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Holy shit this is a beautifully bleak collection of music!

How would I describe this album?... It's on the level of movies like "Hamburger Hill", "Grave of the Fireflies", and "Requiem for a Dream"  where you know that you have witnessed a masterpiece, but instead of coming away with "I can't wait to see that again", you come away with "I never want to see that again." The emotional toll is just too heavy. 

The album Title "Watching From a Distance" alludes to the narrator deeply desiring a relationship with someone he can not obtain. It's a break up album about someone that you can still see, feel, and hear, but will never again taste or feel. There is an illusion of hope that the relationship could be rebuilt-but you know it's a mirage. Unrepairable damage has been done, and maybe it was your fault.

Now, this type of longing is nothing novel to the realm of doom metal, it's well-trodden subject matter. The difference here is that there is no wall of distorted guitars and muddy production to hide behind. There are no extravagant figures of speech in the lyrics that cheapen or soften the subject. There is no deep indecipherable growl that allows you to evade paying attention. No, this is very thick production, but it's also crystal clear, as are the vocals. It's as emotionally raw as it gets. You are going to hear this man's pain, and you are going to feel it.

"I want to be master of my own emotions with a fire that fills me

But I don't understand myself and I don't know

I don't know what my heart is anymore"


I have heard a masterpiece, and  I don't ever want to hear it again. It's too perfect and it's too real.

I first discovered Tennessee brutal death metallers Brodequin through their 2001 sophomore album "Festival of Death" back in 2009 & very quickly found myself indulging myself in the rest of their back catalogue. I'd only recently returned to metal after spending a decade in the electronic dance music scene & was looking to satisfy my long-standing urges for the sort of devastatingly brutal death metal I'd drenched myself in during the mid-1990's. These guys produced some of the most brutal death metal you'll ever find during the early 2000's so I perhaps gave them more time than they actually deserved if I'm being honest. This debut album "Instruments of Death" is a clear case in point because it's nowhere near as good as it's made out to be.

There are two main gripes that I have with it that prevent me from being able to connect with a release like "Instruments of Torture" in 2026. The first & most obvious is the ridiculous vocal performance of bass player Jamie Bailey who makes no attempt whatsoever to enunciate actual words here, instead producing an almost never-ending drainpipe pig-grunt that I find enormously annoying, single-handedly destroying my chances of finding any genuine enjoyment in "Instruments of Torture". The second is the sloppy drumming of Chad Walls who doesn't seem to possess the endurance to consistently keep up with Michael Bailey's at times very solid death metal riffage. This is a real shame because the pieces are all here but Brodequin simply can't manage to put them all together in a similar way to how they've done with their much cleaner 2024 comeback record "Harbinger of Woe" which I really enjoy. There is certainly better brutal death metal out there than "Instruments of Torture" so perhaps it's for the best that its runtime is limited to just twenty-five minutes. Oh well... I guess you can't win 'em all.

For fans of Liturgy, Disgorge & Orchidectomy.

The seventh studio album from long running technical death metal band Inferi certainly sounds like it belongs in the Inferi catalogue of albums. The album is filled to the brim with pummeling death metal, melodic guitar solos, and lots of bass. Most of the time, this would make for a moderately entertaining death metal album and I think that Heaven Wept does indeed sound enjoyable. The symphonic accompaniment does not overwhelm the listener in the same way that it does on the Atavistia album I reviewed just yesterday, and it allows for the strong bass lines to take center stage and really carry this album. The record does have some decent melodic leads, many of which are carried by the guitar, but sometimes a strong chorus is presented. The record reminds me a lot of the kind of melo death you might hear from The Black Dahlia Murder; high praise indeed. However, the vocals keep this album from being any better. Now it might sound ironic to refer to Inferi as imitating Black Dahlia Murder and then criticize the vocals since neither Trevor Strnad or Brian Eschbach have a ton of variety in their vocals either. But they would typically be complimenting great choruses and guitar leads. Heaven Wept, and Inferi as an entity, is primarily tech-death with a splash of melodicism. The lack of vocal diversity leaves parts of the record feeling hollow at worst, and at best, too overwhelming. A couple more moments of reprieve, such as on "Atonement Denied" would have been beneficial. 

Best Songs: Master of Nothing, Eternally Lie, Atonement Denied, Godless Sky

For Fans Of: The Black Dahlia Murder, The Faceless, Fallujah

I apologise in advance dear Reader, if you feel that this review is excessively autobiographical, but it is kinda relevant to my long-term relationship with glam metal generally and W.A.S.P. specifically, so here we go anyway:

I really didn't get much out of glam metal at all in the 1980s, it's celebration of "life on the Strip" just held no meaning for my life in a dirty, industrial town in northern England. The likes of Motorhead, Iron Maiden and Saxon had far more resonance with my life trying to get by, having left home in 1981 whilst still a teenager and desperately trying to pay my rent or mortgage on a young factory worker's wage. But whilst the likes of Poison and Motley Crue meant absolutely fuck all to me and just pissed me off with their poser attitudes and aesthetics, there were a couple I had a bit more time for. The first was Twisted Sister's Dee Snider. I felt TS were actually a pisstake of the whole glam scene because, not wishing to be too cruel, they were uglier-looking m-fs and the makeup and shit just seemed like a parody to me. The second was Blackie Lawless who I had heard of when he briefly joined The New York Dolls. My first wife's little sister was a big glam metal fan and talked me into taking her to see W.A.S.P., probably around '85, and you know what, they were fuckin' good and, against my expectations, I really enjoyed the show and came away with a lot of respect for how expertly Blackie worked the crowd and how effortlessly charismatic a character he was.

I later picked up The Last Command after hearing a track on the obscure late-night metal video show I used to watch on TV on Friday Nights after coming in from the boozer, the name of which I can't recall. The main draw for me was Blackie's voice which, whilst having quite a high register, also has a ragged edge that gives it a savage roughness and makes it sound way more evil than the Vince Neils or Bret Michaels of the world. And that was my sum total of involvement with W.A.S.P. pretty much up until my time here with the Metal Academy, since when they keep popping into my view from time to time in the forums or on playlists. To be honest I can take 'em or leave 'em, but it is probably a sign of a bit of a shift in my taste lately that listening to this debut album for the first time in quite a while, it is obvious to me that I am enjoying it far more than my original 2.5 star rating would suggest I did back whenever.

One thing is certain from the outset and that is that W.A.S.P.'s debut has far more metal credentials than most of the other glam metal acts of the Eighties who, in the most part, were glorified rock acts for my money. This is certainly bona fide heavy metal we are listening to here, not some lipstick-smeared version of hard rock. Even the band's glam aesthetic seemed more Alice Cooper inspired shock horror than the poor, sleazy drag acts than many of the other glam metallers aspired to. The riffs drive the tracks and whilst there is little you haven't heard before here riff-wise, they are memorable and catchy and filled with an energy and drive that becomes infectious as they thunder from hook to hook. Over all this Blackie snarls and bellows his heart out with tales of schlock and whores (sorry I couldn't resist the pun) that would act as rage bait for Tipper Gore and the tight-assed PMRC, which will always get a thumbs-up from me. The guitar soloing is decent although, again, the solos aren't really unlike many you have heard before, but are well executed and transform a track like the balladic "Sleeping (In the Fire)" from being a bit of a downer into a far more positive experience, whilst adding the icing on the cake to a top-knotch track like "Tormentor". The pacing of the album is just about spot-on too, varying from the breakneck charge of tracks like "Hellion" or "The Torture Never Stops" (my favourite here) to the more considered mid-pacing of "Tormentor" and the aforementioned ballad-like reflection of "Sleeping (In the Fire)". It isn't all good news, however, as indicated by my mid-level rating, with side one petering out badly from a strong start with the brace of "B.A.D." and " School Daze" sounding like the more usual iteration of glam metal that I dislike so much. The cringe-inducing lyrics to "On Your Knees" also ruin a perfectly good riff-led track and are a turd in the swimming pool of the otherwise much stonger second side.

On reflection I have got to say that I am rather pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed listening to this again and I feel I have a bit more of an understanding and respect for what Blackie and co. were doing here (probably alongside the letting go of some of my long-held musical prejudices). I am gonna call this one a win.

When you are guilty of the unpunishable crime of producing one of the most moving and memorable albums of a particular year, an artist must mine the very depths of their creativity to provide a follow up of any worthy repute. When Messa dropped Close in 2022, they were already two records into their career - two records which I have not heard to date incidentally – and produced an album that topped many AOTY polls and lists, my own included. Unafraid of boundaries and unwilling to accept much in the way of limitations on their sound, the Italians showed us all just how extensive their range was. Making it all sound so damn cool whilst putting this authentic exploration of their musical palate was just the icing on the cake really. Inadvertently, this set up the challenge of one day having to follow Close up and upon my first few listens to The Spin my opinion was that they had hit the exact wall that I feared they would.

The gothic tropes of the bands 2025 record were the first hurdle for me. Musically such a style does not sit all that well with me and, initially at least, this more sombre edge to proceedings seemed to rob the record of the same level of passion that its predecessor was awash with. It felt like between records, some alignment process had been undertaken in Messa’s life meaning that they were now drifting away from the wonderful connection we had once shared. I could hear the lead work of Piccolo clearly enough, but the feeling that had emanated from them so plentifully on Close seemed numbed somehow. After a few listens, I stepped away from The Spin altogether, resolute that my enjoyment of Messa was going to be limited, for now at least, to that one record.

Curiosity may have allegedly killed the cat but it sure as hell is the saviour of many album reviewers, I am sure when it comes to giving records a second chance. And so, I came back to The Spin recently. Reviews I had caught elsewhere still talked about the merit of the record. It did take a couple of super-critical listens, but this time it finally clicked. It is not as good as Close, I doubt they will ever top that record if I am totally honest. Yet those shades of grey that are applied this time around do not hinder the expression of the record anywhere near as much as I initially thought. It feels eclectic enough still, despite their being a more accessible if not all that mainstream vibe to it. Emotions are never quite at the point of being super-charged like they were on the previous album, yet they are not lost by any means. If anything, Messa are just showing that bit of maturity I mentioned earlier, losing some child like view of the wonder of their own soul in the process perhaps.

It is still well written, far too well written in fact for anyone to be unimpressed I would say. The musicianship is top-notch and the vocal delivery of Sara is perhaps the only element in here that I sense is dialled back a little from last time. If you look at The Spin as a standalone record, then it is no doubt going to hit the higher end of the scoresheet and in some ways, it is criminal to drop points off my final number based on a comparison of a previous record. Talented individuals when brought together in the right environment make great records and that’s what Messa have managed here, regardless.

I have to admit that it's taken me a good five years to build up the courage to decide how I feel about this controversial black metal hit whose primary claim to fame was the succession of memes that were drawn from its ridiculous cover photo. The black metal scene generally isn't too kind to artists who present themselves in such a vulnerable fashion so you do tend to get a skewed view of the quality of a product like this one based on the triggering of people's gag reflex but I choose to base my judgement purely on the musical quality of such a release & it did take me a few listens to overcome, not only that cover, but also the unintimidating sound of this Ukraine one-man outfits second full-length. I mean, despite being influenced by classic black metal artists like Burzum & Darkthrone, "Pale Swordsman" does make most blackgaze acts sound pretty sinister in comparison but that doesn't mean that there's no substance behind it.

Lone contributor Crying Orc isn't exactly a virtuoso but he presents his ideas with passion & authenticity, almost thumbing his nose at the black metal traditionalists out there. There's a fragility to his melodicism & a boldness to his tendency to want to showcase his own vulnerability, as best showcased in gentle closer "Swordsman". Don't get me wrong. I do still have to confess that I definitely crave a darker format for my black metal. I just find that there's nothing terribly wrong with "Pale Swordsman" when taken as a purely artistic form of expression instead of comparing it with my long-standing ideals about what black metal should be. Album highlight "In the Garden" is a prime example of this as it's bookmarked by some fairly lightweight tremolo-picked riffage but, at its gooey centre, you can find the sort of atmosphere that I crave from my European black metal with the Orc's easily intelligible snarled vocals sitting very well over some highly melancholic guitar arpeggios.

If I was being critical, I'd suggest that the couple of piano-driven interludes are pretty flat & some of that is due to the production which has stolen the brightness that could have given these pieces a bit of life & replaced it with artificial vinyl crackles. Apart from that though, I've found enough quality in these simple black metal songs to keep me interested. It's very easy for people to dismiss the album based on a cursory listen because we are a flawed species with a tendency to want things to be as they first appear. A deeper investigation can sometimes surprise us though & I've found "Pale Swordsman" to have grown on me over time. Not enough to see me returning to it in the future I suspect, but enough for me to afford it a respectable score.

For fans of Draugveil, Felvum & Ebony Pendant.

You know, I'm not one to speak ill of this kind of over-the-top, epic fantasy music, especially when it comes to metal. I enjoy listening to Ensiferum, Amon Amarth and the like more than most, but sometimes you have to put your foot down. Symphonic strings can add a sweet new texture to an album, especially when the primary genre of that album is extreme metal (death and black metal), but they do have to be mixed well to work. 

Old Gods Awaken by the B.C. based Atavistia is one such example of this. Fundamentally, the album is adequate, but the orchestral arrangements are painfully forced. The strings are so close to the front of the mix that they start to take attention away from the primary metal base. Of course, a change in instrumental texture doesn't make an album good or bad,, but what else does Atavistia do to stand out from their symphonic/folk metal contemporaries?

Well...not much. If you've listened to Wintersun before, then you pretty much know what else you're getting out of this record. Like with Wintersun, Old Gods Awaken is quite bloated with its extended runtimes on individual songs. Songs like "Mystic Tavern" and "Ride the White Storm" have strong grooves with the occasional tight chorus, but they get overshadowed by an extended bridge or instrumental solo. The middle of the record shares some more concise runtime, but with some less than stellar choruses. While the album closer, "Old Gods Awaken" runs on for about six minutes too long. 

And that's about it. Atavistia, for all of their good intentions, are unable to develop a sound for themselves. Or, at the very least, produce an album that doesn't sound bloated. This is the bands fourth full length and it sounds like they haven't changed their sound at all. The mix is too overbearing and many of Old Gods Awaken's best moments are hidden behind a wall-of-sound that should never have been there.

Best Songs: To a New World, Goddess of My Dreams, Seeker of Time

For Fans Of: Ensiferum, Wintersun

Thin Lizzy could sometimes be a great hard rock band and Phil Lynott was as much a lyrical poet for the common man as Bruce Springsteen across the pond. Good though most of their albums were, with some really anthemic songs in their repertoire, I don't think that their studio albums ever really captured their live energy suffciently. This is a viewpoint that I think is borne out by how much esteem people attach to the Live and Dangerous double live set. I managed to catch them on the Black Rose tour in 1979 and got to see that energy and vitality up close and was lucky enough to witness exactly how Lynott worked an audience and got them eating out of his hand. As the NWOBHM swept across the UK during the early '80s Phil and co started to develop a harder edge, both lyrically and musically with tracks like "Killer on the Loose" and "Angel of Death", which has even been covered by polish death metallers Vader, coming to the fore. Inevitably then, that they would react to the musical zeitgeist and issue an album that occasionally pushed their long-established hard rock sound over into heavy metal territory. Now let us not overstate things, Thunder and Lightning certainly isn't a "Piece of Mind", "Court in the Act" or even a "Holy Diver, it is still recognisably Thin Lizzy with more than one of its feet still in rock territory, but as the title track explodes from the speakers following a short, typically 80s synth intro, then it is obvious that the band have upped the ante on the aggressiveness of their attack. I think a significant event that contributed to this change was the replacement of the laid-back Snowy White with Tygers of Pan Tang guitarist John Sykes, a six-string slinger who had obviously grown up and paid his dues in the heart of the NWOBHM and whose harder-edged guitar style was much more suited to the younger metal audience than the bluesy, Clapton-esque White. Of course Sykes was only one half of the twin guitar attack with long-time member Scott Gorham still most definitely present. When Sykes lets rip though, even on a track like "The Holy War" then he makes it sound more metal than it actually is, so when applied to a more fundamentally metal track like "Cold Sweat" then the effect is multiplied tenfold.

I wonder exactly how much "Thunder and Lightning" can really be considered metal because, apart from those already mentioned, contemporary albums were "Kill 'Em All", "Show No Mercy" and "Melissa". Now is T&L even close to being as metal as any of those albums? No of course it isn't and the majority of the tracklist is still under the rock umbrella for my money, but Sykes' contribution and the songwriting of tracks like "Cold Sweat" and the title track hint at a more metal aspiration, probably just naturally absorbed from the audiences and support acts the band interacted with in the Brave New Metal World of the early 80s in the UK and Ireland.

So, considering this only as a Thin Lizzy album, irrespective of its metal credentials, how does it compare to past glories? Well, for me, Lizzy albums were always a little bit patchy, even classics like "Jailbreak" with Phil Lynott's excessive sentimentality sometimes getting the better of him and being reflected in the odd soppy track that really didn't do too much for me. I would say that this was a big improvement over the unremarkable "Renegade", but doesn't touch the likes of Jailbreak and Black Rose, at least as far as the songwriting goes, but it is certainly enlivened by Sykes guitar work which raises it a knotch or two in quality. Inevitably, because that is just how it was back then with legacy acts, the album also has that eighties' stadium production sound with accentuated percussion and synths that I find a little bit kitsch nowadays and which I generally struggle with (see Judas Priest's entire eighties' output for further examples) and which also drops it in position in Lizzy's overall discography for me. So once more a patchy release, but when it is good and the stars align, it is very good.

I hadn't heard the third full-length from this Scottish NWOBHM act before but this week's experience with 1992's "Hypnosis of Birds" has been unanimously positive as well as quite surprising. You see, I wasn't much of a fan of Holocaust's 1981 debut album "The Nightcomers" which is by far their most well-known release. It was a very basic, rough-&-ready heavy metal affair that's light-years away from the sophisticated progressive metal we find here. There are some hints of Holocaust's roots to be found here & there (see the first half of the opening title track or the re-recording of the band's signature piece "The Small Hours" which Metallica covered on their 1987 "Garage Days Re-Revisited" E.P.) but, for the most part, Holocaust have moved on creatively with only guitarist John Mortimer remaining from the lineup that delivered the debut. Mortimer also handles the vocals this time which are admittedly nothing special. It's the instrumentation that's the real win here with some of this material reminding me a lot of more popular progressive metal artists like Mastodon, Devin Townsend or Dream Theater. Unfortunately, there are no genuine classic of offer but the quality is consistently strong enough to make "Hypnosis of Birds" a great listen nonetheless, even if the production is a little rougher than you'd generally expect from a prog record. This is definitely my new favourite Holocaust release, over-taking the fairly underground 1980 "Heavy Metal Mania" E.P. which I quite like. And by the way, please ignore the RYM tagging which includes Avant-Garde Metal & Heavy Metal, neither of which are relevant.

For fans of Voivod, Anacrusis & The Thought Industry.

More divine steers have been slaughtered sacrilegiously, but not ever like this…

He decapitates the bovine, wrings its blood, severs the withering vessels and excavates the flesh and any obstructing bones. He places the steer’s head upon his, raises his fists to the sky in triumph an holds a bone in his right hand and stomps and looks down on everyone else, showing that every album before it, whether thrash, death or even black metal is inferior to it. 

Seriously this album is something fucking else. The songs are very assorted and there is a wide variety of riffs, speed, and the structure of those songs in many ways. They all use the same elements but is masterfully arranged in unique ways to give different tastes. For example, Massacre fucking will stab your ass to death immediately upon opening up the album. Chariots of Fire also uses a blazing fast pace, with the guitars sounding like an actual wildfire, or a buzzing flaming army of thousands of charioted hellish knights which fall upon Earth to destroy humanity by driving the destruction of a nuclear war. Equimanthorn at the beginning half is very quick, aggressive and almost war metal like. I mean it was a massive influence on war metal (with bands like Revenge covering it), but then turns into a very catchy, slow and crushing drum beat that match the rhythm of the guitar in a groovy way, but a groove only unique to black metal. Its a hellish groove, which is not happily catchy, but it makes you march in a coordinated mass towards the inferno of hate. 

Enter the Eternal Fire is one of the greatest and most unique songs in metal, both in sound and thematic intention. It is consistently praised, and universally loved as a staple in black metal and in metal as a whole. But those aspects are not what I’m mentioning here. The uniqueness of the riff, which has literally no resemblance to any other metal song at all, because of the feedback loop of the entire riff biting itself back like a self eating snake. What I mean here is that the riff has a tie and varies a lot in pitch very quickly, between the sparsely laid out power chord posts and the unique one or two open string picking is what makes the song sound very unique, awesome, and hellish, and this is not even including the icy, raw, and serrated guitar tone. Its orchestral, an evil metal orchestra done right. Its like one of the perfect songs that should be playing during Dante’s journey in the Nine Circles in one of his Poems “Inferno”. The lyrics of the song sound like an in-depth tour of a man’s descent in Hell, and absolutely like some Satan worship of willingly giving up yourself to go to Hell in some cheesy corny song. In fact the Devil is never mentioned once in this song. The person in question in the song is being forced and hypnotized with the constant call of his name and is drawn into the fire, seeing and hearing the bodies and voices crying in pain. He will enter the eternally burning fire.  

Call from the Grave is very heavy, like a cargo vessel, Jon Brower Minnoch, Sagittarius A heavy. Okay maybe not that heavy, but it is a very dark, warm, groovy and a shock mondo VHS film kind of atmosphere, like observing an autopsy. It has that magnetic, distorted ragged almost fluid like electronic bass sound when the strings on Quorthon’s guitar are rolling down each of the bars. The main riff of this song is such that it only sounds good in this, setting, atmosphere and album. The guitar sound is unlike any other and so is the song’s riffs. The lyrics also are quite haunting, considering the fact that the mastermind of this masterpiece is gone. 

I mean this is the greatest black metal album ever. Forget about the overrated “Storm of the Light’s Bane”, “Filosofem” and absolutely abysmally garbage “black shoe gaze” albums that you’ll for some reason find on that stupid black metal ranking list in “Rate Your Music”, (which is an absolute garbage joke of a website). But besides that, I think that this album is important to not just black metal, but metal as a whole. This album destroys any other band in the 80s, and it is the greatest example of what an evil sounding album should sound like. Its primordial, cold and hot on the extremes, fast, brutal, aggressive and malicious. This is a perfect album, anybody would be shitheaded pillock to not consider this a flawless record of extreme music. It is not rooted in any previous genres because it created a new sound entirely, with some little footing in thrash metal, but it is breaks from that as a whole. I mean enough has been said here, I personally love this album and have it on a CD, so its playable in the car stereo, this album is addicting truly!

Elder's next on my 2026 goals, so I figured I might as well get through any Elder albums I haven't gotten through yet. I don't really have much to say about this except that this album is perfect for the Monster Magnet fans if you like your stoner and psych drawn out. The album's songwriting is straightforward, never outgoing with wild solos and sticking to the melodic variety and essence. But since Elder is habitually monolithic, this means we're in for a series of epics. Now for some, typically myself, this may be a problem if they don't expand enough. But it tweaks around with post-metal ambience and gritty sludge, occasionally going vocal. Because of both the melodies and the lyrics, the album maintains that surreal wonder that any good psych album needs, and the lyrical style makes up for the otherwise decent vocals. Totally not standing out at all. While the album FEELS the same throughout most of its runtime, and many of the tricks they pull have been done before by other artists, they still manage a good number of tricks and directions. And thanks to a careful collective of genres that work very well together (maybe too well), the album checks a lot of boxes for rock fans. And the best thing about the album is how hard-hitting they are. If this is a rock album instead of metal, it's really no surprise while some people think of it as metal. We're not dealing with a simple-minded mislabelling akin to AC/DC here. They push the buttons of are-hitting with much of what they're doing. So while the compositions aren't the most brilliant, it's difficult not to get behind them and feel like your space trucking through the galaxy with an uzi on your hip, even when the album's sound gets more contemplative.

Well, I liked this one. It got a little more surprising as it went along, the stoner vibes were quite enjoyable, and it bore great stoner metal energy even when it wasn't being a metal album. Glad I finally got around to this.

89

1997’s ‘Magic’ is the sixth studio album by German guitarist Axel Rudi Pell. Closely following the same formula as its predecessor, 1996’s ‘Black Moon Pyramid’, it’s a fine slab of European hard rock, similar in sound and style to artists like Yngwie Malmsteen, Rainbow and Journey.

Admittedly, this has been on my playlist for well over a year, and I’ve struggled to really think of what to say about it. I’m pretty sure this happened with the aforementioned predecessor too, because Rudi Pell albums can tend to be quite repetitive and follow the same formula. That’s not to say they’re bad though, as they are of a consistently high standard, just that some are more memorable than others.

It’s worth noting that this is the last release to feature American powerhouse vocalist Jeff Scott Soto, due to conflicting schedules and overall burnout. Perhaps this was a move that would ignite a new spark of inspiration for the band with their next release, because follow-up album, 1998’s ‘Oceans of Time’ is probably one of my favourite releases from the German guitarist.

Still, there’s some great tracks here, including ‘Playing With Fire’, ‘The Clown is Dead’, ‘Turned to Stone’, ‘Magic’, ‘Nightmare’ and closing track ‘The Eyes of the Lost’. Overall though, if you’re new to the music of Axel Rudi Pell, I think there are certainly better albums to check out, and if you’re already a fan, you’ll know exactly what to expect, and I don’t think ‘Magic’ disappoints.

Flame, Dear Flame get advertised as “epic doom”, going as far as to describe themselves on their Bandcamp page as “monumental, crushing epic doom”. I don’t agree, for the record, but that is not me dismissing FDF as not being a good band. Their repertoire is varied enough to make Aegis interesting and at times unexpectedly gentle in fact. This gentleness is not just by virtue of the classical female vocals alone. Aegis is a very well-tempered musical experience. I will go as far as to say that whilst I acknowledge the impact of the vocals, I could cope without there being as much of them as there is. Their central position in the proceedings is certainly a solid enough anchor to weight your focus from, yet the guitars and percussion are subtly nuanced with heavy metal, traditional doom and an almost black metal shroud on at least one occasion.

It is clear to see why FDF have toured with the likes of Smoulder. However, I feel FDF are niche in terms of those vocals, which I am sure would have provided a great contrast to the more aggressive style of Sarah in the live setting. However, I am more a fan of the energy behind the vocals of say Sara Bianchin of Messa, a woman who has range and variety alongside an obvious yet never imposing presence. Like Messa, the guitar work in FDF is worth writing home about. David Kuri embraces the doom aesthetic probably best out of the band, stirring genuine melancholy in his melodies whilst equally able to assert weight in his riffs. Drummer, Jan Franzen puts in one of those performances whereby you do not necessarily notice him all the time, yet his spacing in the instrumentation is always perfect. Again, referring to the band’s bio on BC, they describe the drumming as “restrained” which is a great description.

Overall, for me at least, Aegis just potters around in the same space for too much of the album. Not that I want it in bucket loads, but there is no sense of dynamics. Just as my ears get pricked up by a suitably heavy riff, the album drifts away to a far too clean and eventually ordinary sounding place. I can’t deny the beauty of Maren Lemke’s voice but I just feel that it guides the direction of the album into an altogether too soft a space.

About a month ago, I reviewed the newest record from Finnish melodic black metal band, Gaerea, called Loss and I spent more than a little bit of time going over how Century Media Records took a promising little progressive black metal project and sucked the life out of it. In that review I also referred to the band Non Est Deus and how they were also signed to Century Media Records. So given how the Gaerea album review went, I was certainly not looking forward to this.

Upon further research, it tuns out that not only is Non Est Deus still technically signed to Noisebringer Records (which acts as more of a subdivision of Century Media), but I completely forgot to mention one other black metal who is tied to this record label: Kanonenfieber. This makes a lot of sense when you consider that Non Est Deus is one of the projects of the German multi-instrumentalist/producer, Noise. This is all to say that I have been enjoying revisiting some of the older records of Kanonenfieber before their transition to Century Media Records and I was hoping that Non Est Deus would do the same.

And the result was fairly enjoyable, if a little repetitive. The opening of this record with "Show Mercy" into "Forgive Me" is a nice little introduction to the whole "Blessings" and "Curses" that the album is highlighting. The first is fairly calm, almost tranquil in structure, and then "Forgive Me" revs up the intensity with blast beats and tremolo guitars. The rhythmic drive on these more aggressive songs is really intoxicating and leaves me excited to hear what will happen next.

On the downside however, this record seems to lose a lot of steam during its second half. A few tracks following "Prayer II" have the uncanny effect of sounding eerily similar to other tracks on the same album. While the albums closer causes me to lose interest in record time as both "The Sacrifice" and "The Indulgence" share not only the same tonal center's but also the same tempos and dynamic shifts. As a result, a record that begins incredibly well, falls off pretty hard at its conclusion.

And this is not helped that much at all by the lyrical content. Like with Kanonenfieber, Non Est Deus is a conceptual project that, while remaining pretty vague, is meant to be an anti-religious project. With Kanonenfieber I can tolerate it since it's carried by themes that are not a common stereotype in this genre. Part of the reason I enjoyed Aara's 2024 album Eiger was because of the uncommonly found concept. Blessings and Curses carries a lot in common with De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and as a result, loses some of its charm.

That being said, I still do enjoy enough of Blessings and Curses to give it a fair shake. As a Century Media Records project, this is solid enough black metal to give it a tentative recommendation. I am willing to forgive the momentum loss during the second half and very played out concept because I know that Noise knows what they are doing; they are too talented as a composer/songwriter and as a producer. And it's still played so well that it doesn't bother me the same as it might on other projects. It is better than 2023's Legacy so that's a bonus.

Best Songs: Forgive Me, The Forsaken, Transgression, Kora

For Fans Of: Kononenfieber, Winterfylleth, Yoth Iria

This latest release from the ukrainian atmospheric black metallers is a three-track, twenty-minute EP and it exudes an air of melancholic reflectiveness that is reminiscent of the opening instrumental from previous album, 2025's "Shadow Play". This may well be all-new material, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turned out to be leftover tracks from that album because it fits in so well as a companion piece. This turn in tone from Drudkh is unsurprising given the situation in Ukraine over the last four years, particularly around the band's hometown of Kharkiv which has seen some of the war's most intense fighting. Who wouldn't become pensive in such a situation? Although they don't address the war directly in their lyrics I think lines like "Only their silhouettes, Touched once by an indifferent hand, Take up faded places, In memory" (from "Memory") are fairly unambiguous in their sentiment.

The opener is indeed a reflective piece that, whilst still sitting comfortably under atmospheric black metal has such a melancholy air to it, emphasised beautifully by some subtly applied keys, that it also feels like it has one foot in the post-metal camp. The second track, "Somewhere, Sometime" is an instrumental that possibly feels even more wistful than the opener with its main melodic theme having a reflective, folky air, as if looking back fondly on simpler times now lost. Add in some picked guitar lines and, again, those subtle, melancholy-sounding synths and you have a fairly simple, melodic and exceedingly effective instrumental break at the heart of the EP.

The closer, "A Moment in Eternity" is probably the track most recognisable to long-standing Drudkh fans, being a more conventional slice of atmospheric black metal. Even here, though, the vicious bite that used to hone the edge of Drudkh's sound feels muted, as if the sorrow being felt by the musicians is so great as to infuse their very being and leave them changed as a result. Once more, even though the track is of a higher tempo and has a traditional black metal structure, the air of wistful reflection still permeates it and rather than being a celebration of ukrainian culture and history as a lot of Drudkh's past work seemed to be, this is more like a eulogy to something that has been lost, possibly for ever.

I understand if some long-time fans were to be unsure of this direction the band have taken as it is quite different to their best-loved releases but, as someone who is often drawn to the more downbeat and melancholy in metal, I have to say that I actually really like this, even though, unfortunately, its sentiments may well be rooted in real world tragedy which i am sure we all wish had never happened.

Varg Vikernes' eight (second recorded after his release from prison) studio album was a major disappointment for me at the time but it's been a good decade & a half since we last crossed paths now so I thought I'd give it another chance to capture me this week. Unfortunately, despite not being quite as bad as I first thought, "Fallen" is still a fairly underwhelming experience with pretty much every element being less effective than they've been during Varg's incredible creative peak of the mid-1990's. The overall sound is thrashier than he'd offered up before & spends time in both the conventional & atmospheric black metal space. There's a noticeable lack of synthesizers here though which is regrettable when you consider how wonderfully Varg's utilized them in the past. Vikernes' harsh vocals are totally different too & sound like he's really struggling to reproduce them in his old age while his incorporation of clean vocals is misguided, even bordering on being cringe-worthy. In saying all of that, there are some great black metal riffs here at times which leads to a good half of the record being pretty enjoyable (see "Jeg faller", "Vanvidd" & my personal favourite "Enhver til sitt"). Sadly though, the other half is pretty lacklustre with the tracklisting petering out badly at the end & collapsing completely with the God-awful neo-pagan folk closer "Til Hel og tilbake igjen". Look... you can obviously tell from my rating that "Fallen" isn't a complete disaster but it simply isn't up the task of maintaining Burzum's legacy. In fact, it's hard to deny that it does its best to tarnish it. I think "Fallen" was comfortably the weakest Burzum album to the time.

For fans of Drudkh, Forgotten Woods & Judas Iscariot.

Let it be known that dropping into a new bands first full length record with lowered expectations is not always the right call. I was all ready to write this review as a scathing criticism of modern metalcore and basic and generic it all sounds; how it focuses on intensity and face melting breakdowns instead of actually writing good songs. Well that only appears to be half right on Hell Is Just a Halfway House by the djentcore act Iridium. Because, while the album isn't really that innovative by modern metalcore standards, the way in which they perform is splendid. Iridium have a very good understanding of being able to split the difference and appease both sides of this debate. The album is heavy, but not overwhelming, while still managing to make the melodic choruses very enjoyable. Hell Is Just a Halfway House does have enough variety between the different tracks as to not become too boring, which is also helped by the fact that this album is just longer than half-an-hour. I would say on an individual basis, the songs are bloated by these extended atmospheric interludes that run pretty consistent throughout the album. They don't feel distracting per se, in fact I quite enjoy them as a slight moment of reprieve, but they definitely could have been trimmed down and not be quite as frequent. 

Besides that however, I can't really be super critical towards this album. Iridium have shown through their debut that heaviness and melody can coexist together in the world of metalcore. It isn't going to blow you away with how drastically different it is from the octanecore of today, but it might just change your mind on the direction that this seemingly motionless genre can go.

Best Songs: God Eater, Soul//Split, Is It Too Late?, Could9

For Fans Of: Spiritbox, Invent Animate

I love thrash metal and I love punk rock but, in truth, I am not all that enthusiastic about crossover thrash. Maybe I haven't heard the right albums as a quick look at my ratings sees me amassing less than 20, so I can hardly call myself an expert. One of my problems with crossover thrash is that far too often it just doesn't seem serious and feels like more of a "party" sub-genre like glam metal. Even outside of fatally unfunny shit like SOD, bands like Gama Bomb, DRI and The Accüsed sound a bit frivolous to me. Before you all call me out on this, I know that this is probably an unreasonable stance to take and you may well be justified in calling me a miserable old fucker, but it is genuinely how I feel. All that said, I am more than happy to say that Zerre have blown that stance completely out of the water with "Rotting on a Golden Throne".

One thing is for sure, these guys are deadly serious about this shit. Having begun life as a hardcore punk outfit, they definitely have the grounding in the punk side of things, bringing a serious level of hardcore aggression and vitality to proceedings. Despite their punk origins, however, they don't come up short in the metal department either with some barnstorming riffs and quite thrilling soloing from dual guitarists Dominik and Rocco. Interestingly, vocalist Nico Ziska, who was previously bassist with black metallers Der Weg einer Freiheit, is not the singer from their punk rock days, yet he still has quite an aggrressive, bellowing vocal style that may lead you to assume he had a previous grounding in hardcore. The gang backing vocals are also expertly handled and don't ever come off as lame or naff, which can't always be said about a crossover album The speed and aggression never lets up and I can imagine a pit at a Zerre show is a hell of a place to be.

The tightness of this five-man outfit is certainly impressive and the guys are evidently skilled musicians, the two leads in particular impressing with their abilities, both technically and artistically. These are genuinely some of the best, high-octane thrash riffs I have heard from outside of Chile for quite some time. The drumming on final track "No Alibi" is also some of the most Animalistic (as in the Muppet drummer) craziness I have heard on a thrash track. There isn't really a weak track on the album, but the run of four tracks from "Deception of the Weak" through to the title track is just insanely good. It is still early days yet, but I am becoming increasingly convinced that this is my all-time favourite crossover album (unless "Among the Living" counts).

Anonymous Massachusetts four-piece Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean are back with a 28 minute EP of their trademark, noise-drenched, sludge metal that, characteristically slams into you like a sledgehammer to the forehead. I don't know if I was in the wrong frame of mind for it during my initial listen-through because it just kind of washed over me and felt draining to listen to the first time, with a really heavy noise influence that gave it a cloying uniformity I really wasn't in the mood for. Subsequent listens have left me feeling more positive although, in truth, it seldom approaches the level of awesomeness I attributed to their 2023 "Obsession Destruction" LP. Things kick off in fine style with the longest and, for my money, best of the four tracks, the 9-minute "An Abundance of Mercy". This is a hulking slab of reverb-drenched sludge metal with a memorable and doomy main riff that crushes like a runaway steamroller and caustic vocals that could double as paint stripper. A couple of noise and feedback-soaked breakdowns fill out the track and provide a counterpoint to that comparatively melodic main riff.

"Upheaval" is the EP's shortest and most vitriolic-sounding track with a fairly quick tempo and a marked noise component that pushed a bit too far in that direction for my particular taste and may well have been the source of my initial reticence towards the EP as a whole. I am on much more comfortable ground with the remaining two tracks, "An Adornment of Light" and "Execution" with their doomier and resultingly more crushing atmospheres. I must make mention of the drumming as it is of particular note, driving and pummelling, even on the slower, doomier sections with the nameless skinsman's performance on "Execution" being an especial standout.

Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean are evidently emerging from under the shadow of their main influence, Louisisana's Thou, and are forging their own identity with an even more abrasive and noisy style of sludge designed not so much to get under the listener's skin, but rather to strip that skin away completely.

Black Sabbath’s aptly titled ‘Vol. 4’ is the British metal pioneers’ fourth studio album, and once again, it’s another release that I struggle to really get into.

I don’t dislike Black Sabbath, I enjoy most genres of music and most bands, from any era. But for whatever reason, the stars just do not align because I just don’t “get” the first few Black Sabbath albums. I’m sure there’s a point, perhaps later in their career, where the band just clicks with me, but their first few records, often revered as metal masterpieces by fans, just do nothing for me.

It’s not all gloom and doom though (well, it kind of is!), as there are a couple of highlights. ‘Snowblind’ is a fantastic song, probably ranking up there as one of my Sabbath favourites, cheesy ballad ‘Changes’ has some great vocal and lyrics, and ‘St. Vitus Dance’ has some interesting guitar work. But overall, I find the rest of the tracks just seem to plod along, similarly to how I felt about their previous releases.

I’ve tried and tried, and have had this one on my playlist for a while, but it’s just not working for me. Perhaps I’ll have more luck with their next album…

Let’s just be honest here, does anyone actually go out of their way to listen to this album? The thing is, it’s not bad, it’s just, well… weird. ‘Time Requiem’, a progressive metal band specializing in lightning-fast flurries of notes in a neoclassical vein, is the product of keyboard mastermind Richard Andersson. They’d only released one studio album prior to this, so like… why produce a live album so early in their career?

It just seems unusual. I don’t know a lot about the band, but I would take a guess that, like other, similar groups, they probably don’t gig very often, if ever. And with a limited choice of songs, it just doesn’t really offer much for the listener to sink their teeth into.

For what it’s worth though, the performances are fantastic. Each member of the band plays with machine-like precision. The sound is very good, and the crowd seem quite receptive to the band, though my guess is that this isn’t typically a Time Requiem audience.

It could also just be that I’ve always preferred studio albums to their live counterparts. But overall, this isn’t a bad release, but I doubt I’ll ever listen to it again. I’ll just stick to the bands studio output instead.

I'm no expert on the industrial side of metal, but I could swear that underneath all of the brushed steel and polished chrome of the cyber-industrial, hot-rod production job, there throbs an old-fashioned, sulphur-spewing death metal motor. Hell, at times I'd go as far as to say that, to these battered old ears, it sounds like machine-reproduced old-school death doom, with Ghost in the Void being the most impressive example. In the end though, the industrial shenanigans just get too overbearing for my taste, the vocals being particularly problematic for me and by album's end I had heard enough. Unlikely to get too many respins I'm afraid.

Ennui were formed in Tbilisi, Georgia in 2012 by guitarists David Unsaved and Sergi Shengelia with the former also contributing vocals and keys and Sergi playing drums and bass in addition to their six-stringed day job. In 2015, for their third album, "Falsvs Anno Domini" the duo added Daniel Neagoe (Shape of Despair, Pantheist amongst many others) on bass and drums. However, he departed before the next album, "End of the Circle" and they reverted to a duo with John Devos (Pantheist, Comatose Vigil A.K.) showing up as guest drummer. Onto Qroba then and they have now expanded into a five-piece with no less than four guirarists, the original duo being joined by Andrey Azatyan and Kakhi Kiknadze with the drum stool being filled by Alexandr Gongliashvili. Unsaved also covered vocals and bass duties as well as panduri, which is a three-stringed traditional georgian folk instrument.

Qroba is not the most monolithic or repetitive example of funeral doom that you will ever hear and at times it is even quite melodic and atmospheric. This does not translate as "not heavy" by any means because it assuredly is, but there is a bit more to the songwriting than merely trying to write the slowest, heaviest-sounding doom metal on the planet. I would compare it to the early albums from France's Monolithe, but without the extreme track lengths. The hour here presented consists of five tracks, from ten to fourteen minutes in length, giving each plenty of time to establish its rhythmic tides and atmosphere without ever outstaying its welcome. Thematically it is fairly typical funeral doom fodder. According to the band themselves it is concerned with "coming to terms with the inevitable, told through melancholy and contemplation" and although this traversal from light to darkness is common subject matter in doom circles it is addressed so effectively both atmospherically and lyrically that it transcends the feelings of triteness that these overused tropes sometimes elicit in the ardent funeral doom listener. The track "Down, To The Stars" is based upon and uses the words of the poem of the same name from highly respected 20th century georgian poet Terenti Graneli and is a beautiful expression of the album's concept, but this is no anomaly and the band's own lyrics are also some of the most thought-provoking I have heard for a good while.

The songwriting is excellent and it is obvious that these guys have been round the doom metal block a few times because they are able to explore and stretch the funeral doom genre without ever threatening to dilute what makes it so appealing to its adherents in the first place. This is not some Frankenstein's monster genre hybrid, but genuine, lovingly-crafted, purely refined funeral doom metal with a breadth and scope deserving of respect. Alongside expert song and lyric writing these guys are evidently talented musicians and, to my uneducated ears, Qroba sounds technically perfect with some gorgeous guitar lines, yet it never feels staid or stilted, but oozes with feeling and passion, each track developing in an organic and natural manner so that nothing ever feels forced. Unsaved's vocals are the deep, abyssal growls expected from a funeral doom vocalist, yet he seems to wring an expressiveness and emotional resonance from them that I have very rarely encountered from an extreme doom metal singer.

In summary this must be one of the most affecting and haunting funeral doom albums I have heard and, despite its often melodic approach to the sub-genre, it is so skillfully executed that there is no compromise made as regards to sheer heaviness. In the extreme doom world, where sludge and noise-based releases seem to be the only kids on the block anymore, it makes my heart soar to know that there are still acts out there who can fire my soul in a genre that seemed like it had passed its peak some time back. Each play sees me falling in love with this more than the previous one.

Can you write a crossover thrash album nowadays without sounding like Power Trip? Thought I would get that statement out of the way early in the review. Not that it is a criticism though, to be able to emulate one of the most enjoyed sounds of the modern era is a solid prop to be able to give any band I suspect. Power Trip’s legacy (even though they are still active) is lasting, and rightly so, with Zerre doing that legacy justice here. Having moved away from their early hardcore punk sound, Zerre smash out the riffs and solos on this, their fourth album to date. The five-piece operate a tight ship on Rotting on a Golden Throne, with a savage and consistent attack that holds up well over nine tracks.

Album opener proper, ‘Pigs Will be Pigs’ sets the listener up for what is to come nicely. It is a clear opening statement of their intent to take no prisoners, which is very much the attitude they keep for the whole album. The danger of the relentless attack causing songs to morph into one another thankfully doesn’t come to fruition. This is because, in the first instance at least, Zerre are skilled musicians. Their abilities as a collective are difficult not to appreciate given the collective experience of the musicians involved. Guitarists Rocco (Julian) Lepore and Dominik Bertelt ply their trade elsewhere as drummers in heavy metal band Forensick and veteran German thrashers Vendetta respectively. Vocalist Nico Ziska was bassist in Der Weg einer Freiheit for eight-years and is audible in the mix too. No …and Justice for All shenanigans here folks.

Zerre vary the track lengths and pacing nicely to mix up the experience of the album. They slow down the longest track on the album, ‘Mental Vacation’ to give the leads a build up and then bring the track back twice as strong as before. Germany has a habit of being to sneak out these gems of thrash metal on the quiet as I discovered with Reactory and their Collapse to Come album from 2020. Just as with that album, I stumbled across Rotting on a Golden Throne – probably to rate another subpar Girardi artwork in all honesty – only to find it worthy of repeated plays and a slot in my feature release schedule for the site.

All that said, it is still a crossover thrash metal album, and it is hard to be ultra-excited for it, which is no reflection on the content, more just my diminishing enthusiasm for the sub-genre that The Pit covers. However, I will be coming back to this record (although I will always be liable to skip the indulgence of ‘Concrete Hell’) for future quick fixes when the itch calls for it.

Who the heck are Agatus? According to the internet, they have been at it for nearly thirty-five-years, yet I have never heard of them. Albeit they inhabit a geography of black metal that I rarely visit, in the Hellenic scene. They certainly sound like they are from that scene but do sound a tad colder in their style when compared to the still similar sounds of Rotting Christ and Varathron. Like those fellow Greeks, the simplicity of Agatus’ sound is endearing, somehow taking the clumsiness of Bathory and the attack of Absu and making pleasing output from them. Those melodies are the key to the overall success of Dawn of Martyrdom though. That is where the memorability gets an upgrade from those basic structures and stabs of keys.

It is hard to describe the record as being amateur. Despite it not really stretching its legs all that much, Dawn of Martyrdom still is welcome to stay the full length of its near fifty-one-minute runtime. Once it is playing, I find it hard to turn off, even though it is doing nothing remarkable. This style of black metal is important to remind us all that black metal grew around this bare aesthetic over many decades, but I missed the inception of this genre and so most of the time when I find a record that I have missed from the 90’s, I roll my eyes a little and think “oh, this sound again”. However, Agatus just have a real authenticity to their sound making their debut difficult to resist.

It is no hidden gem or missed classic for my money as these ideas have all been done already and done much better in fact. That’s not to say that I fail to enjoy the album though. Agatus can more than string together a tune, even if the variety factor suffers here (albeit it’s a black metal album so I must base part of my rating on how well it maintains those conventional tropes of repetition and mundane grimness). I would say the standout factor is the attack of the album, which is dogged in its determination to say the least. It may have melody galore and picked string passages drifting around the place but ultimately the album is on the front foot for a lot of the time. If you like the Hellenic scene then you cannot go wrong with Dawn of Martyrdom.

With all the modern variations of black metal it is easy to forget what made it so appealing in the first place. For me, these frosty, often quite simple, tremolo riffs with minimal bass influence, pummelling drums and blastbeats, croaky, cracked vocals intoning lyrics of fantastical occultism and thin and reedy, cheap-sounding synth overlays are a much-appreciated reminder of what it was about black metal that initially spoke to me. In truth, I think a lot of early black metal was actually far more accessible than it is given credit for. It wasn't always the home of the dissonant and avant-garde boundary-pushers it plays host to a lot of the time now and its roots in thrash, speed and particularly death metal were often quite apparent. Of course this is all relative and at the time it was more of a revolution than it appears in hindsight aided, no doubt, by a lot of the myths and legends that surrounded some of the prime movers. What I am getting at with this lengthy preamble is that listening to "Dawn of Martyrdom" for the first time, thirty years after its original release, has been a major positive experience for me, reigniting some of the fire that I felt when first getting into black metal, a fire that has been doused somewhat by a genre that has moved well beyond its original boundaries into areas that too frequently now leaves me unmoved.

In common with many from the Hellenic black metal scene, Agatus sit at the more melodic end of the black metal spectrum with riffs that are generally mid-paced rather than frantically pummelling and which owe a lot to traditional heavy metal's inherent melodicism, allowing each track an identity of its own and giving them quite a high memorability factor alongside a greater degree of accessibility than some of the more kvlt acts of the 90s. Now, personally I think there is plenty of room within the black metal realm for both the melodic and the kvlt with no contradiction in enjoying both. There is a definite tinge of Immortal to the Greeks' debut, a band that proved that you didn't have to only have ultra lo-fi production and relentless blastbeats to sit at black metal's top table, with tracks such as "Spirits From the Depths of Earth" and the opener "Under the Spell of the Dragon" feeling like they would be perfectly at home on the Norwegian's "At the Heart of Winter" album. I am not implying that this is by any means over-produced, not at all, it is still quite sparse production-wise, but it does have just enough meat on its bones to melt some of that nordic frostiness and infuse it with some Aegean brine instead, feeling less like disembodied voices from snow-covered forests and more like natural spirits calling down from mystical island mountaintops.

Very much in similar vein to Immortal's Ravendark mythos, "Dawn of Martyrdom" feels like Agatus are pulling you into an overarching saga rather than just praising satan and cursing religion, unsurprising from a band that calls the bithplace of Homeric epic home. Three of the tracks are quite lengthy, the two already mentioned and the nine-minute "King of the Forest", and these more epic affairs are where Agatus really excel, allowing their penchant for epic storytelling free rein and being my favourites as a result. This isn't the whole story of course, the short, frantic "Black Moon's Blood" sees the band proving that they can kick it with the Darkthrone's of the world and following track "When the Macabre Dance Begins" and the closer, "Nostalgia...", are interludes that sound like the music to formal medieval dances, but generally speaking, they stick to the mid-paced and melodic formula that seems to suit them so well.

I have been on a bit of a trad metal kick over the last few months as I have gone back to metal's 80s heyday with some targeted listening and I think that has really set me up to appreciate this chunk of Homeric Black Metal and its more melodic approach to black metal songwriting. Listening to this has made me wonder why I have never dived deeply into the Hellenic BM scene, a state of affairs it has made me determined to rectify. If you fancy Immortl with a bit of a medieval bent then give this a blast and I don't think you will regret it.

Hate Eternal are another of those bands whose name I have seen all over the place, but which I have never knowingly listened to. Basically "I, Monarch" is pummelling and brutally relentless 2000s death metal - and that is it really. It is unremittingly aggressive and possesses a certain degree of tech-death influence on the songwriting. They don't do anything new with that formula, but what they do they seemingly do very well. Unfortunately this isn't really the sort of death metal that lights my fire, I much prefer a looser, grimier style and whilst this isn't the most constipated-sounding of the brutal death metal albums I have heard, it leans a bit too much towards the rigid intensity end of the death metal spectrum for me to ever fully embrace it.

Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike it as such, in fact there are a couple of real highlights, such as when "To Know Our Enemies" drops into the expansive guitar solo with the didgeridoo playing in the background I think it hits an atmospheric high point. The vocals are great too, Erik Rutan having a suitably brutal-sounding bellow akin to an enraged bull looking to eviscerate a wayward matador. The production is very nice too, clear enough to hear what everyone is up to whilst not becoming too clinical and it is mercifully free of the crazy over-compression ruining a lot of more recent death metal releases. On the whole, however, it is an album I can play, nod my head to in a few places then forget about when it has finished with very little of it sticking with me for long afterwards. I have no idea how this stacks up within the wider Hate Eternal discography and whilst I have no especial aversion to exploring them further, neither am I in any hurry to jump into their back catalogue. Sometimes we just have to say "This is perfectly fine, but not really my bag" and so without it setting a fire in my belly I am never going to award it better than middling marks.

A Pale White Dot appears to represent either a turning point in the career of the band, or a side project. I echo a lot of the early sentiment surrounding this album when I hope that this is not a sign of things to come for Periphery in the future.

For starters, there isn't that much about A Pale White Dot that really stands out. None of the tracks within have that progressive nature to them; uncommon time signatures, whiplash transitions or extended runtimes. I found myself constantly falling out of sync with this album as it worked its way into the musical background as I work on other things. Songs like "Unlocking" and "Carry On" have decent fundamentals and technically sound great, but they are severely lacking in a truly jaw dropping moment that previous Periphery albums have had in spades.

The album really only has two standout moments. The first is the Will Ramos feature on "Subhuman" with its pedal-to-the-metal, unfiltered aggression. The dual vocals are a nice touch to change up the monotony, while the instrumentals have that unnerving texture, albeit far more subtle than what is to be expected by this band. The other moment is "Blackwall", which drops the guitars altogether in favour of new wave synthesizers. As the song builds up over its duration, one may become anxious in anticipation of the return of the drop tuned guitars and a vicious breakdown... only to find out that there will not be one here. The album does return to form immediately following on "Malevolent", but for these two back-to-back tracks, Periphery really made the best use of time.

The issue is that these two tracks are sandwiched in between ten songs of, relatively speaking, mediocrity. Periphery are still a very talented group, even when they are performing less technical music such as on this album, but the pedigree is far too high. This lack of stylistic variety or technical prowess just leaves A Pale White Dot seemingly empty.

Best Songs: Obsession, Mr. God, Subhuman, Everyone Dies Alone

For Fans Of: ERRA, Invent Animate, TesseracT

Continuing my theme of picking records that are by artists/bands who I am already familiar with but do not immediately recognise their side-projects at first glance, I recently discovered Solar Temple via The North playlist. One CD purchase later and I find out that this is one of the guys from Fluisteraars, a reference that I can hear in the first bars of album opener ‘Those Who Dwell in the Spiral Dark’. Despite having just two tracks the album is over thirty-six-minutes long and there is just as much detail in those two tracks as if there was seven or eight to listen through as part of a “standard” offering.

I would probably best describe Fertile Descent as music for the void. Once you are accustomed to the fathomless expanse that you will plummet through for all eternity you will find respite in its more atmospheric moments. You will hear the influence of Drudkh at times whilst on other occasions you will be soothed by otherworldly choral crooning. In short, this record is full of surprises, yet it never truly goes off-piste. For as much as I would recommend putting some headphones on with this one to properly enjoy it, I cannot guarantee that you will be able to still follow all individual elements at first. This is a record that does reward with repeated listens and does take the listener beyond just black metal. It is both dark and uplifting at the same time in fact, a feat many albums in this realm fail to pull off.

If we wanted to get into genre pedantry, then we could describe Fertile Descent as post-black metal, although blackgaze would be a stretch too far. Solar Temple are certainly unafraid to stretch their legs, regardless of one’s opinion of exactly where that takes them too. There is nothing alienating about Fertile Descent yet at the same time there is no evidence of the duo that make up Solar Temple crying out for mainstream stage lights either. Instead, the album sounds like an honest committal to tape of what excites and motivates the artists. I won’t pretend to love all of it, but I can certainly relate to most of it, and that’s progress folks.

Denmark remains one of the positive outliers in the world of black metal for churning out consistently high-quality bands. A lot like Canada, I find that there is almost a guarantee that I will like something that lands in my grubby mitts if it has originated from the land of Lego. Heltekvad are members of Morild, Afsky and Sunken. All three bands hail from the same country and having checked out a few releases from each it is not hard to see why I fell for Morgenrødens helvedesherre instantly. In fact, it was not until I purchased the vinyl that I released the band was a super-group of sorts. There is indeed a lot for me to like across these seven tracks that complete the album in a little over thirty-five-minutes. The vinyl copy comes with an impressive booklet, full of medieval imagery to accompany the lyrics, which are all Danish, and with me not understanding Danish the imagery is more appealing.

The music itself has a very European bm flavour to it. Anyone familiar with the vast atmospheric tunes of Sunken or Morild will find a little of that style by way of comparison here, if anything though, you could more easily liken it to an Afsky record, which feels a bit of a cop out given it is Ole Pedersen Luk’s demented shrieking that undertakes vocal duties here, the exact same voice of Afsky. It is not that Morgenrødens helvedesherre lacks texture because of the lack of extensive atmospheric bm. In fact, I would describe it as a very tactile listening experience overall. Jagged riffing plays across angular melodies, whilst on other occasions the more familiar tremolo takes centre stage. With a surprisingly clear production the guitars feel especially free to breathe alongside those raw vocals. My only criticism would be that the drums seem to have a diminished presence in the mix.

The sense of medieval times I have gauged from my reading of the period is that it was a time of desperation, and that despair was very much prevalent in daily life. The desperation and despair in the music are fitting then for my imagined aesthetic of life in this period of history. Uncertainty over war, invasion, famine, disease and inequality in general all provide a tumultuous backdrop for the trio of Heltekvad to write their black metal musings to. Completed by flares of horns and samples of what sound like lutes on one occasion, this medieval theme is certainly underlined well throughout Morgenrødens helvedesherre. The busier pacing of some tracks reflects a sense of chaos and the constant threat of change looming, whilst there is still some bleak comfort from the use of melody also on the record.

Arguably one of death metal’s most often overlooked bands, Tampa’s Hate Eternal have still been at it for the best part of three decades. In that time, they have managed to release seven albums, count the likes of Hannes Grossman, Tim Yeung, Derek Roddy and of course the mainstay of Erik Rutan in their ranks at various points, and share stages with the likes of Nile, Vader and Fear Factory amongst many others. Mr Rutan himself is a much lauded produced and all-round utility man, having been drafted into twist the knobs for the likes of Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel who have both also used him for his guitar playing skills in the past (indeed, my understanding is that he is a permanent fixture still in CC). Averaging around one release every three years, Hate Eternal have consistently churned out albums up until 2018 when they appear to have become distracted from the project. It was hard when looking to showcase an album of theirs to find a “classic” release. Arguably this is just as true from the perspective of looking at their discography in isolation as it is from looking at them within a whole genre view. Hate Eternal might be work-horses but it is rare to find a record they have done that is reviewed all that highly, in the truly standout section of the ratings on MA.

It could be argued that Rutan’s best work was prior to Hate Eternal, with the time he spent in Ripping Corpse and the initial three-year stint from 93-96 in Morbid Angel perhaps being considered more noteworthy in comparison. That having been said, for me personally, Covenant is one of the weaker MA albums. On the flipside, the one and only release from Ripping Corpse is an absolute banger of a record. In selecting Hate Eternal’s third full length release, landing some eight years into their existence, as the feature release for The Horde this month, I feel I have selected perhaps a very representative Florida death metal-sounding record. I have too little experience of the entire discography to possibly place it in any ranking against the rest, yet I Monarch is clearly based on the type of ultra-fast death metal indicative of the likes of Deicide and Morbid Angel. Add to this some of the more technical tropes and brutal bludgeoning’s of Suffocation and Nile and you soon have record worth reckoning with on your turntable.

At the same time, I can pick up similar sounds from other artists who never quite manage to crack the higher echelons of death metal. The sameness that can haunt the likes of Krisiun and Vader does touch the content of some tracks on I Monarch. Equally though, the ripping intensity of the main riff of ‘The Victorious Reign’ is undeniably infectious. The drumming of Roddy on this record is exceptional I feel, and the instruments are all well represented in the mix and have a good sense of clarity from the production overall. Rutan’s vocals are suitably monstrous, and his songwriting is at times top-notch (‘Path to Eternal Gods’). Whilst I may not necessarily be a fan of his solo work, it does still bear recognition for being unique in its tame molestation of my ears as it plays. Ironically, the title track is perhaps my least favourite song on the album as it completely lacks cohesion and sounds like a b-side on an Immolation single.

Whilst I Monarch cannot justify a place in the higher end of the ratings spectrum; it is one of those records that feels as if I am short-changing it by awarding it in the middle range. It does however fall short on the truly standout moments and overall is not strong in the memorability stakes as a result. Whilst not overly technical, there are sections that feel lost on me and consistent application of my attention does prove difficult throughout the complete listening experience. In so many ways, I Monarch makes it clear why Hate Eternal never quite hear their name in the same conversations as some of the real heavyweights of death metal.

Much more gothic metal than the symphonic sound they’d become more familiar for, ‘Enter’, the 1997 debut album by Dutch band Within Temptation, is a far cry from the sound the band would be more widely recognised with upon later releases.

Not that it’s a terrible album, but if, like me, your introduction to the band was via later hits such as the epic ‘Ice Queen’ and the majestic ‘Mother Earth’ (yeah, that’s right, I said majestic!) then this record just doesn’t quite compare.

The music is alright, but overall the songs just all seem to plod along. Maybe it’s the production, or the fact there seems to be more emphasis on death metal growling. I don’t know, but this album just doesn’t really do much for me.

Songs like ‘Restless’ and ‘Enter’ have potential, but more often than not I just find myself losing interest halfway through. But whatever, there’s far worse debut albums out there, and the band would more than make up for it with their next release.

Finland’s Convocation are not exactly new to me, nor are they an artist that I have invested a lot of time with either. I recall trying them once and quickly finding myself distracted and off elsewhere on my to do list soon enough. Not that they necessarily did anything wrong, I usually find that aside from mood as an obvious influence over my enjoyment of a record, some music simply must be listened to from a critical perspective. No Dawn for Caliginous Night Is not background music and nor does it impose itself on the listener intentionally. Simply put, it is so well written, performed and arranged that to attempt to listen to it casually is very near to being an insult to Convocation.

I am a fan of both funeral and death/doom and to date, I do not recall that I have encountered an album that successfully combines the two sub-genres so eloquently. It is rare for the chug of the guitar that we get treated to around the six-minute and forty-second mark of album opener, ‘Graveless yet Dead’ to be present amongst such desolate sadness. Likewise, the poignancy of the melancholy of instrumental track ‘Between Aether and Land’ is uncharted territory across such a blended style of extreme metal.

 If I recall correctly, one of the guys involved in Convocation was (maybe still is) in Desolate Shrine, and I get snippets of their sound throughout this record. The definitively gloomy sound of Finnish funeral and death/doom permeates the record as you would expect. Finland has a proud heritage already in this field and No Dawn for Caliginous Night carries on that fine lineage. With such a well-produced album it is great to hear the rumble of the low end with just as much clarity as the slow-picked guitar notes, with even the harsh vocals receiving a great airing. Listen closely to ‘Lepers and Derelicts’ and appreciate the busy nature of the track as the guitars appear to chime a tune within the track. I have already lost track of how many times I have listened to this album now. Each time I do, I discover or notice something new. As if I needed any excuse to keep coming back, constant discovery is an added boon.

Steineiche is the 1998 debut album / demo (delete as necessary) by a young Wintherr (Tobias Möckl) and his fledgeling Paysage d'Hiver black metal project. In its most widely available version it consists of three lengthy tracks, each quite distinct, and has a runtime around an hour. The original, limited edition, CD-R version had a fourth track, Déjà Vu, which doesn't appear on subsequent versions and which I haven't heard.

Even at this early stage it was evident that Wintherr had an uncanny knack of wringing an enormous amount of atmosphere from the most basic of palettes. The length of the tracks inevitably leads to a degree of repetitiveness, but Wintherr's genius is in never allowing such to become monotonous or boring, but continuously evolving each track so that listener engagement is maintained, whilst not straying too far from the original premise and enveloping and immersing said listener in the atmospherics. The production values are exceedingly lo-fi as anyone familiar with the project would already guess, yet Wintherr works this in the music's favour, using sparse, lo-fi recording techniques to infuse his work with an inherent iciness that feels sharp and brittle like winter frost and is eminently suited to the atmosphere of this album in particular and the wider concept of "The Wanderer" that makes up the entire discography of the project, thus laying out his manifesto very early on.

As I mentioned at the outset, the three tracks are each very distinct, yet they complement each other inordinately well. The opener "Die Baumfrau" ("The Tree Woman"), begins with an ambient intro complete with that staple of Pd'H releases, samples of a winter wind blowing frostily from the speakers, before erupting in a shivering blast of black metal iciness that is probably nearest to what most would expect from the project, but which is no less effective for that, it essentially being the acorn from which that particular black metal oak germinated. The riffing and blasting is of a pummelling intensity and the high-pitched shrieks are searingly harsh and sound like someone taking a power sander to an orc's balls, but the track feels even more sinister when these give way to a deep, spoken-word section where the vocals hover around on the edge of audibility before the frantic shrieking reasserts control. Subtle little details like this, along with the insertion of a gothick-y guitar melody over the main riff in the middle section and another near the track's end that sounds like bluegrass banjo-picking, prevent the track from becoming stale whilst still maintaining the direction of travel, a skill with which Wintherr has proven to be admirably proficient over the years. By track's end, such is the impressiveness of his nascent songwriting ability, you don't even realise that twenty minutes have elapsed.

For the second epic, very different, track we get to hear from The Tree Woman's spouse "Der Baummann" (The Tree Man). This is a much more moody-sounding piece that has a doomier ethic with a guitar sounding at times very similar to Celtic Frost, or more accurately Triptykon. Overlaid with thin keys and a picked guitar melody and featuring guttural croaking vocals mixed quite low, this has a sinister, ominous edge to it, contrasting superbly with the savagery of the opener, as if the threat of "Der Baummann" is deeper and more profound than the mere physical violence of "Die Baumfrau". Ending with a tortured (possibly synthesised) violin scraping at your mind, the track seems to threaten the annihilation of soul as well as body.

The closer is a twenty-five minute ambient piece with a haunting, ritualistic atmosphere. Now I am not known for my patience with long ambient tracks. My dislike of "Rundgang um die transzendentale Säule der Singularität" on Burzum's "Filosofem" seemingly flying in the face of popular opinion, for example, but Wintherr here shows Varg how to construct a lengthy epic with quite simple building blocks that never threatens to become tedious. From ritualistic and almost martial-sounding beginnings it reaches for the stars and becomes more cosmic and occult. With barely audible spoken vocals that feel like the probings of a Cthulhian titan seeking to escape its cosmic prison, it hints at secrets of the universe that a mere man's mind could not possibly comprehend, nor soul withstand. Ending with a female operatic aria, "Der Baum" leaves a quite stunning impression.

I must confess that, for some inexplicable reason, I had never checked out this debut until now, but now I have I would probably list it as one of Paysage d'Hiver's most interesting releases. The songwriting is extraordinarily accomplished and as he was responsible for everything on the record, Wintherr's technical competence cannot be sniffed at either. Whilst I accept that some may struggle with the sparse production, I find that the lack of high production values removes a layer of artifice from between artist and listener and allows an unvarnished reopresentation of Wintherr's intent to be heard, to everyone's benefit.

This is one of my favourite albums, not just because it is a brilliant slab of atmospheric black metal, but also because it shows that black metal needn't necessarily be hateful and misanthropic all the time, but can actually be used to relate human stories and illuminate it's listeners about topics of which they know little or nothing. Austin Lunn is also an artist who flies in the face of genre stereotypes. This is a guy who actually cares about people - he used to be a social worker but quit, I believe, due to the frustration of working within an overly bureaucratic system. So when someone tells you all black metal bands are nazi satanists then point them in Panopticon's direction.

I was originally turned on to Panopticon via his 2014 album Roads to the North and was so impressed I dived right into his back catalogue. The preceding albums were not as impressive as Roads... that is until I got to Kentucky, which is the album where the Panopticon sound really began to gel. The introduction of bluegrass music into a black metal environment was a revelation to me. I was more than familiar with the inclusion of european-derived folk elements in black metal and even middle-eastern influences via bands like Melechesh, but this was a whole new take (to me anyway) and as such sounded fresh and exhilharating. I have always quite liked the sound of bluegrass, it has a kind of melancholy to it that is difficult to pinpoint, but that resonates with me somehow (although coming from England's northern midlands I have no endemic cultural attachment to the music) but it wasn't until I heard it welded to atmospheric black metal that it actually began to make sense to me and none more so than on Kentucky's telling of the struggles of early twentieth century American coal miners against their profit-driven bosses. I don't want to get into the politics of the record, but as I worked with many family members of miners who were part of the bitter early 1980's miner's strike here in the UK, let's just say that I have some sympathy for the album's protagonists and the history of labour struggles does hold some interest for me.

Of course what we came here for is the black metal and Kentucky contains three of my all-time favourite black metal tracks in Bodies Under the Falls, Black Soot and Red Blood and Killing the Giants As They Sleep, these tracks owing much to another of my GOAT albums, WitTR's Two Hunters, an album I've waxed lyrical about on more than one occasion! This blend of poetic black metal, folk protest songs and effortless storytelling makes for a unique listening experience that defies the norm in metal music and firmly plants Kentucky on my list of great black metal albums.

I fucking love early Autopsy and so too did Desecrator, apparently. Hailing from Nottingham, Desecrator was formed in 1989 by brothers Mike and Steve Ford (bass / vocals and guitars respectively) alongside drummer Lee Hawke. After listening to "Subconscious Release" I have no idea, but I am guessing they formed after hearing Autopsy's debut "Severed Survival", released in Spring of '89, deciding that was what they wanted to play. Now, obviiously, this isn't as good as any of the Californian's early releases, but it is a decent stab at reproducing their style in a British context. Bear in mind that at this time the big UK death metal bands came at the genre from a grindcore background, Napalm Death, Carcass and even Bolt Thrower played a blasting, high tempo version of death metal, so Desecrator, looking towards the hulking, often slower-paced, abyssal-sounding death metal of Reifert and Co. were swimming against the tide somewhat. Even more atypically, the album boasts several quite long tracks with four exceeding seven minutes in length, the band unafraid to drop into a slower, doomier tempo to add variation and atmosphere during the longer track lengths. They don't completely turn their back on the prevailing winds though, with the quick-fire medley of "Insult to Intelligence" and "Deadline" on side 2 clocking in under two minutes they give a nod to the deathgrind brigade.

To be honest the album is front-loaded with the title track kicking things off and being, by quite some way, the best track on the album - think "In the Grip of Winter" or "Gasping for Air" level good. Second track "Nothing Changes Anything" is also pretty great with a hot opening riff and a gothicky, atmospheric mid-track break, but the rest of the album struggles to live up to the promise of these two opening salvos. Don't misunderstand, the rest is fine for what it is, but a faint tinge of disappointment is inevitable after such a promising start. I am no musician myself, but I get the feeling that the band are a little limited technically, as illustrated by the generally lacklustre guitar solos and the d-beat drumming not always cutting it, leaving the listener yearning for a good old blastbeat to shake things up and hit the gas pedal. Whilst I acknowledge that the band had technical limitations, these probably don't bother me as much as they do some metalheads, I am quite partial to a slab of loose-sounding deathly carnage and when the band are in full flow I am happy as a pig in shit. However, the uninspiring solos and the odd clunky transition do pull me out of the moment, fourth track "Repressive Acceptance" for example has a couple of instances where the leadwork is quite poor and ruins a good headbang as the main riff is decent and gets me nodding along quite effectively up until that point.

In 1992 the band changed their name to Consumed and went off in a more punk rock oriented direction, leaving us with this remainig as the only testament to a promising, if technically limited, early UK death metal act. It is interesting if ultimately inessential UK death metal release that even a Dan Seagrave cover couldn't save from relative obscurity. 

Imperator were an early polish death metal act, forming in Łódź in 1984 and originally splitting up in 1993 with this 1991 album standing as their only official studio full-length. Their version of death metal maintains a strong thrash metal component, but this isn't the kind of deaththrash you would find on "Seven Churches", but it leans rather more towards the technical sides of both death and thrash metal with most tracks containing a surfeit of musical ideas that sees them lurching between different riffs and tempos, sometimes a little bit too much for my taste. I wouldn't go as far as to say that they opt for the staccato juxtaposition of riffs that many of the most technically-focussed death metal acts feature in their songwriting and most of the transitions are fairly fluid, so aren't especially jarring, but their songwriting technique seems to involve throwing a ton of ideas into the mix and seeing which stick.

Now don't get me wrong, I may have made it sound like I didn't enjoy this, but I actually did. Most of it works, with some very fine riffs and interesting transitions, I just get a little frustrated when the band deliver a killer-sounding riff, for it to evaporate seemingly mere moments later as a new idea occurs to them and the track develops in a new direction. On the whole the interesting stuff far outweighs the little frustrations which, to be honest, don't irritate me that much, but do need pointing out. Of course, if you are a died-in-the-wool tech-death head then Imperator may be a bit tame and unambitious for you, but they hit a nice mid-point for me between old-school deaththrash and more technical metal that combines the no-nonsense aggression of the one with the ambition of the other. The album also benefits from the old-school production which makes it sound less clinical and more organic than the over-produced, triggered-to-fuck, heavily compressed aural assaults that often pass for modern death metal production jobs.

Vocals are provided by Piotr "Bariel" Tomczyk who is also guitarist and main songwriter and don't really go for the deep gutteral growls of true death metal vocalists, but are more deaththrash-centric. Lyrically the band steep themselves in the occult and demonic, which in some quarters seems to have earned the album an unwarranted black metal secondary tag. The riffs are good and are sometimes even great, whilst the soloing isn't bad, but isn't especially impressive either, often coming off like a slightly more accomplished Kerry King. The rhythm section is fine, but the drums sound muted and could have been better served pushed up a bit in the mix as they sometimes feel like they are getting lost and only register as a distant, dull thud.

What it all amounts to is that if a mix of Slayer, Obituary and Atheist rocks your boat then you may well get a fair bit out of "The Time Before Time". It is far from a perfect album but the execution and ideas presented here are of sufficient quality to provide an interesting sidebar in the chronicles of early-90s death metal. On an interesting historical note, around the time of the album's release mainman Bariel was apparently forming a side project with Dead and Euronymous of Mayhem called Moon, which was scuppered by Dead's suicide. I can't help feeling that could have been an interesting outfit. The band have resurfaced at various points over the years, but usually without Bariel and without releasing any new studio material.

A Hero Forgotten

I probably shouldn't have been as surprised as I was when I realized the French Black Metal scene is quite strong after looking through my catalog. One-man Black Metal projects are always an exciting (or...interesting) prospect and Archvile King is no different, but standing among the giants of Blut Aus Nord, Deathspell Omega, and Alcest is somewhat difficult. There are already plenty of quality supporting acts trying to make their way out of the shadows such as Aorlhac, Les Chants de Nihil, and Véhémence who follow a seemingly unspoken French template of a more grandiose atmosphere without sacrificing that distinct Black Metal energy. Archvile King's Aux Heures Désespérées slots in nicely to this scene as a more classic, but still complex, sounding Black Metal project with strong Dungeon Synth elements that transport the listener straight into the throes of the medieval cover art.

Medieval themes swirl around this release, but they are distinctly darker and more solemn than their contemporaries Véhémence, who lean on the folky and classical acoustic side. There's a noticeable attention to atmosphere on Aux Heures Désespérées where the synth intros and breaks have more unique characters to them than your average Black Metal album. Archvile King is really able to sell the gloomy, medieval fantasy world that the cover depicts in a way that still fits with the aggressive Black Metal, especially at the beginning of "L'Excuse" when more and more layers are added on top of the simple synth melodies. Even though the album starts with a ripping opener filled with blast beats and densely layered riffing, it quickly slows down a bit and continues on within more Melodic Black Metal territory. Thankfully, it never loses the energy or edge it established in the opener since the constant interplay between the lead melodies or tremolo and the backing chord progression riffing allows for a ton of complexity for careful listeners. The layered melodies allow Aux Heures Désespérées to bounce around to different ideas without losing the cohesive theme of the album, whether it's the triumphant ending chug riff of "À Ces Batailles Abandonnées" or the dense chaos of "Le Carneval Du Roi Des Vers". The entirely French vocal performance is much more biting than Véhémence's, preferring fried screams and darker growls as opposed to cleaner choral elements. I've found Archvile King's delivery to be a bit more satisfying as it fits nicely into the mix against the more aggressive riffing without being overpowering. The inflections and pronunciation are also more varied and expressive than you may expect, which leads to a pretty gripping performance that rounds out the whole package.

Aux Heures Désespérées is a fantastic album from a solo effort that continues to showcase that Black Metal is one of the most flexible and exciting genres in the modern Metal landscape. After having to slog through tons of albums that use the same old nature sound interludes, Archvile King seems to understand how to set up a compelling album atmosphere and keep it interesting through the entire runtime, even down to the fully Dungeon Synth closing track. Given how the album progresses it's a great and brooding way to end a gloomy, medieval fantasy as the depicted hero is lost and overgrown. 

The problem with trying to sound epic in a progressive framework is that it just makes you look selfish. Plini's music in the past has had this quiet epicness surrounding albums like Homemade Cities and Impulse Voices. The issue that I have with An Unnamable Desire is that the "epicness" has now been recognized and Plini is going to do everything they can to replicate it, instead of letting it flow naturally. The heavier moments on "Manala" and the closer "The Time Will Pass Anyway" leaves this listener in an underwhelmed state. I can't deny that they transition on the closing track from heavy, djent influenced openings, to the soaring guitar leads and wide open foundation sounds really neat, but it also feels so scripted.

I know that An Unnamable Desire is scripted, but it isn't supposed to "feel" like it. Some of my favourite records of all time have a sense of improvisation to them and you can even hear that on earlier Plini albums. It does happen here sometimes, but their regularity is limited. Plini's guitar soloing has found a very comfortable place to rest, and the grandiose style suffers because of it. The solo guitar loses character, passion and purpose when the noodling becomes formulaic. 

It's not a bad album per se; I actually think it is quite good. But in an attempt to chase the unattainable goal, Plini have released their most uninspired album to date. Adding a string ensemble for more than half of the record and overbloating the soundscape and the epicness leaves the records more genuine moments feeling more hollow.

Best Songs: Canyon, Now & Then, Vespertine

For Fans Of: Intervals, Animals as Leaders, Haken

Forming in 1986 in Phoenix, Arizona, Nuclear Death must be one of the very first grindcore acts to feature a female vocalist in Lori Bravo who also played bass and was pretty much the de facto band leader. Historical interest certainly isn't the only reason to listen to Nuclear Death's 1990 debut full-length though because "Bride of Insect" is a pretty damn good album in its own right. The pacing is frantic and is dominated by the blast-crazy drumming of Joel Whitfield who was actually replaced in the band by Steve Cowan prior to the album's release. Sitting at the fore of the mix it completely drives the album with the guitar riffs buzzing away like a swarm of angry hornets in the background whilst Lori spits bile and venom with an intense, raging delivery that obviously sits higher in range than most male grind vocalist but which easily matches any of them for vicious intensity.

The dozen tracks here clock in at 27 minutes so most sit within the typical grindcore duration of sub-two and a half minutes, with the notable exception of the four minutes plus of "Fetal Lament: Homesick" which has an extended "guitar solo" that sounds more like a frenzied attack with a sharp object than any kind of artistic expression. The old-school production job gives the album a feeling of real guts and heart too, an aspect of extreme death metal that has been sterilised by the cleaner production jobs of more modern releases, especially those overly-compressed and brickwalled releases we have all had to become so familiar with over recent years.

The top and bottom of it is, if you don't like blastbeats then don't bother, but if you love metal infused with manic hardcore energy cranked up to eleven and seething with anger and frustration, then come on in and fill your boots. Featuring an ugly hand-drawn black and white cover that also lends the album crazy underground kudos, this is a real hidden gem of early 90's death and grind.

I don't recall having listened to Atrocity before, but I have gleaned from a bit of background research that they are a chameleonic act who have gone through several evolutions of sound embracing gothic, groove, folk and industrial metal. This debut, released in 1990, reveals the band's roots to be dug deep into death metal and particularly the emerging tech death sound pioneered by the likes of Death, Cynic and Atheist. Personally I have a bit of an on / off relationship with tech death as it sometimes, especially in its modern incarnation, gets a bit too jagged and staccato for my particular preferences. I do enjoy many of these early pioneering tech death albums, though, especially those that manage to retain enough of the old-school death metal sound I love and thus keep me engaged and along for the ride. Luckily, I am able to add "Hallucinations" to my list of great early tech-death releases and to expand my enjoyment of the style.

With the ambition that Atrocity exhibit here on their debut it is really no surprise that they sought to expand beyond the restrictions of just playing one style throughout their career, as if they have a pathological refusal to be labelled and stereotyped. A great example of this ambition are the twists and turns they take in a sub-three-minute track such as "Fatal Step" which leave you thinking you just listened to a track two or three times that length. The songwriting is of such strength, though, that these diverse song parts lead into each other in a natural and seemless manner that doesn't interrupt the flow of the tracks and doesn't jar with me like several other technically-focussed death metal acts do. In fact I can only really recall one occasion where I felt a bit of jigsaw-like jaggedness coming in and that was during "Hold Out (To the End)" which unfortunately failed the flow test a couple of times.

With some killer riffs, a grimy and gritty guitar sound and a vocalist who sounds like he gargles with rusty nails and barbed wire Atrocity amass more than enough old-school credits to allow me to fully engage with their more ambitious side and to really get to grips with their technical flights of fancy. In fact they really had me hooked when the organ kicked in on closing track "Last Temptation", totally destroying all preconceptions, as if they were saying that we hadn't seen anything yet. I would quite happily set this on a shelf next to "Human" and "Piece of Time" and not consider it out of its league.

Checking out that Ihlo's second album Legacy made me up for doing the same with their other album, the 2019 debut Union. The album spawned two different categories of listeners; the fans who think it's brilliant and the purists who think they're ripping off other bands. I'm closer to the former category, finding potential brilliance in this album. At the time, this UK djenty progressive metal band had a 3-man lineup of vocalist/keyboardist Andy Robison, guitarist/bassist Phil Munro, and drummer Clark McMenemy. They would expand that lineup for touring shortly after this album's release. And while they're not copying bands like Tesseract, Haken, or Leprous, the influences show...

Tesseract is actually the most common band to compare Ihlo to, since they're djenty prog-metal bands from the UK. They don't sound that identical to each other. If there's a Tesseract album that sounds like Ihlo, it would be Altered State. What they do is add more melodies to balance out with the heavy downtuned riffing. And the vocals are all clean singing, flowing smoothly with those rhythms and electronics. There actually a couple issues that don't make Union as amazing as Legacy. Here the production sounds like it's a little too much. Even though there's real drumming, it almost sounds like they were programmed. But what am I to judge? The sound still impresses me and the band was really making their leap into the scene.

The opening title track is a solid start to this album and the band's discography. You already know what they're going for; progressive songs while making simple catchy twists. "Reanimate" is greatly structured as the riffing blends in with the strong choruses. I guess if you wanna be technical, that's the actual first taste of Ihlo, being the first single, and one of my favorite ones at that! "Starseeker" starts off tough then leads to more ambient verses. The band is in full force is in the chorus and the ending section.

"Hollow" is the best song to put in the middle of the album. There's a lot of electronic texture, with a few bursts of heaviness to make that song a highlight. "Triumph" almost lives up to its name. Beautiful riffing melody to bless your djent heart!

We're already getting to the climactic last leg of the album, starting with "Parhelion". Lots of insane synthy prog-metal talent! A nice stylistic homage to Periphery from start to finish. "Coalescence" ends the album as a 15-minute epic. This is where the band put in all their strength and talent to make a djent symphony full of riffing and ambience. The best for last has to be the glorious second half, when riffing rhythm and ambient melody collide for an out-of-this-world spell of hope.

All in all, Ihlo show their influences while having the uniqueness people seem to overlook. The blend of melodies and riffing show what geniuses those guys are, and if you stick to the bitter end, you get to witness all of its grandeur. Lots of creative energy in Union, though they would have more of that in their next offering....

Favorites: "Reanimate", "Hollow", "Parhelion", "Coalescence"

I've checked out this band Genitorturers before, and I thought their material was pretty great. However, what was holding me back from fully enjoying this band is the amount of NSFW and BDSM they have in their aesthetics and lyrics. While I don't totally mind all that, it's obviously not the kind of band to share in the world outside the internet. With that said, I'm up to revisiting a release from this sex-fueled electro-industrial rock/metal band...

Flesh in the Law is a release made in around 2001 or 2002, compiling new tracks and live renditions of earlier tracks. They still have this kinky fetish sh*t that's actually kinda cool and intriguing if you're used to hearing about it. The music can entertain me quite well.

First track "Lecher B***h" is best known for appearing in the soundtrack for the video game Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. Sadly for me, it's f***ing bad. This is where I draw the line in the band's BDSM themes being too on the nose. "Public Enemy" is better but not that exciting. Luckily we have the title track which I absolutely love and has let me know about the better side of the band. "Guns Are Good" is also a good favorite of mine.

Now the live tracks are in the same kind of mixed ratio as the new tracks, starting with the great "House of Shame". Then "Terrorvision" falls as flat as those first two tracks. "All Hell Breaks Loose" makes up for it with its sheer intensity. "120 Days" is a good encore yet it has made me remember the original version from the debut that I prefer.

Besides the energetic music, the vocals of Gen have that perfect primal edge that fits in well with the sound. And honestly, the usage of electronics blended with this metal sound is similar to that of one of Fear Factory's earlier remix releases. Maybe if this band wasn't so BDSM-heavy, they would have the mainstream success Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails have had. Still, Flesh is the Law is a good EP worth listening to. Just skip the bad tracks and keep the highlights to your own self-entertainment....

Favorites: "Flesh is the Law", "House of Shame", "Guns Are Good", "All Hell Breaks Loose"

Pillorian dropped onto my radar in 2017 with the release of their debut, and sadly only release, Obsidian Arc. I recall it was well spoken of amongst internet peers of the time, and it retained at least one play a year in the ensuing nine-year period with me. Apparently, somebody in Pillorian said something that was deemed unsavoury by the rest of the band and so they split up in 2019. I have no idea what the comment/s were and nor do I care to find out, I only mention the incident to provide context of the band being no more despite releasing such a promising debut. Hailing from the hotbed of metal music that is Portland, Oregon, the band consisted of Agalloch’s John Haughm on vocals and guitars, bassist/guitarist Stephen Parker and former Uada drummer Trevor Matthews. Eisenwald records recently had a sale, I needed some more vinyl and Obsidian Arc got nabbed, putting it onto my “to review” pile.

It is important to say that I have little time for Agalloch. I find pretty much anything that they have done to be dull and over-indulgent. I am aware that places me in a minority, but nonetheless, it is the truth. Whilst I cannot say that Pillorian stray miles away from the Agalloch template (the second half of the album at times gets uncomfortably close in fact), they do possess enough nihilistic misanthropy to present as a black metal band that are much more in the boundaries of appeal for me. The themes here do speak to my general derisory view of humanity and my particular interest in societal collapse, although the depth does get a little too reflective at times for me. Yet, as perhaps you would expect, everything is written to a high standard. Song structures are robust and the arrangement is thought through as opposed to just a scattergun approach to proceedings. The instrumentation is of a very high standard, and the production is professional if not perhaps a little too clean at times for a black metal record.

Genres are explored here alongside sub-genres, and these explorations do wander outside of metal altogether at some points with post-punk vibes appearing to my ears. In the main however, you have a combination of atmospheric black metal with elements of doom thrown in for interesting measure which I have seen noted in an online review as resulting in “easy listening black metal”. That seems a tad of a stretch for me, especially given the very negative tones of the themes of the record, yet this is not a record for fans of raw bm by any means.

As I understand it, Agalloch was on hiatus (or believed gone for good) when this album got released, following a relatively poorly received final record from them. I have no knowledge of that album to provide any comparison and given this is a different band also, it would seem unfair to try and draw any. Taken on individual merit, Obsidian Arc is finely crafted as a black metal record that is unafraid of a little exploration. More importantly, the members have the maturity and ability to carry that experimentation off and make the record a success.

"Harbinger of Metal" was released in 2003 as an EP between the trio's first two albums and in the midst of a spate of split releases with the likes of Minotauri and Orodruin. I say it was released as an EP because it has a runtime of over 73 minutes, more than most full-length albums, but was still steadfastly labelled an EP by the band themselves. I am not sure why this would be because most of the material is consistent with that on the three main full-lengths, but then again Albert Witchfinder tended to do things his own way and for his own reasons so who am I to question the decision.

Anyway, there is some great stuff on here, with Strange Horizons and its awesome doom-laden riff (one of the band's best) being my pick. Of the seven tracks available three are quite short with "Harbinger" being a kind of introductory scene-setter and "The Ambassador" and "Into the Realms of Magickal Entertainment" being little more than interludes, so the bulk of the hour and a quarter is taken up by just four tracks, which is pretty much par for the course with the Reverend. To say that Reverend Bizarre know their shit when it comes to traditional doom metal is an understatement. During the mid-2000's they pretty much wrote the book on producing epic-length trad doom sagas and are still very much the yardstick against which I personally measure any other trad doom act of the last 25 years. The simple fact is that if a band are going to produce tracks that rely so heavily on the lengthy repetition of riffs then those riffs need to be pretty damn good and in this regard Rev Biz have very few equals. It is very hard to think of any other doom metal band that manage to do so much with so little but the sheer ponderous momentum they achieve with Witchfinder's prominently mixed bass boosting the crushing weight of Peter Vicar's riffing is a marvel to behold. That said, if you are of a more impatient mindset then maybe RB aren't the band for you because they really do like to draw things out and sometimes go to extremes on this front, repeating a riff over and over, well past the point of comfort, a charge which could certainly be levelled at the first part of "From the Void", at least until it turns into an Earl of Void drum solo! I am not the biggest fan of drum solos, so the five minutes in the middle of the track here is a bit of a challenge even for me I must admit. Things are certainly redeemed though with "The Wandering Jew" being another classic slab of doom metal goodness with yet another top RB riff. For this track and "Strange Horizons" alone the EP is well worth the entry fee, but throw in Rev Biz's hulking, doom-laden interpretation of Burzum's "Dunkelheit" that adds crushing weight to the icy, frigid melancholy of the original and we have another doom metal winner on our hands.

Reverend Bizarre truly were one of the finest traditional doom metal bands ever with a distinctive and authentic sound (and sometimes a wicked sense of humour) that pushed trad doom to its extremes whilst still remaining exceedingly listenable. Whilst this EP may not be their best release with, admittedly, a couple of weaker moments, which the band may have realised themselves hence the reason why it was separated from the main full-lengths by the EP designation, when it is good it is absolutely top drawer and as such is definitely worth the time of any discerning doom head.

Since forming in 1997, Elvenking has made their nearly 3-decade journey of blending the power metal of Blind Guardian and Helloween with the folk metal of Skyclad. They were one of my favorite bands of that sound when I was listening to a lot of those two genres at the time when this live album first came out. And revisiting them all those years later, the best live renditions of songs from their first 8 albums are all in here!

The Night of Nights consists of a special concert filled with different guests. Two hours of material from all their albums at the time in incredible live quality to please fans new and old. Released in December 2015, it was a spectacular early Christmas gift that has something for every Elvenking listener.

The folky intro "The Manifesto" starts it all. I was kinda hoping it would leading to that 13-minute epic "King of the Elves", but that doesn't happen. At least we really blast off with a classic in "Trows Kind", which I once thought was their own take on DragonForce's "Through the Fire and Flames". But that's nothing compared to the highlight that is another track from The Winter Wake, "The Wanderer". You can really rock out to the happiness and sorrow from the guitars and violins. It is one of those tracks that test out your enjoyment for this band. If you love that song, you'll love this band and the rest of this offering. Otherwise you're out of here. Everything has the right amount of cheese in this Gamma Ray-gone-Skyclad sound. "Runereader" from Red Silent Tides has the band's typical including and epic blend of metal sections and acoustic bridges. "Pagan Revolution" is fun banger of folky power metal worth many listens. The guitars, drums, and vocals are all energetic without ever relying on overproduction. This is probably my second-favorite track of Pagan Manifesto behind that 13-minute epic.

"She Lives at Dawn" is a short melancholic interlude from their acoustic/hard rock album Two Tragedy Poets. Nothing much is added here other than a nice break from all that metal fun. "Jigsaw Puzzle" is a wonderful surprise, originally in their only album without lead vocalist Damnagoras, Wyrd. Lots of Maiden-esque guitar and bass melody there. "Elvenlegions" is another short track that can still provide a lot from the band. Amazing as f***! "The Cabal" is quite catchy, and I can hear why that was released as a single. Another short atmospheric interlude "A Prayer to Cernunnos" is exclusive to this offering, basically just some eerie narration.

"Moonbeam Stone Circle" shows an increase of maturity in the band's sound, though it's still their usual folk/power metal. The melody/rhythm interplay stays strong as ever. Then comes a drum solo by Symohn with background electronic noise, aptly titled "Symohn's Bash". Quite a unique addition to the setlist! The amazing "From Blood to Stone" follows. Despite being pretty much all acoustic, I enjoy the non-electric riffing and the chorus I can almost sing along to, "Fall-ing, fall-ing!" One of the only tracks I love from Two Tragedy Poets, and one of the only acoustic folk tracks I love in general. We finally get a song from the band's classic debut Heathenreel, "Skywards". It also starts off sounding acoustic then rises into metal, even heading close to black metal. "Disillusion's Reel" allows you to take a breather as an ethereal acoustic ballad.

Then disc 1 ends, and disc 2 begins with "Elven Aftermath", an intermission track with samples of songs that weren't performed. The band comes back on with perhaps the centerpiece of this entire offering, the debut's epic "Seasonspeech". The original track included guest vocals from different vocalists, with each one representing one of the 4 seasons. Here the band stands by that aspect with two guests, female vocalists Chiara Tricarico and Whisperwind. In between the metal sections is a flute-infused acoustic bridge. And we can't forgot about the glorious ending climax. You want something from the Era album, you got it with "Through Wolf's Eyes", which is more folky while still metal. And how about the sole track chosen from the "controversial" The Scythe, "The Divided Heart". The riffing and soloing has certainly made that track a memorable one. "Neverending Nights" is another great epic! It dives deep into winter darkness, a little unlike their happier side of folky power metal. Very well done, those not as festive as "Seasonspeech". Some more headbanging power metal comes on in "The Winter Wake", which has more experimentation, particularly in the original version's guest vocals by Destruction vocalist Marcel Schmier. A solid way to end the concert, before the well-deserved encore...

As the encore approaches its start, an orchestral overture "Era Theme" plays. Then comes one more song from Era, "The Loser". This is the song that marked Symohn's entrance into the band, since Era was his first album with Elvenking. His drumming is out of this world, in perfect synergy with the folk and metal sides of the coin. No sh*t, just THE SH*T. He can do all this complex stuff at ease, and it just adds to the fantastic magic of this song. And the fact that they saved that song for the encore shows how much confidence he and the rest of the band have. There's one more track for the encore, but that doesn't come until after the flute/string intro "To Oak Woods Bestowed". You all know where this is going... The show ends with the one track that started their journey, and also the one that got me into listening to Elvenking, "Pagan Purity". The vocals and guitars shine for their last round, the latter assisted by two more guests, former members Jarpen and Gorlan.

The concert can be viewed on DVD or listened to in two CDs, and if you get the DVD, you also get some music videos they've made over the years and a teaser for Pagan Manifesto. The Night of Nights is a night for new and longtime Elvenking fans to remember, and you don't wanna miss out on getting your hands on this live gem!

Favorites (one or two tracks per album plus one new track): "The Wanderer", "Runereader", "Pagan Revolution", "Jigsaw Puzzle", "Elvenlegions", "Symohn's Bash", "From Blood to Stone", "Seasonspeech", "Through Wolf's Eyes", "The Divided Heart", "Neverending Nights", "The Loser", "Pagan Purity"

The first time I heard this band was when I was listening to a song from their debut Union in an Infinite playlist 6 months before this review. I thought the song was a nice stylistic homage to Periphery from start to finish. And now I can say the same about their new album Legacy! They're a new addition to the melodic modern progressive metal league of Leprous, Haken, The Contortionist, and Tesseract.

It took 5 years for this British progressive metal/rock band to make this follow-up to 2019's Union. Part of the delay was due to the hardships of the COVID lockdowns. But now they're here to deliver us this progressive offering. Also, don't mind the small bit of electropop elements I seem to pick up on.

Kicking things off with ethereal electronics is "Wraith". You already hear both the production and talent from the two key members of the band; guitarist Phil Monro and vocalist Andy Robison. They, along with the other members, work together to craft this complex structure in which ambience turns into metal grace, practically channeling the way of Devin Townsend. A melodic opening track to get you hooked! "Replica" is more emotional yet calm. Soon the melody builds up into more technical riffing. The blend of melody and heaviness is so unpredictable! Then comes the heavy "Source", in which the riffing and synths have stronger power in the second half. It's greatly direct while hinting at the diversity that would come in later tracks.

The clean "Empire" continues the complex structure though more prog than metal. Although it starts off reminding some of Porcupine Tree, eventually there would be more of the heavy riffing. It then leads to the short interlude "Storm". Personally I think it should've been called "Storm Coming", because it sounds more like the calm before the storm. On second thought, we're still far from the storm as "Mute" is little soft but quite addictive! Everything flows smoothly throughout these 8 and a half minutes. The vocals are quite remarkable too. I kinda wish they would go as djenty as Tesseract though. There are many different layers of spacey ambience. And if you're wondering when the heaviness would hit, it's at the 7-minute mark, starting the climactic outro, leading up to some final spoken lines like "You'll never shine as bright". Quite wonderful, though again it could've been a little heavier. The loss described in that track still stands in "Cenotaph", let out in defiance via crushing riffing. Things would get more atmospheric every now and then while tension lurks. Andy's vocals also help make that track another ambitious highlight. Everything's executed well in top-notch production, and there's no denying the horizons they fly over.

There's some brighter light in "Haar", another short direct track. It's a nice way to settle down after that towering pair of 8-minute tracks and get geared up for the monolithic finale. But before that, we have the title track, with the beat guiding you through the atmosphere. While it doesn't have a huge amount of impact, it can get you hooked for the album's ending climax. The climax being the monumental 10-minute epic "Signal". Everything's in beautiful flow. The band lets the beauty drift by, only saving the heaviness for when it's the right time. In the end, the track and the album closes the way it should. Fantastic!

This beautiful album Legacy has all the melody and power you can get. Well, maybe a slight more metal heaviness would be ideal, but that's OK. I look forward to what path they would take. The modern progressive metal/rock shaped up by VOLA and BTBAM is in the good hands of these young British lads!

Favorites: "Wraith", "Source", "Mute", "Cenotaph", "Signal"

I seem to have a small curse of not encountering a band until shortly after a longtime member has passed away. I've already discovered In Vain last year shortly after the tragic passing of their longtime keyboardist/clean vocalist Sindre Nedland. This is my first time checking out a Harm's Way album, following a recommendation from Vinny when he submitted a track from this album for a Revolution playlist, just a month after their longtime guitarist Bo Lueders left the world. RIP

I'm quite thankful for this recommendation because what an album this is! Common Suffering shows many different modern elements in their metalcore sound, taking it through diverse horizons beyond their earlier albums that are apparently more hardcore. They've given an older sound new and fresh life!

Striking hard right away is "Silent Wolf", already getting their straight-up metallic hardcore kicks. The riffing doesn't light up with "Denial" cranking things up in the undeniable heaviness. "Hollow Cry" is a more evolved song that I love. It takes on the sludge-ish sound of later Converge with an alt-ish edge. "Devour" has one of the most hardcore breakdowns in recent times. I may need some neck pain medicine after all that vicious headbanging.

Then there's the experimentation of "Undertow", an amazing highlight featuring Kristina Esfandiari (King Woman). It has a more haunting industrial sound, and I don't know whether it would be for The Revolution or The Sphere. If you see this track in a later playlist for one of those clans, you know which one I pick. It's so different and powerful, and you can forgive the band for placing that track here. Well done! "Heaven's Call" is another perfect track. Just pure heaviness that I'm glad was submitted to a Revolution playlist. "Cyanide" maintains the heaviness as another favorite track of mine.

"Terrorizer" can very well define industrial hardcore, if "hardcore" wasn't used in the more electronic sense. "Sadist Guilt" has strong riffing rhythm that can cut like a blade through glass. Then finally we have "Wanderer". The diversity of elements is much more apparent in this spectacular track than the rest. It sounds so organic and makes me look forward to what they will do next in their direction, if they choose to continue in memory of their fallen guitarist.

Common Suffering is aptly titled for the band's hard work of making the album and coincidentally for the grief of losing one of their members that were with them for a long time. You can tell in the former from how much heart and soul the band has put in their sound. And there are twists into different genres while staying firmly in metalcore. They can sometimes sound more hardcore or deathly or industrial. The heavy rage can really bite down, draw blood, and leave scars, showing the emotion that has stemmed from their work. Harm's Way can really add variety to the more extreme side of metalcore/hardcore. No harm no foul about that, right? Just chaotic rage at its height!

Favorites: "Hollow Cry", "Undertow", "Heaven's Call", "Cyanide", "Wanderer"

I have been making more of a conscious effort to follow up on some of the tracks from the site playlists that jump out at me each month and that is how I ended up in front of the latest release from Georgian (as in the country not the period of English history) funeral doomsters, Ennui. The word Qroba is a Georgian word meaning “vanishment” or a “fading of presence”, representing the moment light withdraws to leave space for something colder and final. Symbolic of the temporary dissolution of the band themselves, the album explores the inevitability of the end. In short, classic funeral doom fare. With song titles such as ‘Mokvda Mze.’ (which translates to ‘The Sun Has Died’) and ‘Becoming A Void’, Ennui leaves the listener in no doubt that if they are seeking positivity, they are in the wrong place.

The band name itself is the French word for “boredom”, which I find to be particularly ironic given there is no element of that emotional state present throughout my experience of Qroba. I am starting to realise that funeral doom may well be my second favourite sub-genre of The Fallen, pushing sludge for that top spot as time goes on. In fact, I heard this record on the same day as the new EP from Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean, and I prefer Qroba in a comparison of the two releases. Everything I want to hear on a funeral doom album is present on this album. Well, apart from the panduri, a traditional three-stringed Georgian instrument that I have never heard of until today. Otherwise, there are dense keys and suitably desolate atmospheres being created around them, alongside punishing riffs and the deep rumble of bass and guttural vocals too boot. All the while the drums functionally add percussive markers in the background. You could forget they are there at all on some occasions, which is more testimony to the quality of everything that’s going on around them as opposed to any fault with the performance or mix even.

I do get the occasional flourish of hope in the music, which is not something I want to hear too often in my funeral doom. Here, I think it stays just the right side of providing balance, just like the prog-reminiscent guitars around the halfway point of ‘Becoming Void’ also add a touch of the unexpected. The melancholic lead work here, which is delivered via long, drawn-out notes, almost tells its own story outside of the vocals themselves. When you factor in those keys, you soon find yourself in some cosmic death trance. If I close my eyes to this track, I just see endless space, with the odd burst of light, or the odd colour of gases that I am floating through. Listening to Qroba soon becomes a very immersive experience for me.

With over an hour of music to listen to here, I do think that Qroba is a record that has a certain place and time to be properly experienced. This is not background music. For me, if you are not sat still with this record playing, you are doing it, and yourself an injustice. It is a record that demands to be experienced as opposed to simply being listened to. From an arrangement perspective, it sounds to me like this has been very carefully put together. Tracks develop as opposed to just progressing. Given the theme of the album, it is quite easy to see this album as a soundtrack to the slow destruction of life as we know it. When that day comes, I will have this on my headphones.

Slow is a funeral doom project of prodigious belgian Déhà, who is perhaps better known for his black metal and blackgaze work, but who is also a proficient doomster with acts like Yhdarl and Wolvennest. He has released seven albums under the Slow banner, with "V-Oceans" unsurprisingly being number five and, probably, my favourite. This is the last of the Slow albums that were produced as a solo project, Déhà since having been joined by lyricist Lore Boeykens who also contributes bass and backing vocals.

Anyone even remotely familiar with Déhà's other projects will be unsurprised to hear a significant post-metal and -gazey element to Slow's funereal dirges, but make no mistake this is still ponderously heavy stuff. The vocals are of the gravel-throated, abyssal demon bellowing kind that are the cornerstone of so many fantastic funeral doom albums and are more than ably delivered here by the main man himself. As he intones at the beginning of "Ténèbres", "This is not meant to bring you joy, this is not meant to give you any solace," and it surely doesn't if you take its message literally yet, ironically, if you are a lover of the melancholy and desperate atmospherics of funeral doom then it may well bring you great joy indeed (it certainly does for me).

With tempos that are measured by a calendar rather than a metronome, the five, 10-minute plus tracks here crawl under your skin and sit there draining your optimism like a vampiric parasite feasting on the mind's positive energy, leaving its host bereft and borne down by the weight of existence. The riffs are monumental chords that swell like tsunamis, given additional heft and gravitas by layered synths and choral effects which thankfully don't swamp the guitar and drums, but which add their weight to the crushing mass subtlely enough so as not to be distracting. "Oceans" covers a theme that has served funeral doom very well over the years with its huge swells of sound being an exceedingly effective artistic interpreter of oceanic environs and deep sea tectonics, here being used as a metaphor for the unalterable inevitability of death, in other words, all the best sentiments of funeral doom.

The number of ratings for Slow albums on RYM is paltry with this being the most-rated with a touch over 300, yet this is funeral doom of the highest order that deserves to be considered up there with giants of the genre like Bell Witch and Esoteric. OK, maybe not Esoteric, but everybody else anyway! Criminally overlooked, for me this is a top drawer entry into the funeral doom pantheon.