Aron Shute may just be my new favourite black metal vocalist. His performances at times on The Transformation Room are deranged and demented which just so happens to be how I like my black metal orations to be decanted. He is also bassist and one of three vocalists in Koma, a sludge/doom band who are on my to do list also now. I stumbled across Crystal Coffin whilst researching inclusions for my The North clan playlist suggestions and I soon went all in on listening to the whole album. Whilst the conventional black metal tropes are more than evident, what appeals to me about CC’s sound is that there are also prog, ambient and electronic musings going on throughout the album. The band manage to incorporate these different elements without afflicting the listener with a sense of alienation from these perhaps unexpected inclusions.

Taking up the unusual or unexpected is not just limited to the music though, The Transformation Room takes the Holodomor that occurred in the Ukraine in the 1930’s (a man-made famine around the Soviet Union at the time that it is debated whether it was intentional or not, and was responsible for millions of deaths) as its theme, whilst exploring the relevance to personal suffering, pain and higher plains of existence. Despite its macabre subject matter, the album sounds like a thorough examination of this entire concept. It flows the earthiness and grounded nature of a reality of hell on earth into the transcendental possibilities of what lies beyond through those more eclectic musical choices well.

I am not a fan usually of instrumentals or passages in the middle of records but ‘The Inverted Burial of Taras’ is one of those ambient moments that provides some real respite before the band charges headlong into album highlight ‘I Emerge’ where Aron’s vocals really get to show their nefarious side. This an almost doom metal track. Where it not for the rasping vocals in fact, there would be little to stop you thinking this was a guest track. Lenkyn Ostapovich’s guitar and keyboards both get to really shine on this track and with drummer Rob Poirier also being in Koma, it should not perhaps be such a surprise of the doomier direction of this track. This horrendous event from 20th century eastern Europe is effectively portrayed in this melodic, harrowing and compelling concept album. If you like your black metal with a bit of variety, then this is most certainly worth a go.

Unexpected and completely unannounced, Myrath have landed in my world and made an almighty impact by way of this month’s Infinite feature release. On paper, there was a lot to alarm me with the tags of symphonic metal and progressive metal throwing up two of some of my least favoured sub-genres. However, the reality of the actual listening experience has proven far more empowering than I ever could have expected. Wilderness of Mirrors is catchy, hooky and as result incredibly memorable. The spontaneity that presented upon my first listen was just the catalyst to a consistently rewarding album that repeated listens through seem to only improve on that initial positive reception.

The symphonic elements are thankfully not huge orchestral movements, and nor are they washy keys that flood everything either. The Middle Eastern influences on show here are incorporated skilfully into varying tempos and rhythms. Accented vocals are not always done well (Orphaned Land come to mind here) but in the main the vocals here only add to the authenticity of the music. There is some clunkiness to them sometimes, like on the track ‘Until the End’ featuring Amaranthe’s Elize Ryd where there is the annoying extension of words to make them fit the music, or on the opening to ‘Les Enfants Du Soliel’ when the choral vocals get sung over by the band’s vocalist. Whilst they are isolated moments, they do linger on the mind for a while after.

Production wise, Wilderness of Mirrors is immaculately produced. It is to be expected though. Within a few minutes of album opener ‘The Funeral’ it becomes clear that anything less production values wise would be a travesty. This is an album that is wanting to soar from the off, taking little time to awaken that massive wingspan. I would have more stars for it if perhaps the record did not dip in quality towards the end. After my personal favourite track, ‘The Clown’ things do get a little samey for me. Even though the musicianship remains strong and exuberantly showy, there is a sense of the ideas tank starting to run on empty over the final four tracks. This has still been a revelation for my usually more extreme ear however and I must have played this album for around two weeks on a daily basis.

I've always been a fan of this compilation of Houston-based death metallers Imprecations' early works as the material is both extremely solid & highly consistent, despite the three releases it compiles offering drastically different production jobs. "Theurgia Goetia Summa" begins with the three-song "Promo 94" before moving into 1993's "Sigil of Baphomet" E.P. & ending with 1992's "Ceremony of the Nine Angles" demo tape. If pushed, I'd probably suggest that the 1994 promo is the most fully realised representation of the early Imprecation sound but all three are well worth hearing. It's the two demos that I regard as being essential listening though with the E.P. suffering a bit from a muddier sound & the raw intensity being slightly better represented on the cruder recordings. Imprecation's well-defined death metal style is reflected on all three releases with a combination of very fast blast beats, crushing doom riffs, cavernous vocals & subtle keyboard accompaniment working beautifully in the context of the global tape trading scene of the time. This release appears to have been custom built for all you filthy underground enthusiasts out there with Imprecation's blend of Incantation & diSEMBOWELMENT influences really hitting the spot for this ol' metalhead.

For fans of Infester, Blaspherian & Morpheus Descends.

Stephen O'Malley is a name that is written large over the history of drone metal. Making a name for himself with legendary extreme doom outfit, Burning Witch and short-lived death doom project Thorr's Hammer, he also formed Sunn O))) alongside long-time collaborator Greg Anderson. Khanate was formed in 2000 after O'Malley met avant-garde musician and member of O.L.D. James Plotkin at an Isis gig. Plotkin recruited O.L.D. bandmate Alan Dubin to perform vocals for the new project with the four-piece being completed by drummer Tim Wyskida.

Well, when you dive down this rabbit hole, you'd better not be expecting Wonderland because here be monsters. From the off Khanate set out their stall to be a genuinely disturbing listen, taking the blueprint of Burning Witch's psychotic doom metal and stretching it further with increased repetition, glacially slow tempos, seismic rumblings and squeals of feedback that act as the backdrop to the outpourings of Durbin's troubled and troubling vocal protagonist whose screeching screams worm their way into your brain and sit there eating away at your sanity. Instrumentally quiet and gentle sections where his vocals are mere creepy-sounding whispers, are akin to the murmured secret exhortations to violence I imagine schizophrenic killers hear from the imaginary voices in their heads. A couple of lines from "No Joy", for example, read "No joy precious joy no joy, Eat that smile right off a face, your face, No joy only only eat stuff that grin down, down your neck no more eat no more, Breathe breathe don’t breathe please don’t breathe". I mean, what the fuck? This truly is a trip to the dark side of the human psyche and a disconcerting listen that leaves you with the impression that you have been witness to the outpourings of a genuinely troubled mind, like the innumerable notebooks that Mills and Somerset find in the room of the psycho in Se7en. Sure, Khanate aren't the only band that deal in disturbing lyrical imagery, but here there is no release with a catchy riff or a shredding guitar solo, all there is is the grindingly slow, dissonant throb of bleak inevitability unrelieved by any kind of positivity or hope.

I hate real world violence and horror, but there is a deeply primal and subliminal part of the human mind that is attracted to darkness in art, hence the enduring popularity of horror movies and true crime series. Obviously, drone metal is very much a niche sub-genre in the wider metal world, certainly when it is as disquieting as Khanate, so it obviously isn't for everyone, especially the impatient listener, but if you have a penchant for the darker and more uncomfortable reaches of extreme metal then Khanate are absolutely a required listen.

Having taken many years to come around to the lurching sludge and ethereal post-metal of Neurosis, it is testimony to how far up in my esteem they have come that I bought An Undying Love for A Burning World as soon as the pre-order was on offer. Having struggled for years with Scott Kelly’s vocals, only to see that, having finally come to terms with them he was an abusive piece of shit, the change to Aaron Turner feels natural. Not that I would ever class any Neurosis album as necessarily a safe space, to see an important (yet intolerable) member replaced could have been quite a disruptive event overall, yet AULfABW sits right in that challenging atmospheric-sludge space as if the line up has been together, making records for years.

This tension and relief in their sound (as described on their Bandcamp page) has never been more obvious. Haunting dissonance and crushing heaviness seesaw throughout the album like the most familiar of bedfellows. There is a constant sense of fraught drama lurking in the wings of most tracks, but it is hard to say anything comes off as being undesirable in the end. Whilst always vocally adversarial, Neurosis still delivers their musings with such authenticity that is hard to not find resonance with them. It is stark music that rebels against every possible wrong of the world simultaneously, yet no threat is needed when such brevity is in use. This is expression on a human level, riding on a virulent strain of futility whilst being chased by the spectre of hope. As such you could be forgiven for finding this a bleak album. To my ears it rinses the beauty out of the most unobvious spaces, acknowledging that suffering and salvation perhaps come from the same base source and are inextricably entwined as a result. Both are in effect, natural outcomes.

Having a ten-year gap between releases has seemingly reinvigorated the group as they have managed to make a record that will not only rank highly in any lists I get around to making this year, but in the scheme of their discography, this is a triumphant continuation of their already well-established legacy. Notwithstanding that there are clearly some tough times captured on the record, AULfABW is not necessarily pessimistic to my ears. It is blunt and to the point yet gloriously expansive in its scope. Far from being a kaleidoscope of styles though, the album is no deviation away from what Neurosis fans have come to expect. Records with real depth such as this one should be celebrated.