Sonny's Reviews

So, it appears that this is Mechina's debut album, released in 2005, a year after the band formed. I understand that they later went down a more symphonic path with their industrial sound, but here they have gone for straight-up classic Nineties-era Fear Factory worship. The riffs are decent with a meaty guitar tone FF fans will feel comfortably at home with, although I don't think Mechina's riffs have the same high memorability factor as the LA legends achieved on their best material. Where they do score well though is when they use synths to add an additional, thin layer to their sound, such as during "Afterimage" or on the title track. "War Fog", which connects the two tracks, is a short, synth-driven interlude which is also quite evocative and further illustrates the band's nascent atmosphere-building prowess. Vocalist David Holch also has a creditable crack at reproducing Burton C. Bell's growling bark as the main vocal, but where he comes unstuck is with the complementary clean vocals which, in all honesty, sound terrible, as if he can't carry a tune at all. They are so bad that I can't believe no one advised the band to re-record them or get a guest in to help out.

Ultimately, for me, this is an enjoyable enough slab of Fear Factory worship, irreparably tainted by very poor clean vocals, that I am unlikely to turn to in the future unless the FF back catalogue suddenly disappears from the face of the Earth.

The Dark Hereafter was the fifth full-length from the Mancunian black metallers and marked a slight tonal shift for the band. It also courted some controversy amongst fans, not for its musical progression, but for the fact that it had a mere forty minutes runtime and only five tracks, one of which "Pariah's Path" was already available as a bonus track on the previous The Divination of Antiquity album. The closer, "Led Astray in the Forest Dark" is a cover of Ulver's "Capitel I: I Troldskog faren vild" from their iconic Bergtatt album, so The Dark Hereafter only actually delivered three new tracks, yet at full price!

Anyway, down to the music. Side one comprised three tracks of the sweeping and melodic atmospheric black metal we were familiar with from Winterfylleth's previous output. Opening with the title track, the pummelling blastbeats tell us we are on solid ground, especially when the expansive tremolo riff sweeps us away to windblown moors where opposing warrior bands face off against each other. The lyrics of this opener and also "Ensigns of Victory" feed very much into that aesthetic with tales of Anglo-Saxon resistance against Norse invaders in Dark Age England. Along with the aforementioned "Pariah's Path" these two tracks comprise side one, their familiarity easing us fans into the album. I must, however, point out at this point that I felt something a little "off" here and decided it comes down to the production which seems to mute the higher registers of the tremolo riffs and renders the cymbals almost inaudible. It's not a big deal as such, but it is sufficient to be noticeable.

With the two tracks on side two the Mancunians depart somewhat from their usual approach. "Green Cathedral" is a much slower affair than we are used to from the band, straying into post-black metal territory, spending much of its opening five minutes building from a sparse beginning with thin synths, a clean, almost liturgical chant and a hypnotic, chiming guitar phrase into a mournful-sounding middle section with plodding drumbeats and a ringing tremolo riff accompanied by Dan Capp's harsh vocals. The final third of "Green Cathedral" sees the synths sweep in and the liturgical voices join with the harsh shrieks to provide a quite epic and melancholy climax, eventually ending with a clean-spoken eulogy to a departed soul, which I personally found to be quite haunting and affecting.

The album then closes out with the Ulver cover, "Led Astray in the Forest Dark" which is faithfully reproduced by the Mancunians as a tribute to an album that they claim was very influential on them. It has a bit more meat on its bones than the thinly-produced Bergtatt original, but otherwise it is a faithful rendering of the Ulver classic. Small quibbles aside regarding whether this is worthy of full-length album status and a niggling issue with the production, it is nevertheless an interesting release in the Winterfylleth discography and is probably worth it for "Green Cathedral" alone, although the rest is certainly up to the band's usual standards musically. Interestingly, this is the first Winterfylleth album to involve Mark Deeks and, in light of some similarities between "Green Cathedral" and some of Deeks' work under his Arð banner, I can't help but wonder if he had a big impact on the band's songwriting at this point. It may also be salient to acknowledge that the next album was the pure folk album The Hallowing of Heirdom and The Dark Hereafter may have been a case of the band clearing the decks before a new phase in their development.

Wędrujący Wiatr are a polish duo comprising W. (aka Swaikstan), who is also a founder member of Sworz, and Razor (real name Tadeusz Jurzec). Both play guitar and contribute folk instrumentation with Razor performing vocals and playing drums and keyboards, whilst W. is the band's bassist.

"O turniach, jeziorach i nocnych szlakach" is black metal that is completely rooted in the natural world, its title translating as "About the Peaks, Lakes and Night Trails". From its panoramic, sweeping soundscapes with their pipe-like accompaniments to the restrained, clean-picked folk interludes and field recordings of natural sounds such as birdsong, wind and running water, this is a celebration of the Great Outdoors in all its splendour. There is a richness to the sound that gives it more solidity than the ephemeral and thin production often associated with the frostier versions of atmospheric black metal, as if to emphasise the permanence of the mountains and lakes when compared to the mere fleeting passing of seasons. The vocals contribute to this fuller sound, Razor's voice being a lower-pitched, ragged bellow rather than the harsh shriek often employed by black metal vocalists. It is still pushed down slightly in the mix to give it a more distant quality, as is common, but it retains sufficient power to bolster the depth of the overall sound.

Instrumentally, the tremolo riffs swell and recede like the mountain peaks they portray, with some gorgeous melodies that speak of the immense majesty of the natural landscape. The sound is filled out further with the incorporation of several folk instruments, particularly pipes, it appears, and with a restrained application of keyboards which gives several of the tracks, especially the opener-proper, "Wołanie z granitowych twierdz", a Celtic flavour, reminding me very much of Andy Marshall's Saor project. Razor's drumming is mostly blastbeats and cymbals, driving the tracks and adding impetus to the riffing to ensure the dynamic sweep of the tracks never flounders.

With "O turniach, jeziorach i nocnych szlakach" these Poles have turned in exactly the sort of album that hits my atmospheric black metal sweet spot, its paeons to the natural world being both uplifting and inspiring, this is black metal with a positive spirit for those who feel any kind of connection with Nature.

This 1997 album appears to be the only release from the Aussie hardcore punk / metalcore outfit, which is a great shame because this was a genuine surprise and I enjoyed it massively. I don't know what "real" metalcore fans think of it because, to my ears, this sounds first and foremost like a punk album with a metallic guitar sound, which is no problem to me at all. I'm not a large consumer of metalcore, but one of my bugbears with it being that so many of the modern bands sound alike and I have real trouble telling both the bands and their songs apart. But because of the marked punk component, this has a lot more character than some of the more modern metalcore bands I have listened to. In fact I am not even sure that some of the punk component even counts as hardcore, sounding catchy and melodic, more like second wave UK punk acts like Angelic Upstarts or Anti-Nowhere League, although elsewhere they do have a Minor Threat vibe going on. One of my favourite punk albums is Suicidal Tendencies' debut (their best by a country mile) and I found that springing to mind several times whilst listening to this. I must admit I didn't even realise that Callous were a christian-themed band until reading Daniel's review but, to be honest, I don't care one way or the other because I am more interested in the abrasive timbre of the vocal performance than the actual lyrics themselves and it still sounds pissed off and angry, no matter the lyrical content. In fact, let's face it, some of the straight-edge punks could be even more preachy than any christian act are ever likely to be.

I think that ultimately "In the Memory Of..." appeals to me so much because it has a strong individuality and character due to it having such a prominent early punk influence - a trait which is often just vestigial in more modern metalcore, leaving it often sounding very samey with everyone wanting to be Converge. Sadly it seems that most genres tend towards conformity at some point - and even punk itself fell into that trap with the endless stream of cookie-cutter skate / pop punk acts that proliferated in the wake of Green Day and Bad Religion's early success. If I am going to explore metalcore further with any chance of satisfaction, then I guess these earlier days of the genre are the best place for me to start.

Australia's Temple Nightside were a new one on me at the time of The Hecatomb's release, but I could tell from the off that this was going to be right up my street. I have made no secret of my love for old-school cavernous death and death doom metal and that is what these guys provide in spades. In fact they have doubled down on the cavernous atmosphere, looking to funeral doom for inspiration in layering a thick, primordial ooze over their sound. This is so funereal in atmosphere that it sounds like it is being performed by a band who have been buried alive and is seeping up through the earth into the ears of the listener. Drummer Basilysk is a member of reasonably well-known funeral doom band The Slow Death and guitarist/vocalist IV was the sole member of blackened funeral doom project Funeral Mourning, so these guys have an understanding of funeral doom that serves exceedingly well their intention to make The Hecatomb as cavernous-sounding as possible.

Taking their cues from OSDM giants like Autopsy, The Hecatomb combines classy and memorable death metal riffs (the opener Graven has an absolute killer of a main riff) with slow, ponderous doom to produce a multi-faceted attack on the listener's eardrums. Although this approach is almost as old as death metal itself, going back to the likes of Autopsy and Winter, Temple Nightside manage to make The Hecatomb a must-listen by their sheer ability to craft well-written and tightly performed doomy death metal tunes which, when married with one of the most mouldering and pestilential production jobs ever, results in an album any self-respecting OSDM metal fan should be clamouring to get their clammy, hook-clawed mitts onto. There isn't a great deal here that hasn't been done before in this field, although it does lean into funeral doom more than any of the old-school bands would have done, with sections of "Fortress of Burden and Distress" and especially closing track "Charnel Winds" really slowing it down to a crawl that is more funeral doom than its deathly incarnation. The drums are a key element to the atmosphere generated and are primal-sounding without being simplistic and sit nicely in the mix, neither too distant nor overpoweringly upfront. The abyssal and ominous atmosphere has its ante raised by three short ambient interludes, the second and longest of which, "The Murderous Victor (Commune 3.2)", features chants and tympani-like drums that hints at ritualistic exhortations and sinister whisperings of demonic forces, leading into the funereal opening of "Fortress of Burden and Distress" which continues further with these demonic whisperings.

My love of funeral doom and its influence on the sound of The Hecatomb sees it becoming one of my favourite cavernous death metal albums. Fantastic as this thick, foetid atmosphere works on the slower sections, however, I do have some reservations about its effectiveness on the faster parts, with the muddiness and echoing distortion of the production slightly blunting the onslaught of the death metal blasts when they hit, but this is a minor niggle in truth and is unlikely to be a deal breaker if this is in any way your bag.

Mayhemic guitarist and vocalist Noctumbra may be better known by his real name, Javier Salgado, ex-mainman of Parkcrest, guitarist with Hellish and one of the leading lights in the chilean thrash metal scene. Unsurprisingly then, Mayhemic encapsulate the archetypical chilean thrash sound, which is typified by white-hot, hyperkinetic riffs and an influence from black and death metal. Toba marks the band's debut full-length after an EP in 2019 and a split album with Hellish in 2020. The band have undergone a number of lineup changes since they formed in 2018, with Noctumbra himself switching from drums to guitar in 2022 and only he and guitarist Doom (Nacho Pérez) remaining from the band's previous releases.

I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that chilean thrash metal is well and truly in the vanguard as the standard-bearers of the modern thrash scene. As the genre enters its fifth decade the sounds coming out of Santiago and Valparaíso are the most vital and energising thrash metal has known since its heyday ended in the mid-nineties. Salgado himself, and by extension his bands, are prime examples of just how the chileans have been able to inject new life and energy into the mouldering corpse of thrash metal. Toba is just the latest in a string of releases that have redefined what thrash metal means in the 21st century. The members of most of these Santiago thrash bands are almost invariably members of several others, so are constantly either recording or playing live, honing their skills with every performance to a point where these guys are absolutely razor-sharp technically, wrangling every ounce of energy and vitality out of their instruments and laying it down for us all to marvel at.

Toba is a relatively short album by modern standards, only running for thirty-six minutes, yet it doesn't feel particularly short due to the sheer effusive energy it radiates throughout its runtime. In the main, Toba's eight tracks are high velocity affairs chock-full of lightning fast and precise riffs that slash at the listener like a flurry of rapier cuts. They may like to rein back on the tempo and drop into a mid-tempo, groovier riff, with most songs involving several such tempo changes, but the main impression Toba leaves is that this is absolutely blistering stuff. The riffs are well-written and are pretty damn memorable, not merely blurs as they flash from speaker to ear and are designed to wreak maximum neck-wrenching damage. There is a certain infectious ebullience about Mayhemic and, for me, that is most aptly illustrated by the frantic and searing guitar solos which howl with an effusive elation at being unleashed upon the unsuspecting listener. These are not just the standard Hannemann / King short, sharp shocks that became pretty much the standard for the more extreme styles of thrash metal, but are wild expressions of metal's irrepressible ability to excite and thrill, each sounding exuberant and unique.

Noctumbra and Doom share vocal duties. with Noctumbra leading on tracks 1, 3 and 8, Doom on 2,4 and 6 and both contributing on Olduvai's Lullaby. Both are ragged and aggressive bellowers with Noctumbra having a slightly shriller, black-metal influenced shriek and Doom having a similar, but lower-pitched style. In truth there isn't a huge amount of difference between them and I wouldn't really say one is better than the other as both suit the material equally well. Drummer Leviathan (Javier ''Crow'' Buzeta), who has since left the band, is beastly behing his kit, unleashing salvo after salvo of thrashbeats and busy fills, driving the tracks along with precision and powerful kit work. He is ably supported in the rhythm section by bassist Magelis (Ítalo Sánchez). A feature of many chilean thrash releases is a very prominent bass presence, but here the bass takes up a more traditional position in the mix. It is nevertheless perfectly audible, but not as noticeably intrusive as it sometimes is within the chilean scene.

With Toba Mayhemic may not have produced the kind of original and unique thrash release compatriots like the superb Demomiac and even Salgado's previous crew Parkcrest managed, but with a blackened snarl, shredding strings and a withering and pummelling rhythm section, they have captured the essence of what makes metal so damn thrilling and attractive in the first place.

Cryptal Echoes are a young death doom band from Klagenfurt in Austria and this self-titled, almost thirty-minute, EP is their first release since forming in 2021. At the time of the EP's recording they were a four-piece band, but a couple of lineup changes have since seen them reduced to a trio. They worship at the altar of the old-school death metal gods, with a thoroughly filthy and cavernous sound, which is exacerbated by a very raw, little better than demo-quality, production job. Heavily distorted, lumbering riffs accompanied by deep-throated growls and bellows for vocals are very much the order of the day for the band, punctuated by more uptempo bursts of deathly aggression. This is very much death doom rooted in the genre's early-nineties beginnings with no concession to the progressive tendencies or external genre incorporation of more modern death doom bands, delivering a pure and unfiltered, genuinely old-school death doom experience.

When the band let loose and increase the tempo into out-and-out death metal territory, the raw production values and heavy guitar distortion see things getting a little bit messy and start to blur into one deathly rumble, with the snare drum being the main discernible instrument still propelling the tracks along. I don't necessarily have a problem with this, having listened to a lot of lo-fi stuff over the years, but it could well be a deal-breaker for those raised on modern, crystal clear production jobs. The riffs are decent, although if you are familiar with a lot of early 90's death metal then you won't find them at all original, although that is never the aim here. Cryptal Echoes know exactly what they want to do and that is recreate the original death doom sound as faithfully as possible, a feat they pulled off very convincingly.

Of the six tracks on the EP, four hover around the six minute mark and these are where the meat of the album lie. There is a bit of a departure with tracks four and five, with the sub-two-minute "Spiritual Torture" verging on grindcore and short instrumental, "Dreaded Chasm" being a gently noodling breather prior to closing track, the lumbering and hulking "Desolate Return" with which the band finish in great style. This is my favourite of the six, it feeling the classiest and most developed track with the release's coolest riffs left until last.

This is probably one for hardcore death doom fanatics with a penchant for the old-school, but if that is you then you may well find enough raw meat to sink your teeth into with this.

Daevar are a german trio playing a version of stoner doom metal with female vocals that will be instantly familiar to any fans of Richmond's Windhand. Amber Eyes is their sophomore full-length, following hot on the heels of 2023's Delirious Rites debut. Thick and syrupy, heavily distorted, downtuned riffs are the order of the day here, crawling from speaker to ear like lumbering behemoths with such weight and heft that it feels like you can lose yourself in them and let them just carry you along. Vocalist and bassist Pardis Latifi has a very pleasant voice and croons and cajoles, mesmerising the listener into a hypnotic, dream-like state. In other words, this is the very essence of stoner doom and it is executed impressively. Pardis's elephantine bass lines and drummer Moritz Ermen Bausch's thunderous, but spare, drumming slowly heaves the tracks forward and provide the thick foundations required by the ponderous weight of the uber-distorted riffs. Guitar solos are quite sparingly used and are efficient in their execution, not becoming excessively noodling or swamped in psychedelic explorations.

The songwriting is very good and the tracks are quite catchy, particularly the title track and opener Lilith's Lullaby and these are the sort of songs that may find you humming them to yourself long after you have stopped listening to the album itself. Stoner doom can sometimes become self-indulgent, but Daevar's songwriting is fairly economical and none of the tracks are extended unnecessarily and never seem to drag, quite the opposite in fact. As I said at the beginning, they are very reminiscent of Windhand and some may say too similar, but if you are going to ape anyone's style then it may as well be the best in your given field and it isn't like blatant Band X-worship is rare in the metal world, is it? I enjoyed this far more than I expected to going in and with us entering the seventh year without a new Windhand album, then Daevar provide me with a nice warm and fuzzy hit of that particular doom metal drug I have been craving for so long.

Severoth is the atmospheric black metal solo project of Ukraine's Illia Rafalskyi, also known as Galdur (dungeon synth) and Morok (conventional black metal). I only caught up with this project with the release of previous album, Vsesvit, back in 2020, very much enjoying it's sweeping soundscapes that struck me as similar to Andy Marshall's Saor, a project I have an enormous amount of time for. By the Way of Light continues in similar vein, the shortest of it's five tracks being just shy of nine minutes in length, so ample time is allowed for the epic and expansive atmospherics of the tracks to take root and fill the imagination with images of wild and wind-blown, remote panoramas where nature is given full reign.

Instrumentally, the album consists of thin, repetitive tremolo riffs and programmed drums, overlaid with lush synths which provide added depth via their sonic layering. Skirling lead work suggests the accompaniment of folk instrumentation, such as pipes for a sweeping, folk-centric atmosphere which fans of Saor will certainly recognise immediately. The vocals are ragged howling shrieks, pushed down in the mix slightly suggesting distance both metaphorical and real, apart from a couple of clean sung sections, one in the second half of opening track, "Sunrise Will Come", and another during "To the Stars!" which are more to the fore and in an epic folk style.

It is impossible to listen to the album and read the lyrics and ignore the context in which they have been written. As a resident of Dnipro in Ukraine, Illia is obviously seriously affected by the war and the album, in particular the first two tracks, reflects the mindset of Ukrainians caught up in the horrors. "Sunrise Will Come" with lyrics such as "Sunrise will come, and with it’s own light reveals to us, this new brave world" is certainly a reference to the fact that the current situation cannot last forever and a belief that things will end well. "Sons of Steel Will", the album's most aggressive-sounding track, meanwhile pronounces, "In blaze of the battle, by heat of the bloodshed, We are Sons Of Steel Will" paying tribute to the Ukrainians' indomitability.

In truth, there isn't a whole deal you haven't heard many times before, but it is artfully put together and very competently performed with a steely heart that says, even in the depths of horror, hope and beauty can be found. I found it to actually be a very uplifting album, it's sonic depictions of wide-open natural expanses allowing the listener to metaphorically fill their lungs with the glory of nature in the midst of their busy everyday lives, which is a gift that none but the best can pull off this effectively. If a whole people can be inspired to this in the midst of war, then surely we can in the context of our (thankfully) humdrum lives. This is probably an album for the more romantically-inclined black metal listener rather than the trve kvlt hordes, but if you have any kind of empathy or love of the human spirit in your heart then give it a listen.

I feel I need to recalibrate my approach to Pallbearer. Since their imperious debut, Sorrow and Extinction, they have moved further away from that album's massively crushing and melancholy doom metal in a more gentle, doomgaze-y direction that has found me becoming increasingly disappointed with the results. Mind Burns Alive continues that direction of travel and it is now apparent that the days of Sorrow and Extinction are well in the band's rearview mirror.

Firstly, the production has a light touch, without doom metal's usual focus on the bottom end and with a clear, clean sound that enhances the gentler material, but which, lightens the doom riffs when they hit, preventing them from attaining the overwhelming crushing weight which is most often the point of focus for doom acts. Songwriting-wise, it seems that Pallbearer are steering in a more post-metal direction, achieved by incorporating influences from 1990's and early 2000's alternative rock. A track such as "Signals", for example, has a very alt-rock intro, bringing to mind bands like Radiohead or REM and even when the doom riff kicks in, it feels as much like the heavier alternative or noise rock bands of the turn of the century as it does doom metal. It must be said though that Brett Campbell has the perfect voice for this style, his reedy and nasal delivery is very much suited to that particular alternative rock sound and feels just as much at home with the gentler material as it does the heavier.

I have a feeling that Pallbearer may be taking a leaf out of Patrick Walker's book and taking an emotionally redolent version of doom metal such as Walker perfected on Watching From A Distance and moving in a shoegazey, alternative direction, similar to 40 Watt Sun. As I said at the beginning, I think a reappraisal of Pallbearer is required at this point because, after multiple listens, by which time any lingering preconceptions have been shorn away, Mind Burns Alive is revealing itself to actually be an interesting album and may now even sit as my second-favourite by the band after the mighty debut. The previous few albums, certainly those after Foundations of Burden, have felt incomplete, like a band casting around for a signature sound without exactly knowing where they are heading, but I think Mind Burns Alive has seen Pallbearer arrive where they truly want to be and feels more complete and coherent as a result. Their's is now an emotionally-charged version of doom that builds from gentle, often non-metal, beginnings up to a crescendo whereby the heavy doom riffs act as a kind of catharsis for the fear or sorrow openly displayed during each track's earlier sections. The band are obviously very technically sound, but use this ability to build atmosphere and poignancy within their music, rather than to showcase their technical chops. The guitar solos, for example, sound mournful and full of yearning, used to elicit an emotional reaction rather than wow the listener with the musician's dexterity.

Did I even mention the saxophone solo that jumps out at you during "Endless Place" yet? I'm not completely convinced said solo was entirely necessary, but it does help to illustrate that Mind Burns Alive is actually a lot better and more interesting than I originally gave it credit for. To properly appreciate it, however, I have had to shift my perspective on not only this, but the band as a whole. I wouldn't say this is a perfect album by any stretch, certainly not for my particular taste profile, but it finally sees Pallbearer getting comfortable with a particular sound that plays to their strengths and which is even capable of swaying the opinion of a cynical old bastard like me to their way of thinking. In all honesty, I had been getting a little bit bored of certain sections of the doom metal scene's predictability over recent months, so it is great to hear something that has defied and redefined my expectations.

Barshasketh originated in New Zealand in 2007 and was comprised of multi-instrumentalist, Krigeist (Bròn, Belliciste, Sluagh) and drummer Maldoror. Sometime after the release of their debut album, Defying the Bonds of Cosmic Thraldom, Krigeist relocated to Edinburgh in Scotland, recruiting Cnoc an Tursa drummer, Bryan Hamilton, into the ranks and adding a second guitarist in Haar's Guillaume Martin. The lineup is nowadays a four-piece, Hamilton having moved on, with current drummer, Finland's Mika Kallio, of Seal of Beleth, also contributing vocals and keyboards and Falloch's Ben Brown on bass. I was quite the fan of the band's previous, self-titled, album released in 2019 with it's no-nonsense approach and resistance to any genre hybridisation that has plagued black metal in recent times, so was looking forward to a new release. Thankfully Barshasketh have delivered and may have produced their best release to date.

The first point of particular note is the more muscular production job which has boosted the bottom end and thickened the band's sound when compared to previous releases. I like how it adds power and heft to the tracks, although there may be some backlash from fans against the loss of the more typically thin and trebley sound of yore. Not to fear, the tremolo riffing is all still present and correct, but the rhythm section has definitely benefitted from the meatier production job and truly provide the roaring velocity behind the individual tracks.

Songwriting-wise, Antinomian Asceticism is quite a busy affair, with multiple tempo changes that sees the band switching into crawling doom metal mode on several occasions in amongst the swarming savagery of the tremolo riffs and withering salvos of blastbeats. Many of the riffs are fairly memorable and even, dare I say, melodic at times, but this is offset by a penchant for quite dissonant guitar leads that introduce some jaggedness into proceedings and prevents the tracks from becoming too catchy. This dichotomy at the heart of Antinomian Asceticism is further bolstered by the vocal performances. The main vocals are a harsh, gurgling shriek which are occasionally accompanied by solemn, chant-like cleans, providing a contrast to the aggressive harshness of the lead vocals and imparting emotional tension between peaceful, ritualistic reverence on one hand and chaotic aggression on the other.

Whilst still flying under the radar to some extent, Bashasketh are undoubtedly proving themselves to be a very tight unit. They are technically proficient, as well as being efficient songwriters with a consummate skill for producing high quality, uncompromising black metal, yet which embraces a modern sound that marks them out as more than mere 1990's copyists. Hopefully this new album will see the band emerging from out of the shadow of lesser lights and gaining the respect that their quality deserves.

I think that had I heard this at the time of its release then I would have enjoyed it far more than I do now. To me it sounds a lot like the early USPM of Manilla Road and Jag Panzer with some very cool riffs, lead work and interesting song structures. It falls down on a couple of points, the first being that the production is complete shite. As much as I enjoyed the guitar work, they are threatened with being drowned out by the bass for almost the entirety of the album. I don't have a problem with the bass sitting well up in the mix, but if it is drowning out the leads then there is a problem right there. My second issue is a perpetual one wirthin certain realms of metal and that is the constant strained sound of vocalist, Shane Southby, hitting his high notes every other second, especially when he has a perfectly fine "normal" singing voice. I know that is a bit rich coming from someone who enjoys King Diamond, but KD is so OTT that I see it as a reflection of his unique musical persona, whereas here it just irritated me.

Overall I did get something out of it and Taramis were definitely trying to stretch their legs and move beyond the boundaries of traditional heavy metal with more complex song structures, the title track in particular standing out, but that production job is just so obstructive to my enjoyment that I find it hard to embrace Queen of Thieves with any more than a cursory nod.

Invocator are a danish four-piece, formed in 1986, although this, their debut album, wasn't recorded and released until 1991. I had never heard of these guys before, so this is my first encounter with them and I must admit I quite like what I am hearing here. Excursion Demise is an album of prime brutal thrash, with the band endeavouring to play the most extreme version of thrash metal that they could. Unfortunately they have been a little hamstrung in that department by the production, which is lacking on bottom end, robbing the riffs of some of the blunt-force trauma they may have possessed otherwise and rendering them more lightweight than they deserve. This lack of riff power, though, forces the drumming more to the fore which, considering just how impressive Per Möller Jensen is behind the kit, is not such a bad thing. His technique is powerful and technical, with an impressive arsenal of percussive weapons up his sleeve. Busy and complex patterns weave together and provide the driving impetus behind the tracks, also bolstering the riffing to some extent.

Guitarist and vocalist, Jacob Hansen, is obviously the main draw here though. His vocal style is a rough, aggressive snarl that is reminiscent of Kreator's Mille Petrozza and well suits the blistering pacing of the majority of the tracks. It is, however, his six-string solos that, along with Möller Jensen's drumming, are the stars of the show. Taking the howling riffs of Hannemann and King and torturing them into ever-more distorted patterns and directions and sprinkling them liberally all over the album's runtime, boosts the violent brutality factor by an exponential factor.

Now I am always one for a good slab of brutal thrash metal and Excursion Demise is indeed a very solid example but, much as I enjoy it whilst it is blasting out of my headphones, there isn't a great deal that sticks with me afterwards, other than an impression of having had my ears sufficiently brutalised for nearly fifty minutes. I am not complaining and I feel that the failing in that respect sits with my lack of technical musical expertise not allowing me to grasp hold of specifics and, consequently, the album's unrelentingly fast-pacing and lack of memorable riffs and hooks only leaves me with a lingering overall impression of it's brutality rather than any specific outstanding moments. Look, this is far from the only album that I view that way and it doesn't prevent me from enjoying it massively whilst it is playing, I just wish I was able to take a bit more away with me afterwards is all.

Melechesh is a Hebrew/Aramaic word meaning King of Fire and the band began in Jerusalem in 1993 as a solo project of Ashmedi before expanding to a three-piece in 1994. The band's black metal is based on Assyrian occult themes and caused them much grief with the authorities in Israel where they were accused of "dark cult activities", ultimately leading to them relocating to Europe in 1998.

The Epigenesis is the band's fifth full-length album and was originally released in 2010. Its eleven tracks weigh in at a whopping 71 minutes, but I never really noticed the album's length (always a good sign) due to the high quality of the music on offer. I would hesitate to call this folk metal as only a couple of tracks feature traditional instruments heavily, but the black metal on offer here most definitely has rhythms and patterns more commonly associated with traditional Middle Eastern music. The majority of the album comprises medium-paced, melodic black metal, incorporating influences from progressive and technical death metal with those traditional rhythms helping to evoke an effective and vivid atmosphere - you can almost smell the hookah smoke as you approach one of the regions dusty and ancient monuments to people and deities long forgotten, invoking images similar to those of Max von Sydow in Iraq at the beginning of The Exorcist. There is an epicness on display here that speaks of the esoteric history of the lands of the band's beginnings and the long-forgotten occult origins that have since been replaced by more modern monotheistic religions.

The album kicks off with a killer one-two punch, the memorable black metal riffing of Ghouls of Nineveh then the thrashiness of Grand Gathas of Baal Sin with it's war-chant ending make for a top-notch start. Sacred Geometry takes up the torch and runs with it, pulling in influences from tech-death to add to the arabic rhythms of the track's black metal root. The Magickan and the Drones is one of the most savage-sounding tracks on the album, it's riff has an edge that could dismember the listener if they are caught unaware and Mystics of the Pillar is an epic monster with a slower pacing and a heavier arabic-folk influence, particularly in it's middle section. At this point the first of a couple of traditional-sounding arabic folk tracks is encountered, serving as a respite from the unrelenting heaviness of the album's first half an hour or so, this gives the listener chance to breathe and take in the atmosphere. Defeating the Giants is the album's shortest track and with a thrashing chug added to it's black metal savagery it buzzes round your head like a swarm of locusts. Now where most black metal album's would be thinking of calling it a day at this point The Epigenesis ups it's game and the final four tracks are possibly the album's best. Two guts and blood crackers in Illumination: The Face of Shamash and Negative Theology are followed by the second arabic folk track, A Greater Chain of Being, that perfectly sets up the epic, twelve-minute eponymous closer.

It must be said, the production on this is fantastic, every track and instrument is crystal clear so that the production process doesn't get in the way of the music's impact. Interestingly, the album was recorded in Istanbul and Ashmedi admits to recording the vocal tracks naked at night because "I wanted to feel as primal as possible to fairly represent the vocals."

Melechesh are most definitely one of my favourite modern black metal bands, their songwriting and mucisianship are superb and they certainly refuse to tread the same old furrows as some of their contemporaries. I love all the band's albums, but this is definitely my favourite, it's incorporation of other musical elements and an overall more technical and progressive feel are a departure from their earlier sound and feel like a band growing and stretching themselves whilst losing none of their bite. To produce an album that is at once savage, primal, complex and atmospheric is one hell of an achievement and I for one can't get enough.

Adorior are a death metal five-piece originally from Sutton in England's West Midlands. Formed in 1994, their recorded output is exceedingly sparse with just three full-lengths and a couple of splits to their name. The band have undergone several lineup changes in their three decades of existence, with vocalist Jaded Lungs (real name Melissa Gray) being the only remaining original member. I hadn't heard of the band prior to this, but on the strength of Bleed on My Teeth, it seems that Adorior are one of the UK's best-kept extreme metal secrets.

This is an album of thrashy death metal with blackened tendencies, but that genre description fails to convey the sheer evil-sounding chaos that is about to assault your eardrums when you put needle to record (or more likely press play on your chosen streaming service). The more I listen to Bleed on My Teeth, the more I am convincing myself that it is a war metal album, albeit with a clearer and less messy production than is often assosciated with the genre. A cursory investigation of their earlier albums reveals that they have toned down the black metal influence on this latest and it sounds even more muscular and bludgeoningly brutal as a result.

Vocalist Jaded Lungs is no angel-voiced siren, but a venomous and vituperative bitch-demon spitting blaphemous and violent tirades interspersed with piercing screams in an evilly disturbing vocal performance that would put the vast majority of her male counterparts to shame and alone makes checking this out mandatory for any connoisseur of the most evil-sounding singers in metal. The lyrics are often exceedingly disturbing, conjuring pictures of scenes I would rather not contemplate too deeply and which show a lot of extreme metal lyricists up for the cop-out wimps they are! Fortunately for us, great though Melissa's vocals are, they are far from the only thing worth hearing on Bleed on My Teeth. The deathly riffs are fast and furious in the main, although the band sometimes drop into more melodic thrash metal riffing, such as the recurrent riff of "Ophidian Strike" which act as an effective contrast to the chaotic mayhem seething around them and feel like a consolidation of all this primal chaos into more coherent and focussed moments when maximum headbanging action can be attained. The proliferation of solos provided by lead guitarist Assassinator feed into the album's chaotic nature, with searing dissonance and Slayer-like short, sharp shocks of screaming howls leaping out at the listener in blistering salvos. And that's all before we get to drummer, Molestör, who is an absolute fucking beast behind the kit. Withering blastbeats are followed by impressively proficient fills as the guy never succumbs to either complacency or fatigue, his kinetic stickwork constantly driving things along in technically impressive and aggressively imaginitive ways.

Despite all these components often giving the impression of chaos, Bleed on My Teeth is actually extremely tight and surprisingly complex for what sounds like such a primal recording. The technical chops of all concerned can be in no doubt and that, combined with the tight songwriting, makes me absolutely amazed that Adorior are not more well-known, especially here in their native UK where we aren't exactly overflowing with top-drawer extreme metal outfits. This is a must for any deaththrash maniacs out there and it's great to know that these British Isles can still put out an album that sounds as fucking me(n)tal as this and that with a cover that is too hardcore for Spotify to show to the public at large!

The NWOBHM produced some exciting and exilharating releases for the time, but it also produced it's fair share of utter dross too. Released in 1982, this four-track EP from Melbourne's Taipan showcases what would certainly have been considered one of the better releases from the NWOBHM - if they had been from Melbourne in Derbyshire that is, rather than Victoria. Anyway, fuck geography, because this is a terrific little release that brings Diamond Head's Lightning To the Nations springing to mind.

The riffs have that hard-rock-influenced NWOBHM catchiness that the best of the UK scene had to offer with a driving, propulsive quality that would guarantee maximum headbanging action. The riff of opener "Breakout" certainly wouldn't have sounded out of place on Diamiond Head's classic debut, such is it's quality. The guitar solos are supercharged affairs, reminding me quite a lot of Phil Campbell's Motörhead leadwork, coming thick and fast, just like the doctor ordered and are my favourite part of the EP. Most of the vocals are performed by guitarist Dave Zerafa who, has some variety in his delivery. On "Breakout" he has a punky, aggressive edge to his voice similar to Iron Maiden's Paul Di'Anno, yet on second track, "Lady" he sounds much more like Diamond Head's Sean Harris, with even hints at Robert Plant-esque seductive tones. The vocals on final track, "The Cellar" are handled by bassist Emilio Sarpa, however, who has a similar style to Zerafa, although I think D.Z. is technically the better singer.

As a metalhead who was well immersed in the NWOBHM at the time, I can confidently say that had these guys been supporting Maiden or Saxon back in '81 down at my local venue then they would have been lapped up by me and my mates, that's for damned sure. The riffs, the solos, even the production, scream a band that just "get" what was going on in the metal new wave of the 1980's and has an authenticity that many retro acts have tried unsuccessfully to emulate. This is indeed an early 80's metal hidden gem and is right up there with some of the best shit hitting the streets way back when. For fans of Diamond Head, Blitzkrieg and Saxon.

Diabolic Oath are seemingly a secretive three-piece from Portland with members named Chthonian Incursor, Ominous Void and The Temple, none of whose roles within the band are public knowledge. According to their Bandcamp page they use completely fretless guitars and a simultaneous triple vocal attack "to depredate the listener's psyche", so I think it is fair to say that we are not in melodic metal territory here. What we do have is a blackened death metal assault that is very close to war metal, in fact the first couple of tracks are very much in the vein of true war metal, with the cavernous, noisy and chaotic aesthetic of true war metal sitting very much to the fore. That isn't the totality of what is going in with Oracular Hexations, however, as the band explore a multifarious number of ways to achieve metallic extremity, even within these opening two tracks. As the initial war metal assault subsides, the latter half of opener "Rusted Madness Tethering Misbegotten Haruspices" takes on an almost tribal-sounding, hulking chug of a riff, and the second, "Serpent Coils Suffocating the Mortal Wound" at one point employs a weird, almost out-of-tune gothic rock guitar lick alongside the more usual disso-death guitar work.

Diabolic Oath lean towards the death metal end of the war metal spectrum and after these initial couple of tracks the death metal aspect dominates the album, with the blackened side mainly being represented by some of the vocals. "Winged Ouroboros Mutating Unto Gold", for example has an old-school feeling to it that hints at death doom, albeit noisier and more chaotic than, say, Autopsy, but displaying a similar approach to death metal. In a similar way, "Fragmented Hymns From the Globulous Cruciger" feels rooted in tech-death, but you have to take into accout the cavernous, noisy production of the album and dig in a bit to appreciate the more technical and tighter guitar and percussion work utilised here.

Each of these first four tracks clock in between four and five minutes, but the final couple are much longer affairs, with next track, "Gathering Hordes From the Outer Worlds" running for almost ten minutes and the closer, "Oracular Hexations Leeching", just over eight. These longer, final two tracks tend to veer between looming and ominous doominess and sheer unmitigated violence and actually constitute my favourite part of the album. A healthy serving of death doom metal is always likely to garner a thumbs-up from me and the way that it is interspersed by blastbeat-driven, outbursts of violent, high-tempo death metal makes for a very satisfying mix.

I have to confess that, for me, this wasn't an immediate attention-grabber, with my initial listen-through being a somewhat underwhelming affair as the dissonance and chaos overwhelmed me a little and found me starting to drift away, but this, certainly for me at least, is a release that rewards persistence. Once I got to grips with the noisy production and the trappings of the technical and dissonant aspects and got them lined up in my mind then it became much easier to appreciate the quality of what Diabolic Oath were attempting (and pulling off) here. That, I think, is to produce a real bamboozling piece of extreme metal that has the feeling of a chaotic and loose headlong charge, but which is, in fact, a highly controlled, tightly written and technically adept slab of extremity that explores the ominousness of threat and danger in contrast to the sheer explosive brutality of violence. Whether that is an apt interpretation or not, either way, this is an impressive and thought-provoking chunk of metal that certainly deserves more attention than it has currently been receiving.

Blood Incantation are back with their signature progressive, cosmic death metal sound after their detour into the world of ambient that was their 2022 Timewave Zero project. Absolute Elsewhere basically consists of two lengthy tracks, "The Stargate" and "The Message" that make up each side of the vinyl release, with each track being further split into three parts. This time around they have delved even further into progressive realms than they did with 2019's Hidden History of the Human Race, with recognisable influence from several legendary 70's progressive artists, most noticeably Rush, Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Tangerine Dream with TD's Thorsten Quaeschning's guesting on the second part of "The Message", which sounds just like an excerpt from the german progressive electronic crew's 1975 Rubycon album.

Of course, after their dalliance with a wholly ambient release last time out, most metalheads want to know if the band still have their hearts in the metal world and the answer is, undoubtedly they do and death metal is still the basis upon which their more expansive sound is built, but they are also on a mission to expand the horizons of the genre and bring in other influences so that it can continue to evolve, thus giving it an even brighter future and allowing it to reach out to a wider audience. Just within the opening segment of "The Message" we are treated to a Rush-like intro, with Geddy Lee-like staccato basslines and Alex Lifeson-influenced lead work leading into a ripping death metal riff, thundering blastbeat and Paul Riedl's growling vocals. These soon subside into a Robert Fripp-style gentle guitar and synth break which itself morphs into a short mellotron-led section (reminiscent of the synths Queen produced for the Flash Gordon soundtrack) which is then supplanted by a Dave Gilmour-esque solo. That then makes way for an eastern-flavoured death metal riff that could have come from the Nile songbook - and we are still only eight minutes into the damn thing! This may sound like a whole lot of disparate influences being jammed together and on paper may not seem that appealing, but the skill of the songwriting is that it takes these multifarious threads and weaves them together into a seamless tapestry of varying colours and textures in an entirely organic and unforced manner, with faultless and seemingly logical transitions, even between the most brutal and gentle passages. The opening extravaganza merely illustrates the ambitious vision that Blood Incantation have for their version of progressive death metal, with a fully-formed science fiction concept behind the album and a wide-reaching pallette of sonic pigments with which they illustrate this vision, metal alone being insufficient to convey exactly the feeling they require.

It is easy, I suppose, to get into a game of I-spy-the-obvious-influence, and on the intitial playthrough I was probably as guilty as anyone of that, but when you become more acquainted with the album I think the technical mastery and skilled songwriting make all that irrelevant and when heard as a coherent entity, rather than the sum of it's parts, that is when it hits the listener as to exactly how good this is. Despite all the progressive tendencies, it is still the effectiveness of the metal constituents upon which the success of the album ultimately rests and we are certainly in safe hands there because when the band let rip then they absolutely nail it with impeccable timing, consummate technical skills and some lethal riffs. The third part of "The Message" is probably one of the most "metal" parts of the album with a devastating set of blastbeats, some complex tech-death shennanigans and a deadly and brutal main riff, complemented with some nice eastern motifs that does more than cement the band's death metal credentials.

I was initially a bit sceptical as to whether Absolute Elsewhere was deserving of all the accolades being poured upon it, but this is undoubtedly one of those albums that increases the returns dependent upon what you put into it. Multiple listens are mandatory to really appreciate exactly what Blood Incantation are delivering here and it is gaining in stature with me as I uncover a little bit more of it's complexity and quality with each playthrough. As a metal album this is a cosmic-themed triumph, being at times exceedingly brutal and heavy, at others complex and cerebral, but it is also much more than that, thought-provoking and visionary with a willingness to embrace influences from outside the metal sphere which lend it an accessibility that will undoubtedly draw in new acolytes to the world of extreme metal and surely that is a good thing.

I find a lot of cutting edge metal to be a bit beyond my capacity to enjoy, particularly the excessively dissonant or avant-garde, but Absolute Elsewhere has opened up a brave new world of ambitious and forward-thinking metal made from distinctly recognisable parts that is as listenable as it is ground-breaking. It is hard, if you really listen to this, to not feel refreshed and energised by the possibilities this opens up for the future of death metal inparticular and extreme metal generally. I am sold.

I am quite the fan of the short-lived Aussie war metallers, but with only two full-lengths to their name I wouldn't say they are my favourite war metal band. The more prolific Archgoat probably take that title, but Bestial Warlust did release my favourite war metal album, that being 1995's follow up to this month's The North feature, Blood & Valour, which is still my only five-star rated war metal album to date.

Vengeance War 'Till Death is a brief burst of blasphemic violence. With it's seven tracks clocking in at a mere 31 minutes it is an unrelenting salvo of blastbeats, frantically manic riffing and howling roars that is so murderously intense that half an hour is more than sufficient a runtime to satisfy the deeply primal instincts that live deep within us. Bestial Warlust must be one of the most aptly named bands in all of metal, their monicker perfectly summing up exactly what the band deliver. War metal is always a visceral and almost physical experience and few encapsulate this call to the animal side of us better than these guys. The production plays a massive part in the success of Vengeance... being filthily noisy and distorted enough to give it that seat-of-the-pants, chaotic sensation, whilst maintaining sufficient clarity to allow the individual contributions to be discerned and prevent the whole from descending into one godawful messy blur.

The drumming is a withering machine gun stream of blastbeat bullets that is testament to the indefatigable power of skinsman Markus Hellcunt and is prominent without swamping the guitars. The riffs are each distinct, which is not always true of many war metal releases whilst maintaining the supercharged and frantic pacing the genre requires. The solos screech like tormented souls, obviously having roots in the Slayer school of six-string torture, but taken to the absolute extremes where even Kerry King feared to tread. Bloodstorm spits fire and venom in a torrent of vitriolic howls and roars that encapsulates the sheer demonic evilness of war metal's blackened heart and leaves no one in any doubt as to which side of the "eternal struggle" tha band's music sits.

I am not going to pretend for one minute that this is going to appeal to most metalheads, I understand that war metal is an acquired taste, but for those who worship at the filth-strewn altar of extreme black and death metal, this is damn close to as good as it gets. In fact I have got so heavily into this album over the last day or two that I am going to up my otriginal four-star rating by half a mark.

Kaatayra is one of the solo projects of brazilian multi-instrumentalist Caio Lemos who released his debut under the name in 2019 and went on to release 5 full-length albums in two and a half years. "Toda história pela frente" ("All History Ahead") is the fourth of these, being released in August 2020. Kaatayra plays atmospheric black metal infused with Caio's native brazilian folk music that makes for a refreshing change and adds a nice twist to the genre, bringing a different aesthetic to the music away from the euro-centric folk most usually encountered within the genre. Gone are the frigid, icy soundscapes more readily associated with european and north american black metal, to be replaced by a warmer, more celebratory atmosphere, where the natural environment is not so much a hard and inhospitable setting which must be endured, but a life-giving and nurturing domain that is to be acclaimed.

"Toda história pela frente" consists of three lengthy epics and was Kaatayra's most black metal album up to that point. I also think it was the album where he best integrated the black metal and acoustic elements together, with a noticeble increase in consistency as his songwriting matured. Not that I am saying there was too much wrong with his previous albums, but there was sometimes a jarring feeling that the two disparate elements were being forced together rather than the tracks evolving the relationship between the metal and the folk-led in a more organic way as they do here. Sometimes he takes a completely fresh approach to black metal and even plays the riff on acoustic rather than electric guitar, complete with accompanying blastbeats which works surprisingly well. Elsewhere he weaves some nice synth-led ambient threads into his musical tapestries, with an especially soothing section coming in the latter part of opening track, the 17-minute, "O Castigo Vem à Cavalo", giving the listener a moment or two of calm which lends an even greater impact to the final climactic blackened explosion.

When Caio let's the black metal side of things rip, then he sounds more savage and visceral than he had at any point up until this, with his ragged shrieks, frantic tremolo riffing and pummelling blastbeats providing an aggressive, red-blooded assault on the listener's ears with the opening minutes of second track "Toda mágoa do mundo" being the prime example. Yet, despite this, there is a rhythmic quality to the riffs on even the most vicious sections that prevents the tracks from sounding spiteful or hate-filled, but rather impart the notion of a more wholesome "nature red in tooth and claw" ethos instead. The latin rhythms of the folk-led parts are also one of the major distinctions between this and the vast majority of the atmospheric black metal pack. The euro-centric folk incorporated by most black metal acts oftentimes gives a menacing, ritualistic and even occult vibe to proceedings, but the dance-oriented latin rhythms deployed here make for a much more positive and celebratory atmosphere.

I don't think I can give this more praise than saying that, in certain respects, it reminds me of Austin Lunn's Panopticon. Similar to Panopticon it has taken the local folk music of the artist that sits outside the scope of black metal that we are used to and has incorporated it in such a way as to impart a different, more positive and human ethos into what can so often be a misanthropic and negative style of music, giving the listener an entirely different experience of black metal than they may have expected.

Black Hole District is french doomsters Monolithe's tenth album and marks yet another step in the band's musical and conceptual development. There is a narrative structure to the album, with the story taking influence from science fiction sources such as Blade Runner and Dark City. The story's protagonist, living on an Earth that faces annihilation due to the Moon having left it's orbit and falling inwards towards the planet, discovers, by a convoluted series of events, that he is in reality an android, not a human and this discovery looks set to cost him his life as the powers-that-be seek to terminate him for his knowledge.

The band have always made a "thing" of the track timings on their releases, which ties into their concepts, with Black Hole District's ten tracks alternating between one-minute instrumentals and exactly ten-minute long main tracks. Thankfully, as is always the case with the band, the specificity of the track timings doesn't feel forced and they never feel over-extended or truncated to accomodate these timings. I have a feeling that the band see themselves as storytellers every bit as much as musicians nowadays and, to this end, they have incorporated even more progressive elements into their music to the point where the progressive and the doomy are now held in perfect balance. This balance allows them the freedom to convincingly weave epic science-fiction tales without compromising on the inate heaviness of death doom metal, which is still, despite all the progressive flourishes, the heart and soul of Monolithe's sound.

A new element they have brought in, presumably specific to this story, is 80's style synths, in particular they have used the Yamaha CS-80 popularised by Vangelis, who is particularly influential here, especially (but not exclusvely) on the one-minute interludes which act as intros to the five main tracks, each one sounding like a snippet from the Greek's Blade Runner soundtrack. They have also brought in guest vocalist Frédéric Gervais of french progressive black metallers Orakle to provide clean vocals alongside new guitarist and vocalist Quentin Verdier's deathly growls, which gives the album a nice textural variation, vocally. Alongside the vocals a number of spoken word sections serve to advance the story and act as introductions to the events of the main tracks.

All this is the vision of the main man behind Monolithe, guitarist and keyboard player, Sylvain Bégot, who is the person solely responsible for all the band's songwriting and lyrics since their earliest days. I think that Sylvain's single-minded control of the artistic input imparts a cohesive consistency to Monolithe's output that may have become diluted by more diverse inputs. It has been obvious since the first album that, similarly to Ivar Bjørnson with Enslaved, Bégot's vision has always been beyond the boundaries of the genre conventions within which he works, even as he has no wish to completely set those conventions aside. He has now become exceedingly effective in how he weaves the doom and progressive aspects together and produces legitimately progressive doom metal as a result, with very few peers in the field. He is now able to convincingly produce a cinematic version of doom metal, that is able to impart the emotional and atmospheric highs and lows of great cinema. The poignancy of the closing track, "Those Moments Lost in Time", for example, is heart-wrenching, despite the heavy, looming main riff, as it references the Blade Runner death scene of Rutger Hauer's Roy Batty.

Black Hole District may not be unrelentingly heavy enough for some death doom acolytes, but for doomsters who love a cinematically conceptual tale, musically well-told with exemplary musicianship and songwriting then Monolithe are very much at the head of the pack. Although Blood Incantation will take all the plaudits for 2024 in this field for their new album, I don't think anyone should dismiss Black Hole District's claim to progressive extreme metal's science fiction concept album of the year.

I really don't know how to tag Oranssi Pazuzu anymore. The avant-garde metal tagging assigned to their latest seems a bit of a cop-out for material that sits outside the scope of existing genre understandings, especially as I generally find avant-garde metal to be unlistenable, which this patently is not. But, in reality, I can't currently come up with anything more appropriate. It seems that these Finns are so far ahead of their time that it is questionable if their music is even earth-based anymore, sounding like the kind of stuff I would expect them to be listening to in the more unsavoury areas of the gigantic space orbitals of Iain M. Banks' twenty-fifth century Culture civilization.

The black metal aspect of their sound is merely vestigial at this point, surviving only in the harsh, shrieked vocals and the psychedelic element so prevalent on their last couple of albums is also consigned to history for the most part. I always felt that the psychedelic component gave them a bit of warmth and even hope, but Muuntautuja feels like a more depersonalised and bleak affair. Oranssi Pazuzu have leant heavily into atmospherics for some time now, but here they go even further, taking elements of noise, sludge, electronica and drone to weave tracks that are all about the texture and atmosphere rather than any kind of song and, as such, are far more akin to post-metal than they have been before. Atmospherically, Muuntautuja gives off dystopian sci-fi vibes within a threateningly malevolent industrial landscape, sounding as if influenced by the more pessimistic science fiction writers such as Phillip K. Dick and William Gibson, in whose worlds the overly mechanised "system" oppresses the spirit of those living under it.

The opener "Bioalkemisti" kicks off with a throbbing drum and bass line accompanied by Juho Vanhanen's throat-shredding shrieks and from the very beginning it is evident that things have taken a turn for the darker. Frantic riffing and siren-like synths join the affray and the track becomes more and more apocalyptic and menacing with machine-like industrial stylings that scream "Dystopia". The title track feeds further into this narrative with it's trip-hop beats and spacey electronic embellishments, especially when the robotic spoken word section kicks in early on, dehumanising the atmosphere even more before it explodes in a frustrated-sounding, heavier, sludgy industrial second part. I don't want to do a track-by-track runthrough, but highlight the content of the first two tracks to try to impart some flavour of what to expect from Muuntautuja. The heavier sections are loaded on bass and distortion which pushes the instrumentation in a noise-driven direction, with a favourite trope here being overlaying these heavy sections with a tinkling piano and Juho's manic shrieks. The lighter electronic parts are based on hypnotic, industrialised beats that can occasionally come off as almost ritualistic, as if in praise of some almighty Machine God and I feel that the layering of these heavier and lighter sections is fundamental to the success of the album. Pacing and tempo also varies massively from hulking, sludge and drone-like parts to frantic blasts of unhinged mania that provide further stark contrasts in atmospherics.

Ultimately, no amount of words I can spew on to this page will give you an adequate picture of what Oranssi Pazuzu have served up with Muuntautuja, so you owe it to yourself to fire it up and experience the album firsthand. I must admit I am unsure where to place this in OP's discography. I think it is an endlessly fascinating release that has seen yet another redefinition of the band's sound, but is it better than the amazing Värähtelijä and Mestarin kynsi albums? For the time being I am going to proffer a "no", but that does not by any means infer that I don't like this, because I love it. It's just that I am unsure how much just yet. One thing is for sure, every new Oranssi Pazuzu release is an event worth getting yourself up for.

I first became acquainted with Exciter around the middle of 1985 when I picked up a copy of a Music For Nations comp, Hell Comes to Your House, from my local record emporium. That compilation changed my metal-listening life for ever. It wasn't because of Exciter's Violence and Force which was track two (or even Manowar's Blood of my Enemies which opened the album and which I already knew), no it was the opener of side two, Metallica's Creeping Death which shattered my worldview on what heavy metal meant. I fucking hammered that track over and over, at least until I got a copy of Ride the Lightning anyway and then I fucking hammered that too! Sadly for Exciter that meant they never really got a look in and were just "some other band on that comp with Creeping Death on" and so I never really paid them much mind.

So let's fast forward the best part of forty years and now I'm here finally giving Canada's speed metal trailblazers' debut album the attention it properly deserves. Originally going by the clunky moniker Hell Razor, they later took their permanent name from the classic Judas Priest track and that's a decent choice because the track Exciter does bear a lot of the hallmarks that Exciter the band were going for. They play high energy, get-out-of-our-way speed metal that may sound quite generic now, but considering this was released in '83 there wasn't a huge amount of stuff in similar vein before it. Taking inspiration from NWOBHM bands like Venom, Maiden, Diamond Head and, of course, Motörhead tracks like Overkill and The Hammer, Exciter just wanted to crank it up and strive for a kind of extremity by playing as fast as they possibly could.

While you would get no argument from me that this was an earth-shaking release at the time of it's release, just before "Kill 'Em All" and a full six months before "Show No Mercy", it just doesn't have the kudos of others from the time. Despite it's missing link status bridging the gap between the NWOBHM and the just-emerging Bay Area thrashers, it was quickly overshadowed, thus condemning Exciter to the role of supporting characters rather than leading men. This is a great shame because there are some exhilharating tracks on offer here, "Stand Up and Fight", "Under Attack" and "Cry of the Banshee" are supercharged headlong metallic charges dessigned for god-tier headbanging action. Unfortunately, the rock 'n' roll-like nature of the title track misses the mark for me, "World War III" feels like a very lacklustre workout and the attempted epic track "Black Witch" doesn't play at all to the band's strengths.

Still, all things considered, this must be counted as a fairly important album in the history of metal, it's importance maybe being greater than it's actual quality, but it still has some really good stuff on it, even though it may occasionally fail to hit the heights or consistencies of it's contemporaries. 

I lived in ignorance of the existence of these german speedsters until getting an earful of their track "Realm of the Impaler" from this, their latest album, on the Guardians playlist for November, where it leapt out at me from amongst the stuff I wasn't already familiar with. This is the band's fourth full-length and it appears that they already have quite an enthusiastic and loyal following, which I am sure this latest will only increase.

Sentinels is an album of infectious speed / thrash metal that leans heavily towards the speed side of that equation, with a strong link back to Maiden-esque heavy metal and early USPM. There is a lively enthusiasm about Vulture that suggests a particular love for the wider culture of metal worship, beyond the mere riffs and notes and deep into the core of the band's very being. This is definitely not thoughtful and contemplative metal, rather this is metal to be experienced and lived, each track a joyful and triumphant expression of metalhood.

Hi-octane riffs, scorching solos and sing-along-at-the-top-of-your-voice choruses are the order of the day here. Vocalist Leo Steeler reminds me a fair bit of Exodus' Steven Souza with a raggedness to his normal vocals and a tendency to shift into a higher register at a moments notice. In fact early Exodus are a fitting comparison for the band as a whole, Sentinels ticking a lot of the same boxes as Bonded By Blood. The rhythm section of drummer Stefan Castevet and bassist Andreas "Irön Kommander" Axetinctör are really solid and maintain the propulsive momentum of the tracks with a tight and precise adhesion. Occasionally, especially during the solos during "Realm of the Impaler", the bass moves more to the fore and takes on a Steve Harris galloping quality, the twin guitar soloing not being the only touchstone with the Irons. The production is excellent, as is so often the case nowadays, and everybody gets to shine in their respective roles, due to top-knotch clarity.

You will be seriously struggling to find a more exhuberant celebration of metal than tracks like the aforementioned "Realm of the Impaler", "Death Row" or "Oathbreaker" and as a dyed-in-the-wool metalhead it is very difficult not to listen to Sentinels without a smile on my face and a yearning for a moshpit in my heart. An album like this reminds me very much how and why I got into metal in the first place in much simpler times, so very, very long ago.

I felt compelled to check out Eternal Sorcery after hearing the track "The Silence of Heaven" on The North monthly playlist and enjoying it massively. One of Nine are a Tolkien-obsessed, US four-piece with names such as Pharazon the Golden and Gurthang the Black Sword who play a modern and melodic style of black metal, but thankfully, despite the silly names and fantasy-based concepts, they don't succumb to the cringeworthy cheesiness often associated with such elements and if you didn't know anything about them or read the lyrics you wouldn't guess that was what they were about. The album is quite brief, it's eight tracks running for less than 35 minutes and it is very proficiently put together. As there is little to no information available on the band, I have no idea if they are a brand new unit or a band of seasoned professionals, but they certainly sound like they know their way around the black metal block.

The songwriting is excellent, with riffs that are at once darkly vicious and memorably melodic whilst the atmospheric elements the band use are artfully deployed. Aside from a short ambient intro the synths are very subtlely applied and the folk elements only appear relatively briefly, with a gentle acoustic guitar ending to the otherwise furious savagery of "The Silence of Heaven", a lute-like plucked intro to "Moonlit Sacrifice" and another short acoustic piece, "Wrathful Rebirth", providing an interlude before the epic intensity of the album's closer and longest track, "A Hunter Rides The Night". Though brief, these gentle interludes and intros do a great job of providing contrast and context for the heaviness and aggression of the band's black metal without overdoing it. Alongside this there is also a degree of variation of pacing throughout the album with the band unafraid to drop the tempo occasionally, such as in the middle section of "God Chain", both of these techniques preventing the tracks from merging into predictability.

The production is very modern, with almost absolute clarity, providing the guitars with a bell-like quality which, alongside the cymbal crashes gives the sound a sharp edge, whilst also providing a nice depth that allows the bass and drums to anchor the riffs with a really solid foundation. The vocals are of the washed out, as-if-from-a-distance shrieks and howls variety, adding a dispiriting and cheerless aspect to the album's overarching atmosphere that references the hopelessness of those opposing the great evils the lyrics expound upon. Technically the band are exceedingly competent and tight-knit and sound like they have been playing together for years.

Overall, this is a fantastic slice of melodic black metal which reaches back to influences such as Dissection and Emperor and which is polished and savage, professional and visceral and scratches all my modern black metal itches.

I must admit that I am a bit disappointed that the doom metal legend that is Albert Witchfinder is no longer a friend of hell, his position as vocalist having been superceded by Nifelheim's Per "Hellbutcher" Gustavsson. However, having come to terms with the album's lack of Sir Albert, I must admit that Hellbutcher's vocal style actually suits the band's sound pretty well, not diverging that much from Witchfinder's. That sound, as you may guess from the band name which of course references Witchfinder General's second album, is a throwback style to the early days of traditional doom metal as epitomised by the likes of WG, Pentagram, The Obsessed, Paul Chain and the likes. As such, this sits very much in that area of doom metal that resides nearest to old-school, Sabbathian stoner metal with hooky riffs and catchy choruses, the album even having the audacity to begin with a tolling bell.

To be honest I have heard so many albums like this that trade on the same old traditional doom metal tropes without bringing anything new or particularly exceptional to the table that I am starting to think that maybe I have reached my lifetime limit for such genre-conforming releases and am beginning to tire of each one just a little more than the previous. There really isn't that much to say about God Damned You to Hell and if you have had your ears anywhere near the occult-themed traditional doom metal scene over the years, then I am sure you will be familiar with what is on offer here. Think Reverend Bizarre, but with considerably shorter songs or With the Dead and you would be in the right ballpark.

In all honesty, there really isn't much wrong with this if you are in the market for what they are selling, it is entertaining enough with quite catchy doom metal riffs, hokey, occult-based lyrics and some reasonable guitar solos and at one time, not so long ago, I would probably have lapped this up, but it doesn't do anything remotely special and I find myself increasingly looking towards more extreme and genuinely dark material (as opposed to the theatrical darkness displayed here) when I am seeking my doom metal fix nowadays. I have got to confess that I am feeling a bit bummed out that I have had to shit on this a bit, but I'm really not feeling it, so it is what it is.

There must be something skulking in those Louisiana swamps that is poisoning the water, how else can you explain the sheer vitriolic venom of the output of its premier sludge metal acts such as Eyehategod, Acid Bath and the Baton Rouge crew here in question. Thou's version of sludge metal is as confrontational and rebellious as the harcore punk that spawned it's more slothful and threatening offspring. Umbilical, conceptually and autobiographically, examines a life lived outside the accepted societal norms, but which is still constrained by an inner morality and the existential implications of living such a life. So a million miles from the wizards and dragons metalheads are stereotypically painted as being obsessed with then!

The album, I am sure it goes without saying, this being Thou we are talking about, is ludicrously heavy as you would expect. The cranky, oozing riffs are massive, hulking motherfuckers and despite really being too sharp and crunchy to truly be called crushing, they are anyway, with those ponderous drumbeats just adding extra weight and force to the mountain that has taken up residence on your chest. Meanwhile Bryan Funck unleashes hell with vocal tirades that are so savage and visceral that you fear for the longterm health of his vocal chords

This is not an album that is monolithically slow and doom-ridden, though, as the band incorporate influences ranging from death metal, metalcore, grunge and crust punk into the swirling maelstrom of misgivings that threatens to sweep the listener away like a metal tsunami of righteous indignation. "The Promise" and "Panic Stricken, I Flee" both have ridiculously catchy melodies that could have come from Alice In Chains or Soundgarden if they weren't so damn filthy-sounding and the riffs during the one-two mid-album punch of "I Feel Nothing When You Cry" and "Unbidden Guest" are as energetic as those spewed out by any young metalcore crew. The drumming towards the end of the latter is also worth special mention, it being an impressive artillery battery of percussion that sounds like a Celtic tribal warband preparing for battle and lays to rest the lie that doom metal drummers can't really play.

Of course, Thou are still capable of showing us their slower, more hulking side with "Lonely Vigil", "House of Ideas", "I Return as Chained and Bound to You" and the closer "Siege Perilous" lumbering out of the speakers with huge crashing waves of sonorous sonic devastation. This is not a sludge album that is built upon endless layers of atmospherics and build-ups in the quest for the ultimate climactic payoff, but very much refers back to the roots of sludge metal being composed of songs that have something to say, both musically and lyrically, delivered with a bruising and ascerbic irascibility that very much appeals to the contrary and grumpy old bastard in me. This is a seriously heavy record that Thou have delivered, interesting both for it's musical diversity in what can become a repetitious field and also it's lyrical and conceptual musings.

Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force is the sophomore effort from the Brian Ortiz-led Tzompantli, coming fairly hot on the heels of 2022's debut Tlazcaltiliztli. I had a lot of time for the debut and it's brutal-sounding Autopsy-influenced version of death metal, so went into this with a great deal of expectation. Thankfully the debut was no fluke and this is even better in my opinion, being a more-rounded and, with it's greater length, a more developed release. What distinguishes Tzompantli from their Autopsy-worshipping peers is that Brian Ortiz digs deeply into his Indiginous American heritage with its death whistles and pounding, tribal rhythms which manages to imbue an already brutal sound with an even greater level of vicious savagery. This is death doom that is red in tooth and claw, you can almost smell the blood as war club and spear do battle. Ortiz has brought in a number of new members to help out with the folk instrumentation, with the band swelling its ranks to a whopping ten musicians, but it was well worth it as the folk elements have been incorporated seamlessly into the overall sound and give it an extra dimension that enhances it's inherent brutality.

From what I can gather the album's concept tells of the historic indiginous American tribes' ultimately doomed struggle against european invaders. From the portentious omens of forthcoming doom displayed in opener Tetzahuitl, the ritual exhortations to the Ancestors of "Tlaloc icuic" and the brutal, chaotic, war-like pounding of "Chichimecatl" or "Tetzaviztli" right up to and including the final heartbreaking sorrow of defeat as expressed in the lengthy closer, "Icnocuicatl", the concept is gloriously expounded upon, but the narrative is handled so adeptly so as not to compromise the music in any way.

Getting down to Tzompantli's core sound reveals a penchant for old-school doomy death metal that is not exactly rare nowadays. I often see Japan's Coffins referenced in relation to Ortiz's band and, as far as the band's fundamentals go, I think that is a fair comparison. That said though, I think the adroit handling of the folk instrumentation and the careful attention to the atmospherics gives Tzompantli enough of a distinguishing feature to make them stand apart in a crowded scene. Exactly how brutal-sounding this is cannot be underestimated, with its throbbing, ultra-heavy riffs, ritualistic tribal rhythms and Ortiz' wounded bull-like, bellowing roar, at it's heart this is savage and primal OSDM with a hefty death doom component that is threatening and exhilharating in equal measure and will bludgeon its way under your skin, remaining in memory well after the final notes have faded.

Released shortly after the murderous Pleasure To Kill, this three-track EP encapsulates Kreator in a blissful 18-minute riff fest. It opens with a reworking of "Flag of Hate" from the debut album, Endless Pain, which illustrates how far the band had already come, this version being much tighter, faster and more aggressive, with the increased production values certainly helping massively on that front. The other two tracks, "Take Their Lives" and "Awakening of the Gods" are longer affairs which see the band in a more expansive mood than the straight-ahead, charging neck-wrenching of "Pleasure To Kill". The songwriting on these two tracks sees the band maturing and starting to move in the direction that would culminate with Coma of Souls, unafraid now to revert to slower tempos at times and to exhibit a lot more control over their impulse to just let rip, so that when they do, I think it is far more effective in this more controlled environment. Of course this increasingly professional and mature evolution comes at a price, with the sheer exuberance and brutal aggression of their early material, particularly Pleasure To Kill, being held in check here. Now, I am sure there are plenty of fans who lamented this direction, but surely Kreator couldn't just keep ploughing the same ultra-violent furrow ad nauseum and needed to display some kind of musical development by this point. No matter what came after, PTK would always still be there, so why would they need to keep remaking it?

Anyway, the two longer tracks see Kreator expanding the scope of their songwriting, possibly influenced by albums like Metallica's Ride the Lightning or To Mega Therion. "Take Their Lives" kicks off at a more measured tempo than we had come to expect from Kreator with a chugging riff that is afforded a nice sharp edge by the production and which accompanies Mille's bile-spitting, barked vocals perfectly, before it kicks up a gear and Mille unleashes a shred-tastic Kerry King-on-steroids guitar solo. A breathing space is then allowed for as the trio hit the eye of the storm and build anticipation with a jagged guitar line before letting it fly once more while Mille tortures another howling solo from his six-stringer. The final track, "Awakening of the Gods" is one of my favourite Kreator tracks, it has several riffs that just go so hard it's unreal and the Slayer-esque solos are devastating slashes of sonic thuggery that should carry a health warning.

I may have gone overboard and made more of the songwriting changes than is justified because this isn't Opeth, this is still Kreator and it is gloriously bitter and vicious teutonic thrash that still has enough to get you wrenching that neck of yours, don't you worry. It's just that that isn't all that Flag Of Hate is about and, sure, the songwriting isn't super sophisticated, but I think they had made good progress on that front here and hit a nice balance between their earlier violent aggression and a more developed song progression. Look I like Pleasure To Kill as much as the next thrash-head, but I think credit should be given where due and here Kreator added a new dimension to their established brutality.

Ataraxie are a french five-piece who play funeral doom metal with a large death doom component that is at once mournful, morose, agonised and crushingly heavy. Le déclin is their sixth full-length and coming five years after 2019's Résignés, they show themselves a band not to be hurried, neither in the frequency of their releases or in the execution of their artistic vision. As is usually the case, Le déclin has a massive eighty-plus minute runtime for it's four tracks, the shortest of which is a slight sixteen minutes in length, once more illustrating the band's commitment to allow their music to go wherever it will. These four tracks are the embodiment of despair, bereft of levity, the atmosphere is unrelentingly grim, with huge, towering and monolithic riffs provided by the band's three guitarists, punctuated with howls of pain and anguish. This is indeed the stuff of nightmares. While there are undoubtedly passages that are instrumentally lighter, such as the opening minutes whilst the title track builds, atmospherically this is very dark with even the musically lighter moments feeling introspectively maudling and bereft, with the protagonist sounding as if his grief has thrust him to the very edge of insanity.

I would posit from listening to Ataraxie, justifiably I think, that they are big fans of England's Esoteric. Le déclin illustrates exactly how adept they are, just like the Englishmen, at delivering punishing and crushing doom metal that not only lumbers along at leaden tempos, but can also explode into blasts of inutterably violent death metal fury at a moments notice. Vocalist and bassist Jonathan Théry also possesses a deep howling growl that sits very close to Greg Chandler's boulder-splitting vocal style, thus deepening the positive comparisons to the funeral doom legends further. Technically, these guys are top-drawer, with a precision and efficiency to their playing that makes it feel like not a moment of the eighty minutes is wasted and the production is excellent with a clarity and depth that allows free reign to the band's inate crushing heaviness without drowning out the subtle touches that help propel them to the upper echelons of the genre.

The songwriting is top-knotch. These aren't monilithic dirges, but fully-formed narrative journeys with each song undergoing progression with several transitions in atmosphere and tempo throughout their lengthy runtimes, leaving the listener (well this one, anyway) with the impression that they have just undergone a profound journey through a world of pain and suffering allowing either identification with, or some understanding of, it's fundamental effects. The simple fact is that funeral doom metal is not for everyone and even within the ranks of it's practitioners, despite it's (undeserved) reputation for simplicity, there are masters and apprentices. I'm not sure if Ataraxie could ever have been properly labelled as the latter, but Le déclin has most definitely confirmed them as the former. I don't make this claim lightly, but I would honestly have to claim this latest offering from the Frenchmen to be the finest funeral doom metal album since Esoteric's 2019 triple album, "A Pyrrhic Existence" and that is heady praise indeed.

Sincerest Misery is the debut full-length album from this Indianapolis four-piece who were formed by and are centred around guitarist and vocalist Chuck Brown, ex-drummer with Gates of Slumber. They play a conservative and orthodox version of traditional doom metal, tracing a direct line back to early practitioners like Pentagram and Pagan Altar. This is mainly all about crunchy-sounding doom metal riffs and dolorous, melancholy atmosphere with little room for fancy embellishment or out-of-genre experimentation. The album contains nine tracks, including an unsurprising, closing cover of Sabbath's "Electric Funeral" and has a total runtime topping seventy minutes which, to be honest, is bulked out with a couple of filler tracks in addition to the unnecessary cover.

As far as their version of traditional doom metal goes, AoS are unfussy and effective. The rhythm section is functional and you will hear very little by way of fancy drum fills or complicated basslines. In fact, the bass is very subdued in the mix and the production as a whole is quite lightweight and could do with some serious boosting of the bottom end. The production does allow for good clarity and a sharpness to the guitar sound in particular, which enhances the "crunch" of the distorted riffs. Chuck Brown's vocals are quite reedy and thin-sounding and I could understand why some may not particularly like them, but personally I think they work well here because they sound world-weary and downbeat which suits the mood of the instrumentation well. The soloing is the only area in which Apostle of Solitude allow themselves any real indulgence, with some soaring lead work that occasionally tips over into psych / stoner territory.

As I stated earlier, I think the album is too long and, especially with this being the band's debut, I believe that if they had concentrated on their core sound rather than including the very average instrumental "The Dark Tower" and the tedious noodling of the eight-minute-plus "This Dustbowl Earth", whilst also skipping the Sabbath cover, then they would have had a heavier and more concise representation of their orthodox doom metal vision, making it much more likely to cause a splash in the trad doom world than it did. Make no mistake, tracks like "A Slow Suicide", "Warbird" and the fourteen-minute title track especially are like food and drink to hardcore doom metal fanatics and are top-quality expressions of the art, but the album as a whole feels like it waters down their effect, exacerbated by the paucity of bottom end in the production. Shame really, because there is a truly great trad doom album in here waiting to get out.

There's no two ways about it, Windhand are my favourite female-fronted doom metal band. Sure, there are a myriad of others that I enjoy immensely and sometimes I even think someone may rival Dorthia Cottrell and the guys, but then I actually put on a Windhand release and I am once more assured that, indeed, they are the real deal and blow away the opposition.

Eternal Return was the band's fourth full-length and the third with the classic lineup of vocalist Dorthia, guitarist Garrett Morris, drummer Ryan Wolfe and bassist, Cough's Parker Chandler. Windhand had not changed their style noticeably since the self-titled debut six years earlier, but Eternal Return did mark a slight evolution of their sound. The fundamentals of the band's sound are still present, the tight and impressive rhythm section of Chandler's thick, driving basslines coupled with Wolfe's thunderous drum fills and eternal cymbal crashes, Morris's titanic, lumbering and heavily distorted riffs oozing from the speakers and Dorthia's siren vocals, seducing and beckoning the listener from the aether of whichever plane of existence she inhabits. This time round, though, there has been a slight tweak or two. "Grey Garden", despite sounding like business as usual, actually has a grunge-like quality to it as well, particularly in the vocal melodies which comes on like Kurt Cobain at his most vulnerable-sounding. That is followed by "Pilgrim's Rest" which is a psychedelic ballad that sounds like it might have been a cover of a track that originally came out in 1967 (it isn't). Elsewhere, the three-minute interlude "Light into Dark" allows Garrett Morris to display his psychedelic credentials with a space rock-y, trippy instrumental piece and his solo during Red Cloud is another rocket fuel-injected cosmic trip.

But now let's set all that aside because Windhand are at their best when they are at their doomiest and heaviest and there are plenty of these instances on Eternal Return. Whether it's the pomp of opener, "Halcyon", the crawling, heaving thunder of "Eyeshine" and closer, "Feather" or the more uptempo and catchy Diablere, when they hit the doom button, then Windhand absolutely crush it and all the female-fronted pretenders to their crown to boot.

When I was first getting back into metal, around the turn of the millenium, I had a very good friend who wasn't much of a metal fan, but was heavily into the female-fronted symphonic metal scene and through them I became interested in the Finns with the striking, classically-trained lead singer who, along with Italy's Lacuna Coil, seemed like the only ones in this style who seemed worth the attention. My first exposure to them was through their debut "Angels Fall First" album which had a number of tracks that impressed, particularly "Elvenpath" and "Astral Romance". Subsequent albums "Oceanborn" and especially "Wishmaster" always had a track or two that I enjoyed, "The Pharaoh Sails to Orion" on the former and the title track and "The Kinslayer" on the latter. By the early 2000s I was bathing in the dubious glories of more extreme metal genres like black and doom metal, yet I was still interested enough in new Nightwish material to take note, but unfortunately I thought 2002's Century Child was a dip in quality, so by the time of the release of 2004's "Once" I was not really that interested. However, videos for "Nemo" and "Wish I Had an Angel" saw me being dragged back in by Tarja's charismatic presence, to the degree that I actually bought the album on CD while I was in town one weekend.

Now, I would be lying if I said that this was high on my list of all-time great metal releases, but I would be lying just as much if I claimed to dislike it completely. I have a natural aversion to overblown metal genres in general and symphonic metal in particular, but no one has ever rivalled Tarja-fronted Nightwish in the genre and every other band in this field so obviously wants to be them that they must have been doing something right. The operatic orchestration and synths may well be what draws people to this style of metal, but for me, it is the surprisingly heavy, yet melodic riffs, Tarja's vocals and their ability to write memorable tunes that are the beating heart of Nightwish and which none of their rivals can remotely match. There is a nice variation in pacing and atmosphere on "Once", from heavy and bombastic to reflective and wistful which manages to keep me engaged for the total runtime. The band are obviously well-versed in their instruments and the clarity of the production allows them all their space to impress and in Tarja Turunen they have probably the singularly most accomplished and physically striking frontwoman in the history of metal.

It may do my metal street-cred no good whatsoever (as if I could give a shit), but I happily chuck "Once" into the CD player now and then when I just want to hear some entertaining metal solely for enjoyment and to feel uplifted and not to think about too deeply.

World Below are a relatively unknown name outside of diehard swedish doom metal fandom. Formed in 1999, they involve veterans of a plethora of swedish metal bands such as Scar Symmetry, Grave and Carnal Forge, among many others, and have released three full-lengths to date, of which Repulsion is the third. They are still mooted as a going concern, but have been silent, at least as far as recorded material goes, for almost two decades now.

Repulsion is made up of five lengthy tracks with a 50+ minute runtime. Musically it has it's feet firmly planted in the eighties and early nineties and the old-school traditional doom metal of Pentagram, The Obsessed and lesser-known lights like Revelation with plenty of Sabbath-y moments, particularly during opening track, "Monsters in the Closet", with it's Ozzy-like vocals and "Children of the Grave" aping riff. Whilst the first half of the album sit firmly within the traditional doom metal sphere, the second also contains a significant stoner rock component and the album as a whole makes a nod or two in a progressive direction, particularly the epic twenty-minute, closer, "Monument", giving the second half more than a passing resemblance to the work of prog-stoner bands like Merlin.

The songwriting is very good, with the tracks all developing nicely, feeling like they are actually going somewhere and the technical aspects are very accomplished. The riffs are suitably heavy and mournful, the rhythm section of drummer Ronnie Bergerstål and bassist / vocalist Mikael Danielsson are unfussy and direct, providing solid footing for guitarist Jonas Kjellgren to launch some very satisfying solos, his Tony-Iommi influenced guitar work being the focal point for almost all the album's best moments.

It may well be that Repulsion is not going to satisfy the doom fan looking for bleak as hell, crushingly heavy, ultra-slow riffs and mournful, heart-achingly bereft vocals and the inclusion of some old-fashioned, rock-based riffs may further tip the scales against it, but if you are willing to forgive it it's perceived transgressions then it contains some fantastic lead work and memorable stoner doom riffs coupled with epic and skillful songwriting that may just persuade you of it's undoubted merits.

I first encountered this Seattle-based doom duo via their "The Black Sun" debut ep in 2015 and I have been quite the fan ever since. Comprising husband and wife team of bassist and vocalist Amy Tung and drummer, Jon Barrysmith, Year of the Cobra are a unique voice in the world of doom metal. Of course they are influenced by the usual suspects, such as Saint Vitus, Sabbath et al, but they eschew the use of guitars, relying on Amy's bass riffs to power the songs. Her bass playing reminds me quite often of Geezer Butler's classic Sabbath style, which oftentimes lends it a psychedelic and bluesy edge, planting Year of the Cobra firmly in the stoner doom camp. Vocally, she mainly uses a languid and breathy style that is laid-back and seductive like a nightclub jazz songstress, check out opener "Lion and the Unicorn" for a prime example. That isn't her only play, however, and she can also project more force when the need arises.

There are a number of pitfalls with having such a bare bones set-up of course, the tendency to fall into repetitive and hypnotic trance-like pieces for one, or just producing very basic, lo-fi garage metal with a heavy punk influence is another scenario. YotC fall into neither of these traps, however, thanks to an ability to write really nice doomy bass riffs which enable them to produce actual songs rather than just drawn-out jams, which are at once melodic and reasonably memorable, with an admirable variation in tempos and styles, from the longer, hulking, conventional doom tracks, through the psych-inflected catchiness of "Spider and the Fly", the punky vitality and urgency of "Persephone" and doom'n'roll of "Temple of Apollo" to bluesy jams such as closer "Electric Warrior". I think the bass lines are multi-tracked quite often, which also allows Amy's playing to become more expansive. Drummer Johannes is every bit as important to the success of the duo, his impeccable timekeeping obviously underpinning the tracks, but also his busy, jazzy style, again referencing Sabbath and drummer Bill Ward's love of jazz drummers, provides plenty to hold the the listener's attention and to engage with.

In conclusion, I think "...in the Shadows Below" is a great example of how much can be accomplished in the doom and stoner sphere by creative minds, even with the most basic of set-ups. Considering that, apart from a bit of multi-tracking, this is truly just drum, bass, and voice, the resulting variety, melodicism and memorability is an impressive feat of artistic endeavour.

For the past decade or so, black metal releases have come at the rate of three to four thousand a year and a significant number of these are, to be frank, sub-standard efforts. Atmospheric, dissonant and avant-garde sub-genres are in the ascendancy and a vociferous portion of fans seem to want metal bands to be forever pushing the envelope. Within this landscape I, for one, am glad there are still bands, like Spectral Wound, that hark back to the genre's early nineties beginnings and understand that it is still possible to produce black metal that has actual tunes, whilst not compromising on the visceral savagery that is at the heart of it's ethos.

I was a big fan of the Quebecois five-piece's previous album, 2021's A Diabolic Thirst, so I was already well predisposed to their latest. Since A Diabolic Thirst there has been one personnel change, with Sean Zumbusch being replaced by Cauchemar bassist, Andres Arango, on second guitar. Even so, Spectral Wound haven't missed a step and time will tell, but I believe Songs of Blood and Mire is the band's best work to date, sounding like the product of a band who are supremely confident in their ability to deliver their vision faultlessly. Their songwriting is pretty much flawless, with well-written riffs that have an inherent memorability, yet which still project an icy savagery that belies their melodicism. Vocalist Jonah Campbell possesses a vitriolic shriek that doubles-down on the instrumental viciousness and ensures that there is no misconception about just how blasphemic these guys are. There are some nice tempo changes, from Celtic Frost-inspired chuggy slower sections to full-on, blistering, blastbeat-led, sharp-edged charges and brief black 'n' roll outbursts, rendering any possible accusations of saminess invalid. The lyrical content is almost gothic, but very black metal, concerning as it does, the occult predilections of the protagonist, who comes across like a fallen knight of old whose pursuit of forbidden knowledge has damned his soul. Technically, all five seem, to my untrained ears at least, to be exceedingly proficient with never a missed beat or note to be found anywhere.

The whole album feels very heavy for black metal, more akin to death metal in the heaviness stakes, whilst still unashamedly residing in the black metal realm. The production may have something to do with this heaviness as it is quite robust and deep, like a full-bodied red wine and it veers away from the thin, lo-fi sound you may normally expect with similar material, which works exceedingly well here. The production also plays no favourites, a crystal clarity and with all the band members being well-represented in the mix each has ample opportunity to shine.

I have to say, I am especially impressed by Songs of Blood and Mire. I was honestly starting to believe that black metal's best releases were all firmly in the past, but these guys have thankfully showed me the errors of such defeatist thinking and proved that the heart of black metal is still capable of pumping icy blood into the veins of the world's metal hordes even in these anodyne, corporation-dominated times. Come, enter the crypt and be saved.

Ufomammut's fifth album, Eve, is, essentially, a single suite made up of five parts, with a total runtime of 45 minutes and is a concept album centred on the Fall of Man as Adam's wife, Eve, was tempted by a serpent to persuade her husband that they should eat an apple from the Tree of Knowledge, resulting in their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. I am a massive fan of the italian trio and I will lay it out up front, this 2010 album is my favourite release of theirs.

Ufomammut have always really been about atmosphere rather than "songs". Their space-rock influenced, psychedelic, sludgy doom metal is ever an experience and a sensation rather than an invitation to sing or hum along with the band. The band's inate heaviness registers nearly as high on the tactile scale as it does on the sonic, it's lower registers being felt almost as keenly as heard. Well, on Eve they achieve an even deeper level of atmosphere creation by introducing tropes derived from atmospheric sludge practitioners like Neurosis and Cult of Luna. This takes the form of tracks that begin deceptively serenely, building intensity, layer on layer, often accompanied by spacey, electronic flourishes until reaching a critical mass and achieving cathartic climax by exploding into roars of thundering downtuned bliss.

The opening section is a 14-minute prime example of this and is probably my favourite Ufomammut track. It builds gently, but inexorably, with an almost mystic, ritualistic, eastern vibe which may or may not have been the inspiration for the track "Pearl Snake" on Hexer's 2017 debut album Cosmic Doom Ritual, before erupting in a bassy roar, complete with bludgeoning drumming and a feedback-drenched guitar lead. As this chaos subsides we enter part II, which is another builder, but this time the build-up involves a repetitive three-note piano theme, accompanied by crashing cymbals and brooding synths that is sinister and faintly disturbing in a being-stalked-by-a-masked-killer kind of way. After this second part has reached it's apex, however, it doesn't subside into part three, but this short section doubles-down on the heaviness of the previous part's climax with a thunderous riff, accompanied by theremin-like synths and a distant roaring vocal decrying the horror of the original couple's act of defiance.

A further short section follows with a throbbing riff and ethereal voices that travel from speaker to speaker as if blowing in the aether, eventually giving way to a howling guitar solo as, presumably, the miscreant pair pay the price for the betrayal of their god. The closing section of Eve is another longer track, over thirteen minutes, that treads a now familiar furrow with a fairly repetitive and lumbering riff, once more accompanied by theremin-like cosmic airs, which eventually subside, leaving the simplistic riff to gain weight and transform into a thundering colossus which picks up pace as it becomes a maelstrom of violence as the couple pay the price for their folly and are ejected from The Garden, closing the album with a riotous and impressively heavy coda.

I like the implementation of the concept here, with the music interpreting the tale in an accessible manner without resorting to lengthy reams of lyrical verbiage, in fact the amount of vocals is very small indeed with the total lyrics for the whole album amounting to less than twenty lines, so the story never gets in the way of the music. The building of intensity and atmosphere that the band have introduced from atmo-sludge fits their style of ultra-heavy psychedelic metal to a tee and sees the band take a step up in quality as a a result here, I believe. Eve is basically a stoner's wet dream of repetition, heavy distortion and spacey electronic touches that, if I were so inclined, would have me reaching for the nearest available bong in celebration of it's awesomeness.

The Wandering Midget were a finnish three-piece, formed in 2005 and split in 2020, who played traditional doom metal very much in similar vein to Reverend Bizarre. In fact, guitarist and vocalist Samuel Wormius has a voice that is remarkably similar to RB's Albert Witchfinder, making the comparison even more pertinent. The Serpent Coven marks the band's debut full-length, released in 2008 and comprises a short intro and five fairly lengthy tracks, clocking in between eight and thirteen minutes, so not as monolithically drawn out as Reverend Bizarre were often wont to be, but long enough to provide the full doom metal experience.

Fuzzy, crawling riffs, accompanied by glacial drum patterns and rumbling bass lines are the order of the day here. B-movie lyrics of the occult and monsters, both Lovecraftian and classic, tread the well-worn path of traditional doom metal lyrical tropes, delivered in an unfussy, basic style familiar to fans of finnish doom metal. The Serpent Coven's sluggish, Sabbathian-derived riffs ooze from the speakers with the implacable ponderousness of lava and the weight of mountains, delivering the goods for any doom metal junkie looking for another fix of the drug that had had it's supply cut off with RB's demise the year before. No marks for originality I'm afraid, but the tracks are well put together with some nice tempo changes, the rhythm section's work is simple, but effective and Wormius delivers some pretty good solos which stops the tracks from becoming too monolithic, all of which makes for a high quality doom metal release in my book.

And that is all there is to it, really. If you have ever heard Reverend Bizarre and thought "I like this but why do the tracks have to be so damned long", then The Wandering Midget may well appeal to you. If RB never floated your boat in any way then there's little chance these guys will either. For me, this delivers exactly what I look for in traditional doom metal and is an uncomplicated slab of metal that summons forth primal forces and allows my mind to drift and wallow in the album's slothful heaviness.

Detaching From Satan was Paul Chain's first release following his split from the legendary Death SS and was a four-track EP with Chain writing the songs, playing guitar and organ and performing vocals, helped out by drummer Enrico Giampaoli and bassist Paolo Giannotti. After an organ and sound effects intro, "Occultism" kicks off with a doomy Sabbathian riff, heavily informed by the NWOBHM, so having a quite rock-y feel to it. In it's mid-section Chain's guitar lead takes over and we are treated to an extended solo before things get back on track. I actually quite enjoy Chain's singing here, but I can understand why others may struggle with it as it is very reedy and he certainly isn't the most gifted vocalist in the world, yet I feel it really suits the lo-fi aesthetic and general weird vibe of the EP.

"Armageddon" is up next and after a quite substantial, choral, hymn-like intro, we are treated to another terrific, pounding riff that Witchfinder General would have been proud to have written, followed by another display of Chain's demented guitar shredding. "Voyage to Hell" follows a similar template, but here the vocals sound even more demented as Chain tries to add a harsher edge to his singing performance and often sounds genuinely unhinged. Closer "17 Day" is the EP's longest track, running for just short of eight minutes and here his vocals are probably least weird-sounding with him lowering his register a bit and even sounding almost normal. After two or three minutes, an eerie organ interlude insinuates itself into the track, acting as prelude to another extended solo as Chain allows himself to let it all hang out with a climactic ending.

So, this neat 19 minute EP is quite effective as a calling card for Paul Chain as if he is "putting himself into the shop window", so to speak, after his departure from Death SS. His catchy riffs and dextrous guitar solos are the main raison d'etre of these four tracks and I think it also does a good job of displaying Chain's quirky character. I like this quite a lot and it is an interesting release in the development of doom metal, particularly in his home country of Italy and shows the guy as an intriguing character having a quite singular style.

I have never made any secret of the fact that Windhand are my favourite female-fronted metal band and are also one of my favourite stoner doom bands, full-stop. My introduction to them actually began with their sophomore, the excellent Soma, and it wasn't until a year or two later that I tuned into this, their debut, finally scoring a CD copy from Bandcamp after hearing Winter Sun on the band's Live at Roadburn album. Released in 2012, the debut followed a two-track practice-space demo from 2010, which contained my two favourites from the debut, which also bookend the album, the opener "Black Candles" and closer and the previously mentioned, "Winter Sun".

From the very earliest days, it seems that Windhand were a band who knew exactly what they were about and the sort of sound that they were looking for. That sound is characterised by plodding, dirge-like, distorted riffs that still contain a melodic sensibility, psychedelia-tinged solos, distant, soaring female vocals that seem as if heard on the wind or in a dream and an esoteric and occult vibe. These traits are certainly in evidence here in spades on their first official release and provide the foundation and launchpad for a climb to the summit of the stoner doom mountain. Each of the five tracks on Windhand begin in a very similar manner, with a crawling bassline which is then joined by the heavily distorted main riff and hard-hitting drumbeats, followed shortly after by Dorthea Cottrell's ethereal, ghost-like vocals.

Despite the heaviness that the band generate, Windhand are still very melodic, with both the riffs and Dorthea's vocal lines being really memorable, in a still-humming-it-several-hours-later kind of way. Being a child of the late-60's and 70's I really love the retro solos from guitarists Garrett Morris and ex-Alabama Thunderpussy six-string slinger, Asechiah Bogdan, both of whose swirling leadwork is heavily tinged with psychedelic tendencies. The rhythm work of bassist Nathan Hilbish and drummer Ryan Wolfe, who was previously drummer with sludge / hardcore crew, Facedowninshit, is the slow-drying glue that holds everything together, anchoring the ponderous doom-laden atmosphere that allows the guitarists to take off on their sonic flights of fancy without trading-in any of the album's inate heaviness and providing the counter to Dorthea's light and airy vocals.

Sure, this style of female-led occult doom has now become a little bit old hat now, with a seeming small army of such bands abounding, but Windhand were one of those who first took the psychedelic occult vibe of early-70's acts like Coven or Black Widow and marrying it to the punishing, dirge-like riffs of Sleep or Electric Wizard to produce this modern occult doom sound. That, and they do it so much better than everyone else. Need proof? Two words - "Winter Sun".