me. There is also enough memorability to them to permit me to understand them as isolated pieces as opposed to the album becoming just one chaotic glut of noise. A more critical listen leads to me to think the reason for this is that the tracks themselves have very clear points of progression. This is perhaps too hard for me to explain in words for some readers, but riffs have a clear start and end to them. Sounds odd I know, yet this element of closure gives me traceability across what could otherwise soon become a disorientating affair.

This succinctness that sits behind the dissonant and transcendental apparitions that are conjured by the rest of the music acts as an anchor almost. I feel that because of it, I can truly pay attention to all the album much better. As a fan of BAN, Deathspell Omega and Oranssi Pazuzu already, there are elements here, such as the vocals, that are not offering anything new most certainly. The admiration comes for the crafting involved in putting all eight of these tracks together. Thematically exploring trauma, death, infinite reincarnation and the desperate futility of lives that make the same mistakes and meet the same end, this is not the most cheerful of subject matters to be committing to tape. Such ideas remind me very much of Akhlys, who are one of my favourite artists over several releases now.

Yet, the more I listen to the album the more I find it veering away from pretty much all the territory I have called it out for inhabiting already. The rich lead work of ‘Ouroboreal Whorl’ and ‘Matter o’ the Most Awful of Martyrs’ have an almost post-metal level of clarity to them, for example. There is a seemingly purpose-built level of tameness to the record that only reaches the surface with repeated listens, and I find that remarkable for such a challenging piece of music, yet I have already called out the concise nature of part of the album already. Longing for Triumph, Reeking of Tragedy is the perfect album title for the work on display here. The record is a triumph yet achieves this with no loss of that sense of stinking human tragedy.

The amount of progressive metal I've been exploring in the past few months has been some of the most melodic in years. While I still enjoy djent bands like Tesseract, Textures, Vildhjarta, and VOLA, I've gotten back in touch with the material of melodic bands ala Symphony X Japan and discovered similar bands like Andromeda and Threshold. Even a deathly band like An Abstract Illusion can have profuse melody, and that provides the bridge needed to check out this release from a heavier band...

Abditum, the new album by experimental progressive tech-death band VoidCeremony, is filled with complex chaos. It's an astral journey through labyrinthine structures and riff technicality. However, the cohesion may be a bit off, causing the journey to spread out in fragments.

We get an interesting start with "Inevitable Entropy", a 45-second intro that sounds very well like it's been taken from the Old School RuneScape soundtrack. Then we swing into the chords and grooves of "Veracious Duality". The amount of different tempo changes is quite nuts, exemplifying their experimental approach. Then midway through, they break boundaries with their revival of the classic prog-death of Atheist. Truly devastating technical carnage! "Seventh Ephemeral Aura" is another excellent composition, letting out the complex talent of guitar duo Garrett Johnson and Jayson McGehee, and I'm talking about dynamic riffs and solos. It's like a more deathly take on early Between the Buried and Me, complete with out-of-this-world chord structures.

"Dissolution" is another interlude, having just useless jazzy guitar noodling. This probably would've been better and more enjoyable if it was placed in the middle instead after only two tracks. It just breaks the flow appearing so early. Actually, scratch that, "Despair of Temporal Existence" sounds a little too tight and repetitive, and it's only under two minutes long despite being a metal track. Either get longer or get out! "Failure of Ancient Wisdoms" has the deathly progressiveness of The Faceless. It's more cohesive with the guitarwork not having too much force, but it doesn't impress me enough to be memorable. Not a failure yet not a winner.

Then we have the short yet progressive instrumental "Silence Which Ceases All Minds". No time is wasted at all, with some of the best soloing here. It's just full speed ahead with drummer Dylan Marks practically obliterating his kit. "Gnosis of Ambivalence" is another highlight continuing all the vicious aspects the previous track has while adding in creativity in the vocals and riffs. The outro "Elegy of Finality" ends the album the same way it began, with its odd and confusing keyboard-symphonic presence.

All in all, Abditum has potential to be a progressive tech-death adventure. It's just that the under two-minute tracks are either unfitting filler or too short to stand. But I guess they're to make sure this isn't an EP. Nonetheless, the highlights should impress any fan or newcomer of the genre. Just try to ignore the poorly executed moments....

Favorites: "Veracious Duality", "Seventh Ephemeral Aura", "Silence Which Ceases All Minds", "Gnosis of Ambivalence"

Poland is at it again. Producing great black metal is hardly a rarity in terms of a country that has Mgla and Deus Mortem to answer for. Martwa Aura deploy the production skills of Mgla/Kriegsmsachine maestro, M. for Lament, and a mighty fine job he does too. This is another blend of intense black metal that permeates any room it is played in, coating the walls in its acrid output, teasing melodies into the ether like a gang of insane dancing imps. Chiming guitar melodies haunt tracks such as ‘Lament czwarty’, whilst spoken word vocals appear here and there to help induce meditative states in the listener. All performed against a solid background of percussion, dashing tremolos and rasping, venomous vocals.

I was familiar with Martwa Aura following their last album from five years ago. Morbus Animus was a four-star album in the end, and it is pleasing to find Martwa Aura picking up where they left off on that album with Lament. There is no doubt from the beginning of opening track ‘Lament pierwszy’ that the band are on the attack, with this riffy little number firmly lining up what to expect from the rest of the album. Unafraid to be creative, these Poles hint at an almost post-punk style to the clean vocals on ‘Lament piąty’, whilst the rest of the track is a certified black metal banger. Gregor’s vocals can take on a real demented edge at times which underlines the urgency in the tone of the band’s sound. Martwa Aura’s music sounds pressing to the point of being smothering. It is in your face all the time, there is no hope of this being background music whatsoever. This is front and centre of your world for the duration of the record.

There is a fine selection of leads to pick from alongside all these riffs, and these blooping and looping melodies enchant and enhance the overall album experience perfectly. Forty minutes in the company of this record just flies by and before you know it you are being pulled through the final throes of the only track that does not conform to the “lament…” prefix. ‘Morbis Animus II’ seems to be a missing track from their previous album that has parts I & III in the track listing. This track is perhaps the slowest tempo on offer here and is almost a palate cleanser for the album to close with when compared to the primal intensity on show for the rest of the release.