What a thoroughly brilliant black metal number, particularly from the title track onwards; some of those sweeping melodies are Godly. The outro track is typically elating to the nth degree.

Fans of psychedelic music and also Demilich rejoice. Antti Boman, Demilich's vocalist, has put his vocals down on the new Pharaoh Overlord album. Such an odd combination but works quite well. Not sure I'd call it psychedelic death metal, but it's definitely psychedelic and has death growls so make of that what you will.

Kickass Sargeist-ian black metal with ultra-compelling, immediate songwriting with a nice Cascadian feel.

Curious and frantic psychedelic, kraut-ish black metal from Japan, Russia and the US. 3 of 6 tracks available for streaming on the very decent Sentient Ruin label.

Wicked super-old school speed black metal with hellish vocals. Lots of nice leads and riffs in this and the production couldn't sound more authentic.

Finally, a proper quality drone / funeral doom album for this year. This somehow combines the ethereal ambient, shoegazing haze of Nadja with some of the more traditional hyper-heavy doom of the genre, along with some fitting funeral doom deathly vocals along with it (and some elysian female vocals too). The sound is absolutely massive and all encompassing. I wish it was longer than half an hour but they do so much with it it's hard to care.




Didn't think these guys could get any heavier, but apparently they can. Absolutely blundgeoning mathcore with some grind influence. Nasty.




If Vildhjarta joined the technical post-death metal scene. Pretty terrifying, uncompromisingly heavy record with a blackened edge.




Boss Keloid pretty much went on to become the de facto best sludge / stoner band with Herb Your Enthusiasm and now they've nailed it with this year's follow up. This time round they've adopted a much more proggy sludge sound which oozes quality, even if I do prefer the heavier previous one. Can't wait to see them live again in August.




No one reported on this here, but here's Ommadon's follow up. Ommadon took up the mantle of Sunn O))) with the previous release, and did it unbelievably well, so expect more classic ultra-heavy drone doom in that vein. Not sure this is as good as the first though for some reason. Feels cleaner and lacks much of the delicious feedback, but it's still leagues ahead of most bands doing this sound.




The guy reviewing this on Bandcamp, who calls him/herself "DeathspellOmega" thinks this sounds like Deathspell Omega. I can see where they're coming from but this doesn't sound like a clone at all. Sounds like DsO if they became a DSBM-tinged urban, post-black metal outfit. Then again maybe they do just sound like Dso.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 08.06.2018 at 14:57

Saw Wesenwille live last Sunday together with Grafjammer, Terzij De Horde and Laster. They opened that day, but live they sounded nothing like DsO. Haven't heard their album, btw. Might be different there.

Yeah I don't think they do on record either after properly listening to it. Just a few sounds here and there which sound like something DsO might do, but pretty different otherwise.

Written by RaduP on 10.06.2018 at 23:04

Choose two of those for me to review

The pressure

Probably Cone Forest and Boss Keloid I would say.

So I heard you like Swedish-style death metal.



To shreds you say...


And this time from the UK, Wales of all places (no Tom Jones vocal cameo though sadly), more death but distinctly more nasty and dirty.




And as if not to be outdone by Deus Vermin, Hexeth released this ridiculous slab of wall-of-sound, ultra hellish from-the-depths death / black metal which will appeal to the few.

Written by 3rdWorld on 14.03.2018 at 22:37

New album from swiss post-hardcore/sludge band Abraham on the The Ocean Collective's home label Pelagic Records.

Abraham - Look, Here Comes The Dark!

This is really interesting and expansive stuff. Kinda wish it wasn't nearly 2 hours long though.

Written by Guest on 16.04.2018 at 19:25

TAPHOS - Plenty of solos and riffing in this old-school death metal. It sounds like this band is gonna follow up their good demos with another splendid thing. Denmark seems to have quite a scene in death metal at the moment.

This out now. It's also quite good, sounds a bit like At The Gates doing death metal (again).

This is extremely cool. Fairly raw black / death metal with plenty of twisted, off-kilter riffs and drum work, but with each track separated by eerie dark ambient songs.

Absolutey cracking grind from Brazil. They make grind exactly how I like it, a bit gritty, punky, galloping but with a very songwriting focussed sensibility. Apparently this record and band is totally impervious to Google searches too fsr.




I recall a few people on here liking Spaceslug, the archnemesis of the Slugdge collective, so here's a new track. Cosmic, psychedelic stoner. That artwork too.




Couple of new Lurk songs listenable. I recall this band were a bit of talked about thing on here during their debut many years ago. Sounds liike solid atmospheric doom.




Weirdly upbeat and interesting proggy tech death. Quite melodic, dig this for the genre.




Surprised nobody mentioned this as it's on Iron Bonehead. Much of a classic "evil" sounding funeral doom number, with plenty of those great atmospheric, atonal cleans throughout.




A rare Ajna Offensive release. Raw yet modern black metal, seems good, though you'll need nearly two hours to spare to get through it all, lel.




New Ill Omen song. Sadly it seems to have lost most of what made Æ​.​Thy​.​Rift so special and is more of a straight up black metal track, albeit not a bad one.

New Sear Bliss, bit of a surprise. Haven't listened to it but it's probably pretty good trombone black metal.

Written by Karlabos on 15.06.2018 at 23:48

Tell me about it
Last week or so they were like "the album is tba and nothing is confirmed yet"

Nice album anyway

Guess that leaves no expecations to be blown that way, kinda.

Pretty unique sounding death metal from Mexico. The two songs available sound really good. It's hard to describe their sound, they go from playing fairly unusal riffs through to some full on melodic passages, and it works quite well.




A remix album of what's already one of my fave releases this year. Wasn't expecting that.




Synth black metal? It's weird. It's really chilled but has a black metal percussion and riff-style to it, but I'm pretty sure there aren't any guitars in this.




A band I forgot I liked until I clicked on the Bandcamp page and saw their previous album's artwork. Really good, dense ambient black metal. Only a sample available so probably one long song again, but appears to be part of a split.




Riff and lead-laden, frantic black metal with very nice approach to production.

Cosmic Atrophy are back! I recall them being pretty good Demilich style death metal. Haven't listened to the track yet.

K, listened to it on my phone speakers. Sounds like Demilich-lite with possibly way too many solos. Not bad though.

Demilich wannabes pt.2

I was very confused for a moment there

Written by dimensional on 19.06.2018 at 22:16


Hail! I'm not sure I would call what we do "Demilich-lite" but I appreciate the listen. There will be more coming very soon!

Lol well something sort of in the ball park that could be compared in sound to Demilich then. But yeah, I'll definitely be giving the whole thing a listen

New Sleep Terror. It's been a long time since I listened to them but I recall them being nice extreme prog / instrumental death metal. Haven't listened to this yet though.

Lol

I listened to the song that was available yesterday. It's not bad, I like the female screeching vocals. Needed some psychedelia or something to really interest me though (still pining for another Bloody Panda release).

New Grey Widow. Partially from my hometown and probably the heaviest band I've ever seen play there. "I" was a favourite when it came out, but it sounds like they've toned down the vitriol and heaviness for this one, but you can still expect some stoner-tinged ultra sludge here.




High quality, ultra-classic sounding OSDM. Nice.




Crusty deathgrind, for all your crusty deathgrind needs.




Soaring, melodic post-black with frenetic percussion and Emperor-ish vocals (and sweet art).




There was also a new Fukpig album thrown out. Has ex-Mistress and possibly Anaal Nathrakh members in if I remember right. Super fun, crusty black / grind / punk. Or as the bandcamp review rightly says: "Good soundtrack while kicking cunts out of the way in Asda."




Two EPs of very interesting journeys consisting of trippy ambient texturing and black metal. Excellent atmosphere created with these.



Play them at the same time to gain an audience with Oedon.

Written by Guest on 21.06.2018 at 21:02

This sounds kind of good but damn theres so many bands thats just an inch from this is in sound.

I guess you could say it's pretty meat and potato

Found this on Spotify on the way home, though I realise now I rec'd their previous album in the 2017 thread. This one is less weird sounding, but the songwriting is absolutely top notch. Pagan folk influenced black metal with a strong, very high riff quotient, excellent shriek-style vocals, nice raw but clear production and chewy sounding bass.




Curious sounding death metal thing from Finland. It's hard to get a full idea of what approach they're going for with this track but could be good.

Yesss, new EP from The Secret. Haven't listened to it but apparently it's very black metal, so may have lost their hardcore / grind / sludge edge, but I'm sure it'll be good.





Dissonant, chaotic and muddy death metal on Dark Descent.





This is now out in full. Ancient Moon knocks it out the park and Prosternatur does a solid effort on their side.




Don't know how I would classify this. Perhaps some kind of extreme prog with death metal touches. Liking it a lot though. Incredibly tight, technical but song-like approach, nice bouts of melody and Cynic and Darkane-esque clean vocals. No Bandcamp for these guys.

Written by Guest on 22.06.2018 at 23:27

The finns are creating a distinct sound around tampere which isnt depressive black, its more like melancholic black. This album was from last year

One of the first bands I ever reviewed for this site. They don't sound like they've changed much lel.

Written by 3rdWorld on 24.06.2018 at 05:18

Looks like a great find when there is no bandcamp and no label, I can see only NCS has posted about this. Good album, spinning it now.

Yeah found it on NCS Just the kind of thing I needed to hear this year, to make a change from all the soundscape-y stuff.

Written by RaduP on 24.06.2018 at 23:26


choose two more

Well I'd definitely say the Mire record, think a lot of people would dig that. Not sure about the other. A lot of these aren't out yet, so would say either the PALE release, or LoG's Amarok one, if it's out. Not sure the others would have much appeal outside the odd person.

Very nice, loose-feeling mid-paced black metal with a melancholic edge and great frosty production. Lots of indulgent leads here.




Still only one track up from this, but if it follows the pattern of the released track it'll be a really good combination of death doom and OSDM. Fingers crossed.




Album trailer for the new Nadja. Music is mostly toward the end of it, sounds like Nadja. Cool psychedelic imagery in the trailer though.




Bismuth did a split with a band called Legion of Andromeda. Really not sure what to think of Legion of Andromeda's side, it's definitely something (sounds like they have a Rottweiler for a vocalist), but Bismuth's side is an excellent blackened, psychedelic ultra-doom / drone song that should be heard.

Tchornobog recced this last night. Sounds pretty evil, at times melancholic, and great, how did you lot miss this? Expansive black / doom metal with dense, busy production and is oddly lo-fi despite how cinematic it is. Even psychedelic at points with what sounds like distance brass instrumentation and some strange sounding time signatures, then just when it can't surprise you any more it throws ghostly, haunting female vocals into the mix. Pretty amazing stuff, I can honeslty say I've not heard anything quite like it before. Even the piano outro is cool.

Written by RaduP on 25.06.2018 at 00:38

Alright I'll ask you again in a week or so.

Hey, review that maybe ^