Trumpet of Amdusias

  Polski metal mocny, polski metal zły, polski metal niszczy! Poland has pretty much always had one of the most innovative, strongest, angriest metal scenes. I have almost always liked the albums that have made their way to me from that scene. This album is certainly no exception to that trend. Explosive, powerfully produced, emotionally battering, and with the wildest fucking lyrics I've ever read. Netflix, ogolona cipka. Tonę w wiadrze. Pełna i wściekła. Rosnę i rozlewam. Wszędzie brudzę się. Krzyczę, nikt nie sprząta. Netflix, a shaved pussy. I'm drowning in a bucket. Full and furious. I grow and spill. I get dirty everywhere. I'm screaming, nobody is cleaning. As someone who generally dislikes metal lyrics, singers, vocals, etc.. I am just over the moon about the violent dadaist filth poetry here. Bonus disgust for the crying baby / microwave sound sample. Listen, and be filth, worm Dom Człowieka by SZNUR

  TRVE KVLT BLEK METAL. Black Metal Without Adjectives. However you want to signal that a band or an album is orthodox, foundational, traditional, what have you - this is it. 100% blast beats, tremolo picking, and wraith-rasp shrieks. This is crudeness as an art form. Spectral Wound are now the keepers of the black flame. There is zero nostalgia here. This is true modern black metal, but also exactly what 90's black metal was.  I'm going to go ahead and predict that this will be my black metal AotY. It would take truly herculean effort to make better black metal than this. A Diabolic Thirst by SPECTRAL WOUND

  Nihilistic misanthropy, spiked with violent anti-religious sentiment. Now we are back in my wheelhouse! Greece is something of a hotbed of mean metal bands, and none are quite as surgically brutal as Human Serpent.Six years into their sonic walk through hell, we get this, their fourth full-length album. 100% fiery spiteful black metal, there is also a keen sense of melody at work here. This is not your standard blastbeats howling into the void, but a coordinated attempt to actually suffocate you solely via your speakers. They started out the gate in 2014 hellbent on destruction, and every album has upped the ante. You can imagine them listening to a finished album and going 'nope, not apocalyptic enough. Let's start over'. Maybe they said that after this album was finished too, but for now it's the meanest evilest thing going. Heirlooms Eternal by Human Serpent

  Proof that even the most KVLT of Norwegians are tired of paint-by-numbers black metal gatekeeping, Misotheist are back with a three track album of wonderfully off-kilter black metal to remind you that you can never go back, only forwards. Like Kannustaa yesterday this is proper black metal, with all the boxes ticked and all the kvlt approved forms filled out. But like Kannustaa, this is not mere kvlt-worship. This is new black metal for a new age. To be honest, this is most likely going to end up as my personal black metal AoTY. It would take a really impressive feat to top this. For the Glory of your Redeemer by Misotheist

  This is a pretty unique, and pretty great, take on raw black metal. Instead of changing the whole genre, they inject some much needed humanity and heartbreak into the now-tired tropes of black metal. This is not maudlin sad boi noizes however. This is furious war-like black metal that just happens to have gotten it's heart broken earlier today. The penultimate track 'A Plea For Solitude' is probably the one that comes closest to being straight out dsbm sad boi noizes, and even it is a ferocious cauldron of black metal fury. Kannustaa by Kannustaa

 Alex Poole is something of a phenom. From lo-fi black metal in Nashville with Troglodytic , to the ambient shoegaze of Esoterica , to the ravishing grimness of Kreig and the psychedelic dissonance of Skáphe , he has blazed a pretty remarkable, and definitely singular, path through the metal world. Now, as a (almost) solo project, bringing all his previous achievements in creating atmosphere his own way and disregarding the sanctified kvlt order, Poole has unleashed Häxanu on us. In many ways this is a stripped down, streamlined Poole. Much of the more interesting approaches he has developed over the years are gone, replaced with unbridled aggression and outright hostility as the prime atmospheric components. To my mind, this album is a complete triumph, a real statement. None of Poole's earlier bands have been very trve to the kvlt. He has, throughout his career made his own way, built his own take on all the constituent pieces of black metal, and in the words of Jacob Buczarski...

 I am not sure how exactly today will go down in history (it's still too early to tell), but I am sure that this is a perfect album to watch the bursting of the American Exceptionalism balloon to. Novae Militiae create a type of terroristic black metal that demands collapse, that nurtures it deep within you. Relentlessly aggressive, unceasingly negative, unforgivingly brutal, As one Bandcamp reviewer put it, BLACK METAL IS VIOLENCE. I couldn't agree more or be happier about it. If you ever wondered what Judge Dredd listened to while waiting around to push someone's face in, wonder no more. Topheth by Novae Militiae