Trumpet of Amdusias

  Sometimes even the most dedicated fan of the #grimdark world of black metal has to take a break and enjoy some wildly trichromatic homegrown. Very few albums are as well suited to that enjoyment, particularly paired with some hoppy session ales and a sunshine afternoon, as Mound Builders . I am aware that I might be particularly partial to this album because it has a bunch of passages that remind me of ANTiSEEN 's Southern Hostility. I do not expect anyone else to particularly like that album (or ANTiSEEN at all lol) but for me hearing echoes of it is a nice bit of nostalgia. That probably tells you more about me and my mental health that I'd like to admit openly, but oh well. Mound Builders by The Old Ones

  There can't be very many black metal bands incorporating a mix of dark medieval-sounding dungeon synth music, doom, sludge and a bit of death metal into their style and still have room left over for … Andean country and western music!!! This is a solo atmospheric black metal / dungeon synth / Andean folk project from north-central Chile. Andean folk instruments, dark folk song structures, organs, and some truly inspired black metal drumming combine to create some really desolate, alien soundscapes. Fulgor Renegrido by Aume

  Attention nerds. This is your new favorite album. Why? Because it is not only really good post-metal, it comes with a historically based tabletop role-playing game as part of the package. First off, Kauan is a band was founded by a Russian who writes in Finnish but who moved to Ukraine and now lives in Estonia. As you do. Secondly, they make almost-vocal-less post metal that makes me think of Explosions in the Sky , Russian Circles and Pelican . This record for certain flirts with the piano-laden edge of the boundary between post-metal and flat out post-rock Mogwai worship territory. The title is a reference to the true story of an unidentified fleet of ships discovered in Northern Russia in 1930, with its crew and cargo perfectly frozen in time. And that is where the RPG bit comes in. Ice Fleet is a tabletop RPG adventure/module based on Into the Odd rules. - A unique combination of game and music album that aims to bring your play experience to a completely new level of im...

  Meanwhile, in France, the steady march towards the eventual unification off post-black metal and doom metal continues at a sufficiently stately pace. Having released a conceptual trilogy of albums based on the French neurobiologist Henri Laborit's comportemental experiments with rats hen confronted with aggression, Decline of the I began a new project. Danish philosopher, theologian, poet and social critic Søren Kierkegaard's writings are the focus of Johannes . Heavy topics, and equally heavy music. Grief filled melodic guitar work, augmented by blast beats, death-metal style rhythm guitars, and layer after layer of cinematic washes of chorus. However, the overall effect is much more modern black metal than funeral doom. I am reminded of Mgła much more than I am of, for instance, Swallow The Sun .      Johannes by Decline Of The I

  Mare Cognitum is a one-man band created by Jacob Buczarski solely for the purpose of creating epic soundtracks to fleet battles in my favorite submarine spreadsheet simulator . That's totally not true, but it could be. EVE Online is a mostly tedious, occasionally heart-pounding MMO for people who nerds look down on as too nerdy. You know, the sort of people who like to drink beer and yell into their headsets at Russians in the middle of the night while listening to weird space metal. This album is perfect for that. It is presumably also very good for other purposes but I wouldn't know anything about that. Press play, turn it up, and undock. Solar Paroxysm by Mare Cognitum

  For good or bad, black metal is somewhat obsessed with certain topics and lyrical themes. Forests, demons, paganism vs christianity, Germanic/Norse mythology - these are all well-trod ground in the land of the GRIMFROST bands. What is not so common, is black metal bands that take a critical look at or stance towards industrialization, capitalism, modernity, or modern life at all. Odraza sort of began a strain of critical urban theory in black metal, if you want to call it that. In addition, their music is informed by their very urban existence. Other bands like Biesy and Malencontre work in the same vein. Wesenwille continues this strain, and makes a second solid album of what I think of as Urban Black Metal in the process.  This is explicitly anti-capitalist music, and while it flirts with some unsavory interpretations of Nietzsche, it is a refreshing departure from the standard black metal tropes. II: A Material God by WESENWILLE

  There are few genres of music that contain so many anonymous bands. But in black metal, it is an accepted and normal thing that you may not know who is in a band you like, or where they are from, or if "they" are actually a "they" or a single person. Removing these tangible people from the music allows the listener unprecedented latitude to experience the music and engage with it in any way they see fit. Freed of the preconceptions of spurious comparison (to previous albums, to different personnel, etc.) the music as presented can be experienced more directly. While it would be silly to say the band were from Russia, there is definitely a serious Slavic and Russian history and folklore vibe going on here. The name of the band, Koldovsto , is the Russian word for "witchcraft" and the album title is the Russian for No King, No God, a sublte play on the phrase every good Russian anarchist knows - Нет богов, нет мастеров (Net bogov, net masterov) No Gods, N...

  Does your life need more thrashy black and roll? Are you interested in what it might take to feel like a 14 year old skater lost in a Norwegian forest? Fortunately, Valdaudr are here to help you answer these questions. If you are overly annoyed by the "hitting a wet cardboard box with a dead cat" style of black metal drumming, you'll need to pass on this album, as it is 100% early 90's "recorded under an overpass with a Fisher Price microphone" lo-fi primitive style.  But, it is as hook-filled and thrashy as anything Destruction or Sodom ever put out. This approaches Darkthrone levels of "all groove all the time" black metal Venom / Judas Priest worship. Drapsdalen by Valdaudr

  Haunted's fourth melancholy-clad EP. A subdued cacophony, a smear of clouds and light, pierced by stars so withered and decaying. With scattered rays of moonlight as the storms close in, Saturnine meanders between the serene and morose, oblivious, marcescent.. This is 100% sad boi gurl noizes.   Haunted is " One woman black metal / black gaze band echoing a vast, crumbling world of beauty and sadness through atmospheric and conceptually inspired music. Wavering between the lines of many bm subgenres such as ABM as DSBM, Haunted are authentically eclectic in their sonic style, threading melody into washed noise and hope into nightmarish melancholy."   Saturnine [EP] by Haunted

  A highlight of a solid year in black metal, this album from 2017 remains one of my favorites of recent metal. This is how you do drummer-led music without sounding weirdly proggy. Not that this isn't prog-black metal, because it 100% is. Alternating between moody samples / melodic passages and pummeling dynamic black metal assault, this is destined to be a classic of the time in which black metal grew up and beyond. In the future we will talk about a third wave of black metal, and this will be one of the seminal albums in that discussion. Finisterre by Der Weg Einer Freiheit

 Jacob Buczarski is back with another slab of cosmic freak out black metal for space truckers, gate campers, and veterans of The Great War and World Ware Bee 2. Designed around the complete failure of human beings to do much of anything other than shit on each other, despite their ability to have already created a post-scarcity society, the epochal disappointment is palpable. Significantly less atmospheric than previous releases, Jacob goes full throttle into icy black metal anger. I hear you dude. We are a complete disgrace. Solar Paroxysm by Mare Cognitum

  Do you like both doom metal and the Cocteau Twins ? Are you interested in what kind of dark ambient post-metal Enya might make? Are you yearning to know what Jesu would have sounded like if they had been a Swedish funeral doom outfit? If you too worship at the twin altars of TEXTURE and ATMOSPHERE, I invite you in for a listen to what may end up being the Sad Boi Noizes album of the year. Self-described as being " ...recorded during a bout of debilitating insomnia. Doom metal with an airy, otherworldly feel - instrumental, dreamlike music for those who can't drift away. " 20 minutes of staggeringly beautiful (successful) attempts to capture the beauty in pain. The Insomniac by Wisp

  Three songs of crusty black metal filth. Reminiscent of Tombs and Cobalt , but with a hint of something else. Some black 'n' roll swagger perhaps? Some power-duo tightness as a unit that is impossible in a larger band? Some Author & Punisher vocal worship? Almost proggy slow sombre passages dissolve into bursts of barely controlled violence. Gritty atmosphere punctuated by soaring guitar arpeggios and venomous cymbals. Get this. Ceremonial Tower by Feral Light

  Verminlord emerged from an earthen dungeon in the Pacific North West and now resides in the Hellscape of Los Angeles Combining atmospheric depressive black metal with blackened hymns from the darkness. While the lyrical content and guitar-work paint a dark vision of demonology, and vile knowledge. Vermin Lord is vehemently anti-NSBM/neo-nazi/white supremacy or any form of hate/discrimination This is a  really interesting, or should I say challenging , album. I honestly didn't like it very much the first time I listened to it. But for some reason I gave it a second listen. And then a third, and a fourth. Huh. I guess I like it now. Ennui by Verminlord

  Ever get so sad about something that the only way to cope with it is to get mad? Ever looked at a tree and wanted to cry? Ever hugged a tree while wearing corpse paint? If the answer to these questions is yes, then I have an album for you. Call it blackened folkgaze. Call it post-black treegaze. Call it the ever nebulous "Cascadian" black metal. Whatever you prefer. Whatever you call it, this is a paean to the rapidly disappearing forests of the world. "In short, if Agalloch, WITTR or even old Ulver ever moved you, you need this." - TERRORIZER    Passage by ALDA

  No, this is not shanty-core or pirate metal or whatever other jokey genre the cover might make you think of. This is where prog and black metal meet (like a lot of what I've posted recently, weird), but far out to sea. Thematically we are somewhere between the first season of The Terror and H. P. Lovecraft,which is common enough ground for horror core metal bands. What makes this unique and not just another "oh the power of the old gods" kind of thing, is the dissonant pummeling. Musically closer to Botanist or Schammasch , I actually was surprised that this album wasn't from The Flenser label. This is both a lot of fun, and a serious metal album. Maelström by Thermohaline

  Top shelf atmo black here. How I managed to miss this last year is beyond me. Ignoring the cringe-y "Mommy bought me a thesaurus for my birthday" self-description, let's just focus on the music, shall we? Because musically, this is a strong album. A more professional and polished album than their previous work it nonetheless loses nothing in depth or underground appeal. The attention to detail and the added flourishes are superb.  A piano ditty here, a subtle keyboard riff there, a guitar work flourish over there. Raspy, static-y vocals low in the mix so I can ignore them. Solid, solid work here. Rituals of the Sovereign Heart by Arkheron Thodol

Gimmik is one of Martin  Haidingers many aliases. Usually more techno-oriented, this is a beatless album of masterful ambient. Just listen to it. Deux Nouvelles by Gimmik

  Shape of Despair are the emo-est of the emo Finnish funeral doom mavens. Sometimes that makes me want to laugh at them. And sometimes it makes we want to sit in the dark and smoke clove cigarettes and drink cheap wine out of a ridiculously opulent pimp  cup goblet. This is emo-doom at its finest. 70+ minutes of heavy heavy heavy soothing balm for your wounded soul. Flirting in places with ethereal pop sensibilities and certainly paying more than a nod of tribute to the Cocteau Twins , this is a definite addition to the Big Titty Goth Girlfriend Sexy Time playlist. Monotony Fields by Shape of Despair

  Melodic folk metal meets dsbm sensibilities. Maybe a hint of prog? What exactly is this thing? I can certainly see some parallels here with Mesarthrim and Maudlin of the Well . Avant-metal, in order to avoid the dorky excesses of prog while still being kind of proggy is a thing I can dig. Emotional and symphonic hooks abound, and while there is ostensibly a story in here, you're not being beaten over the head with it, but instead allowed to actually enjoy the music for what it is. If I had any complaint about the album, it's that it's a tiny bit too long, and a couple of the later songs feel a little too much like filler. Into the Twisted Limbs by Bellwethr

  Dungeon Synth is a thing that really divides people. It seems to not be enough to dislike it for some. They have to let you know how beneath them they think the whole thing is. The rest of us however, like functioning adults, can either take it or leave it. I'm not one for the more sword and sorcery themed dungeon synth, but this moldering castle on a foggy hilltop vibe is definitely my thing. When it is like this - brooding and damp - I'll take it.  This goes firmly in my "I need to get some work done" concentration playlist rotation. The 'lo-fi hip hop beats to study by' for middle aged dudes in corpse paint. Bane of The Old Gods by Ancient Iron

  Imagine if you will a 1990's full of raw kvlt black metal that wasn't also full of nazi LARPing bonehead teenagers. Imagine instead that the raw lo-fi Scandinavian black metal sound was used to tell the stories of the predatory colonialism of Nordic Christians and the atrocities committed against the Sámi and other indigenous populations. Imagine leveraging all the hate and fury of 2nd wave black metal against the church and cultural supremacists at home instead of against some scary "cultural invader" idea. Well, you'd have a whole scene full of albums like this. And that would be 100% okay in my book. Reetessä by Ruohtta

  Originally planned for a 2018 release, the follow up to one-man-band Gaoth 's phenomenal 2016 debut Dying Season's Glory is finally here. Full of exactly what I want from atmo-black, this is definitely one of my favorite releases of 2021 so far. Conjuring sweeping visions of vast black oceans, this album conjures in me a very particular feeling. There is a specific feeling that comes over me (and maybe you too, who knows) when I am standing alone in a darkened, quiet house in the middle of the night. Halfway between a chill-thrill and a deeply comfortable settled feeling. That is what this album is, and though I can't explain exactly why, that makes it pretty close to perfect. The Obsidian Dialogue by GAOTH

  I am a real sucker for when atmospheric black metal tips over into emo sad boi noizes without fully committing to blackgaze or post-metal tropes. Nelson Ulgravyskvrya brings the goods as Nelecc . A homesick love poem to Kenya, written from Chicago, this is utterly heart-wrenching. When a person falls utterly in love with nature, the specific place and time in which they do becomes sacred. It becomes their only, ever, god.  And to be wrenched away from that sacred landscape, whether from necessity, need, or desire, is traumatic. It leaves a wound that never heals.It doesn't matter why the traveler leaves, they will never be as at home elsewhere as they were before leaving. Finding ways to express that infinite grief, that eternal longing for a place time that no longer obtains, that unimaginable rage at the loss of the sacred grove, is the work of a lifetime. Most of us who have lost our sacred groves never find an adequate way to express these things. We sink into bottles or...

  So, Atavist disappeared for a decade. Well, slightly more. It's been thirteen years since their last album. But, they're back, and they've brought with then an hour of bleak, morose, uncompromising funeral doom. This is a bit different from a lot of doom metal, in that there is no real attempt to be threatening or aggressive at all.  Nor is there any attempt at redemption or catharsis, like in blackgaze or post-bm. Swelling guitars leading to a 'drop' into happier phrasing never happens. This is unrelentingly bleak from end to end. Quoting Naughton seems relevant. He said: “There is no joy here, only relief at the end of an arduous voyage.” Truth. III: Absolution by Atavist

  Forgotten Realms namedropping anti-fascism promoting pagan/heathen forest synth playing non-problematic neofolk? Gimme more of this! Two short tracks, released separately a few days apart. I can only hope that this is merely a taster for an album to come sooner rather than later. We start with 'Rúnskógr', an all-too brief ritualistic ambient track full of sylvan (or is that Silvan) flutes and hypnotic drumming. I am really grooving to this when it ends before the 4 minute mark. Honestly, this could be stretched out into a whole tape side... Rúnskógr by Oakfather    Secondly we have 'Fornviðr'. Decidedly darker than the previous track, and leaning hard into the ritual aspects, we move in a much more somber direction. Like the previous track, it ends too soon for my tastes, and I would love to see this as well stretched out to an entire side of a cassette. I would be really happy with a ~15 minute version of both of these tracks as a nice release. Fornviðr by Oakfa...

Cascadian black metal goes to Paris and has a big sad. Hostility to mask a fragility. Anguish to cover a hatred sublimated. I really dig this whole Wolves in the Throne Room meet Lifelover aesthetic he has going on here. The vocals are powerful and occasionally physically painful. The thing that strikes me most about this album though, is the drumming. I mean this is a top notch performance. Inventive, skilled drum patterns that never wander off into mere technicality, but keep heads a bobbing the whole time. The cymbal spasms actually serve a purpose and indicate the direction the musical changes are going, not just announce that it is time for a change. An ocean of hallucinatory horror is the best summation I can muster for the gestalt here. I am hoping for a lot more from this project in the future. Les Voûtes by BLURR THROWER

  So, I am just going to let Gore Tech tell the story of this album directly: What's all this then? Well, in short, it's a new musical side-project from myself celebrating the fusion of heavy metal and sub bass music with a 1970s High-Fantasy vibe for good measure. (I know, bare with me) To get a more in-depth look, it all started in 2015 with a Discogs page set up to buy and sell parts of my record collection after returning to the UK from Germany. The name is a play on 'Southern Lord' one of my all-time favourite record labels based in the US responsible for releasing records by bands such as: Sunn O))), Sleep, Earth and Goatsnake. Later I’d perform vinyl DJ sets under this moniker when invited to play a couple of shows in the UK around 2018/19. These sets comprised of music from my ever expanding collection of 70s prog-rock, doom, stoner, blues, fuzz, psych and even some folk and world music. Of course, we all know what happened immediately foll...

  Do you like epic fantasy tabletop role playing games? Do you like the sort of metal that sounds like fight scene background music in Dark Souls or Skyrim? Would you like to make your next RPG session A E S T H E T I C ? Well then, have I got an album for you. Sitting firmly in the "Background to Cool Shit Happening" genre is this weird balancing act between Epic Black Metal, Tolkien Metal (yes it's a thing, go look it up) and Dungeon Synth. I have a real soft spot for dungeon synth / dark ambient crossed with pretty much any other genre, so this is totally cool to me. I am not usually an epic fantasy kind of guy, preferring the GRIMDARK aesthetic myself, but there is no denying the awesome bardic power of this album. I kind of want a throwback 3.5 rules AD&D game now, just so I have yet another reason to play this album every week. Afar Angathfark by Emyn Muil

  I'll be completely honest: I don't really like stoner metal, old school doom metal, or anything that smells of Sabbath-worship. There is nothing wrong with it, and Sabbath are certainly among the OGs of all metal, but it's just not my bag, baby. There are a few select bands that have, however, risen above the fuzz-worship to actually create something interesting. Sloath are one of those bands. With a mere 2 LPs and 1 EP in their almost decade and a half existence, and constantly teetering on the brink of dissolving entirely, you never know if there will be a new Sloath album... ever. So I am really happy they managed to get this massive piece of weird out last year. This is what happens if you spent a decade eating LSD and listening to SLEEP , EARTH , and TORCHE and not much else. We are talking about massive walls of crushing distortion combined with shamanic vocals, psychedelic rock trippiness, and some bizarre drum-less drone thrown in for good measure. PLAY LOUD Slo...

  Art is Fanaticism that Demands Diplomacy. Recorded live in Hamburg in 1985 during "Die Erste Bombardierung über dem Deutschland Tour".  The official release of the semi-official, legendary 1000 only vinyl from 1985, now a highly sought-after collectors piece. Cold Spring released the CD version (2003, repressed 2006) and are now proud to release this gem on a stunning picture disc with new artwork, based on the traditional German ehrenscheibe style.  Sadly the vinyl is long since sold out, but to have a lossless transfer of this legendary piece of Industrial music history is pretty rad in and of itself. It doesn't hurt that it is a moment in time when LAIBACH were the most fanatical and menacing band on the planet. Neu Konservatiw (CSR38CD/P) by Laibach