I came into this record with only a very vague outline knowledge of Astarte having rated their Demonized album from 2007. As far as I am aware, tragedy struck the band when founding member Tristessa passed away in 2014 following complications from leukaemia. The band changed their name because of this back to Lloth which was their original name back in 1995. This once all-female band is now all male but dedicated to the memory of Tristessa. A decidedly much colder of black metal awaited me here than I was perhaps expecting from a Greek black metal band. Devoid of the Hellenic ‘warmth’ normally associated with that country, I soon found myself in the colder climes of Scandinavia instead.

Herein lies one of the problems with Rise from Within, it does very little to stand out from the crowd in its sound. It is all well played, if not that well-arranged at times, perfectly listenable black metal with a symphonic edge. However, it does lack memorability because of its chosen niche being already well-populated with other bands doing very similar things. My second issue is opening the album with an instrumental track that is so damn long! Those four-and-a-half-minutes need some vocals to keep me interested. The random switch to synth driven passages just adds to my confusion really.

The rest of the album has a couple of instrumentals littered throughout the track listing, but they are much shorter in duration and much more strategically placed in the middle and end of the record. What occurs in between shines much brighter, albeit in that coldest of lights, by way of comparison. It is almost as if there was a different band altogether recording tracks two through nine. Limited though the scope of the music may be, it is still well enough performed to give the rating a respectable mark overall. Kinthia’s vocals are suitably deranged for the style of music and the riffs and synths work well together, only the programmed drums get lost a bit in the mix but oddly I don’t notice this as much as I feared. I should probably go back to Demonized given I cannot believe they became so bad over seven years that they ended up at 2.5 rating after five albums.

Reading various reviews of Mercenary online, I soon found myself looking at two factions of opinion. Group one, believe that this is a perfectly respectable Bolt Thrower record. Group two, believe the production job killed this one entirely. Although I would also add that most of either camp seem to acknowledge that this is the weakest album in the discography. As I have listened through over the weekend, I can see both camps arguments as being valid. The production on Mercenary is muffled, although I have heard much worse, and it is unclear even after multiple listens whether the album lacks power in the performance or whether it is robbed by the production job. I am finding myself in the production camp at this stage of my experience of the record, based on the belief that there is enough classic Bolt Thrower in the sound still, all with some prowess and heft behind it too, but there is an obvious dulling of the absolutely unstoppable force that came across on the previous two albums.

Therein lies another topic of contention of course. After two absolute bangers in The IVth Crusade and …For Victory, could anything match the standard set by those two records? I suspect not, certainly given that of the three albums that followed …For Victory, only the final Bolt Thrower album, Those Once Loyal stands out as being a highlight. When all is said and done, 1994 was very much the band’s peak. Much is also made of the fact that Karl Willets left the band after Mercenary, citing a lack of commitment and financial pressures. I cannot say that there’s anything about Willet’s performance on Mercenary that makes me think his heart was not in it though. My belief is in fact that he was just as potent as ever, the production job for me is the guilty party in any perceived shortfall in this aspect of Mercenary.

If I had to pick the weakest album from the Bolt Thrower back catalogue, it would not be Mercenary. Yes, there are better albums in the band’s kitbag, but it is my fundamental belief that Mercenary suffers from poor (not terrible) production. I prefer it to Realm of Chaos which if I recall correctly suffers from the same affliction. My choice for the worst Bolt Thrower album would be Honour Valour Pride, notwithstanding that Bolt Thrower on a bad day could still produce death metal that most other bands still could never hold a candle too. I have increased my rating of Mercenary based on this revisit by a whole half a mark, albeit the performance I suspect is at least a further half a mark on top that gets robbed back by the production.

My interest in progressive melodeath has boosted up ever since encountering the perfect discography of An Abstract Illusion. It was a sign for me to revisit some earlier progressive melodeath bands that I enjoyed yet abandoned a few years ago. In Mourning might just be the place for me to start in my journey of redemption, since that was probably the band An Abstract Illusion reminded me the most of. And I'm glad that the first Infinite feature release of 2026 is their splendid new album, The Immortal!

The album was recorded throughout the late months of 2024 and the early months of 2025, following up from The Bleeding Veil released 4 years prior. The Immortal may just have the best sound from the band in many years, sounding so sonic and organic. I can already tell how well-written the album is, in big levels. Slight touches of black metal are added to enhance the cold darkness. It finally saw the light of day at that year's Summer end, released via Supreme Chaos Records. As emotional as their earlier material was, the emotion has reached its greatest height in their quarter-century tenure in this offering.

Of the 9 tracks in this album, the title opener is a moody one-minute intro. "Silver Crescent" blasts off with crushing progressive riffing. Then the vocals enter, as aggressive power is blended with melodic harmonies. "Song of the Cranes" is more progressive while keeping the structure in control. The heavy verses with harsh vocals and melodic chorus with clean singing are a mix that has been used by many bands before yet still sounding unique.

"As Long as the Twilight Stays" is more emotional. Clean sorrow comes in first before more of the intense distortion and vocals. "The Sojourner" is the album's first single. It's the perfect song for anyone up for a lot of aggression with some melody here and there. "Moonless Sky" is an ethereal ballad/interlude, a gentle calm in between storms.

"Staghorn" bites down with pure heaviness, all in the guitars and vocals. "North Star" is an aptly titled song for a somber night trek in the northern lands. The melody and heaviness appear where they need to be. I also like the catchy clean chorus. The 8-minute closing epic "The Hounding" starts slow and doomy then speeds up with all its emotional power. The growls and screams touch my metal heart, and the different riffs and twists keep me up for more. Fantastic!

Emotion reigns supreme in the brand-new In Mourning album. The Immortal hits hard with its aggression and lightening this up with its melody. It's likely the most powerful the band has sounded in years, and with that, let's hope their music stays immortal!

Favorites: "Silver Crescent", "Song of the Cranes", "The Sojourner", "Staghorn", "The Hounding"

Having established a more pagan and then viking metal sound since their 1997 album, Following the Voice of Blood, Graveland had fully established this style as their signature sound by the turn of the century and their fifth full length album, Creed of Iron. With Capricornus no longer on drums, Rob Darken truly was the sole creator of this record. Originally a five-track album, there exists a remastered version from 2009 that added two tracks to the end of the album making it over an hour long and it is this version that seems to be widely available on streaming services. Whichever version you find in front of yourself, it is not just the length of the record that makes it an epic experience. The tracks themselves are grandiose testimonies to the toils of war and the legendary battles of old, expansive and aggressive in equal parts.

The balance of the instrumentation is well maintained over the course of the album. It feels like each instrument gets a fair crack at the limelight with none being allowed to steal the show outright. As such there is a real sense of depth to Creed of Iron. It is not just about medieval sounding keys and the flourishes they are allowed to make; the riffs get just as much presence against the swell of these Middle Age atmospheres. Care sounds like it has been given in mixing these elements together to create an experience never feels artificial, simply put it is a very complementary record in terms of its composition.

Now, the artwork leaves a lot to be desired I will grant you. It certainly fits the battlefield billing of the record, but I would encourage anyone to not be too put off by the artwork in thinking that this represents a primitive album as this is clearly not the case within a few minutes of clicking/pressing play. Having listened to the extended version of the album also now, I do not think that the two additional tracks add anything remarkable to the album. In its original format, Creed of Iron is a perfectly solid viking/pagan bm record.

Like its predecessor, Lead and Aether has proven a great accompaniment on winter walks this weekend as the northwest of England sees its first snow of the season. That is not to say that this is a cold sounding record by any means, in fact I find the exact opposite experience to the record. To me this is the sickening warmth of a hug from the arms of death itself. It is comforting to witness, how I imagine the release of all worry, stress and adversity of life would feel at the very moment of conscious expiry of one’s existence. Far from finding the funereal keys and monolithic melodies oppressive, I take a great solace from this album, therefore.

This record plays as an instrumental in my head, the vocals are so low in the mix, consciously so I would guess, that I am almost ignorant them for much of the album. Normally I would find this as a negative point, a key missing feature almost, but here I think it works perfectly. Good funeral doom to me is about letting the music build the aesthetic and atmospheres, the vocals are just a complementary element in comparison. Equally, I think Skepticism got the placement of the drums correct here. Whilst not as absent from my mind as the vocals are, the drums provide the very definition of a subtle supporting role here. How many bands can say that they have successfully used drums o create space and atmosphere on a record?

There is always a danger that with such a minimalist approach to music, particularly extreme genres like this, that the recording can end up sounding amateur. I would argue that the opposite is in fact true here. This sounds like a thoroughly professional album, composed with care and thought for overall arrangement. Maintaining that gloomy warmth for me over the entire album duration is a real win here, but there are a couple of moments where tracks seem to end up a little disjointed (album closer, ‘Aether’ stands out for this) which just takes the perfect score aware from an otherwise brilliant release.