Written by: Blackie Skulless
Not far from my stomping grounds, Philadelphia, PA based Daeva somewhat helped my recent growing taste for certain styles of black metal. Though they’re heavily thrash induced, the lone EP entitled Pulsing Dark Absorptions is an evil and crushing spin. Their only release to date, it’s full of breakneck speeds, blistering blackened vocals, and evil lyrics to the max. Very much one of those things that passes by before you even realize it. Comprised of four tracks and a Mayhem cover, there isn’t a lot of time for any kind of filler or screwing around. For optimal experience, it’s layered nicely to allow the drums to pop really well, displaying advanced fills all over the already crushing riffage. “No Effective Banishings” weaves this in with tremolo picks to really inject that harsher feel, allowing slower passages to come across more menacing. “Clenched Fist Of The Beast” is a rather straightforward track with a noisier effect, backed by chaotic execution.
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Written by: The Administrator
While raw black metal will likely never become this particular scribe's genre of choice, I will always enjoy the visceral fury and abrasivity that serves both as the fuel and the final product. There's something so remarkably potent about music that literally makes your the hair stand up on the back of your neck, and in that regard, Dread Maw has succeeded enormously at capturing my attention. Debut EP Sanctified Murder is a strong first effort, and, moreso, serves as a tantalizing taste of what is yet to come. Dread Maw is the product of one Erin Palmer, who you may know from A. the realms of metal twitter and/or B. black metal outfit Rage of Devils. Whereas Rage, however, leans into a black 'n' roll influenced corner of the black metal universe, Dread Maw is a little more dissonant, a little more chaotic, and a lot more brutal...intrinsically so. 
Written by: Blackie Skulless
There’s a time for riffs, a time for intricacy, and a time for both. Wode have been around now for a little over a decade, reigning over Manchester, England with a stylistically intense brand of black metal. Recently, they dropped album number three, entitled Burn In Many Mirrors, through 20 Buck Spin. It cashes in on sturdy riffage with appropriate doses of later black metal tactics to make for one of the better polished albums of its type. What’s nice is that despite this, Wode don’t feel the need to sink themselves in a pool of symphonies and atmosphere. Though the latter does play a bit of a role, it’s clear that strong hooks and transitions are the most important part. All six tracks come from a narrative standpoint, telling long, cosmic stories around the occult and world destruction. This leaves little room for extra nonsense, allowing everything to be straightforward within each phase of the songs. 
Written by: Blackie Skulless
Rising from Chile, a place where gritty thrash has made a solid mark, Oldeath came out of the woods with a rather impressive dose of black metal. After one demo in 2019, they summoned forth a full-length last year entitled Rise From Majestic Darkness. For folks who prefer the riff-y side of black metal rather than the atmospheric or symphonic side, this is gonna sit well with you. Clearly the thrashy surroundings have rubbed off on our guys here. Worry not, because these riffs have a rusty and grating coat on them that would infect the wounds of anyone who comes near. There’s a droning sensation pulling forth the aesthetic to very blackened heights. The moments when higher solos peak, it forces them to have a nastier bite. Moreover, mixing in hazy church organs adds layers of darker times, casting haunting chills into the bones.
Special thanks to Carcassbomb (of ye olde Noob Heavy and Black Lodge PR) for the words! If you're looking for top-notch music writing, I highly recommend adding Noob Heavy to your blog rotation. You should also check out Black Lodge PR if you need, well, PR (the sheer quality of which I'll happily vouch for!) - Ed.
Guest post written by: Carcassbomb
Australia has been coming in strong lately with bands under the genre tag “dark metal,” which is well suited here with a sound that is difficult to nail down, it takes a bit of everything with the emphasis on darkness. Be that a brooding kind of darkness or menacing darkness depends on the album, but with Spire there’s a perfect balance of both. This is my introduction to the band and it left quite the impression! A pleasurable barrage of doomy genre-hopping can be found on Temple of Khronos. They have a powerful way of building up to really epic moments that come with a lot of added flourish. There’s a great black metal influence with shrieking that reminds me of Silencer as well as growls on the doom end of the death spectrum--both of which blend in well with the clean variations of singing and BIG HUMMMMS. There’s a lot of thickness to the overall production, utilizing vocal modulation and repetition to great effect. The density could be compared to fellow Australian’s Portal or more recent, The Amenta, and the BIG HUMMMMS might sound freshly familiar to those who dug into that Sutrah EP last year. 
Written by: The Administrator
In lieu of the typical rambling introduction, I'll spare you all and jump straight to my conclusions regarding Nostophobia, the debut full length from Portland's Sea Sleeper. In sum, then: this is a wonderfully chaotic album filled to the brim with the kind of untethered energy that practically demands listener engagement. However, it is also a confusingly chaotic album that would benefit significantly from some spit and polish. Sea Sleeper bill themselves as a bit of a genre-jumping anomaly, frequently folding in elements of post-metal, deathcore, sludge, avant-garde, metallic hardcore, and even a lil' angsty grunge into their bubbling cauldron o' progressive death. Needless to say, this is a complex conglomerate of sights 'n' sounds, and makes for an experience that is borderline confounding across the breadth. As a fan of boundary-pushing and rule-breaking in music as a general rule, that quality is a clarion call of sorts--provided the intrinsic weirdness sticks the landing. 
Written by: The Voiceless Apparition
Chaos reigns within the heart of man. It always has. Ever since the dawn of time, humans have been at war with each other. For whatever reasons, I don't know. There is constant turmoil and savagery afoot, which brings us to our review. Swampbeast are a new band within the underground extreme metal scene. They blend a highly potent mixture of death metal, black metal, grindcore and a tinge of hardcore, satiating the beast within us all. On their debut album Swampbeast have a lot to prove. Do they deliver...or do they not? The first thing you'll notice about this album is the atmosphere. No, it's not atmosphere in the sense of calming and beautiful; quite the opposite. Opening track "Orcs Anvil" is a barrage of savage and unhinged vocals, buzzing and noisy guitars, and unrelenting blast beats. What an absolute face-fucking of a beginning song. Completely unrelenting all the way through. The album is split into two different styles. The main style being an absolutely chaotic and visceral attack of grinding blackened death metal, and the second being a hardcore-leaning death doom style. 
Written by: Izzy
It’s time for Sleeping Village trivia hour again. I’ve mentioned this on occasion, but let it be known: I think Iceland has the best current black metal scene. Every year there seems to be a new album coming from over there that blows my mind with their love of claustrophobic yet hypnotizing harmony and low commanding growls rather than icy shrill shrieks. While I do have a soft spot for Poland and Sweden as well, Iceland is where it’s at. So, you’d expect me to have been all over this band by now, right? Well, I listened to their collaborative release with Wormlust last year and thought that was good, but I never listened to their solo stuff until around a month ago when their third album, fittingly named Skáphe³, was suddenly the latest talking point around all my black metal loving friends, so I listened to it and well…holy shit. 
Written by: Izzy
Ah, Anaal Nathrakh. You’re one of the oddest relationships I have with a band. You’re capable of making incredible music, but it only seems to happen by pure coincidence. I loved Codex Umbra and The Whole of The Law, I was bored by Vanitas and A New Kind of Horror, and the album of yours I most expected to love, In The Constellation of The Black Widow, was made utterly unlistenable but a mix so unrefined and muddy it gave me a migraine on my first listen. There’s so much potential present within Anaal Nathrakh, but there’s no rhyme or reason for telling when they’ll make another album I love. When it’s straightforward and sticking to their palette of blackened grind, it might end up feeling like bland retreading of the same ground; when it’s more adventurous and innovative, adding elements of industrial or symphonic sung choruses, it can just as easily feel like they’re trying too hard. So all I can do is wait and listen to their new releases every couple years, hoping I get another unexpected gem. 
Written by: Izzy
2019, I can pretty confidently say, was “the year of black metal” for me. Not only was the quantity of good black metal extremely high, but the quality of the best releases was unheard of. Normally every year I find maybe 3-5 albums in most of my favourite genres that I love and hold onto, but 2019 gave me TWELVE (12) black metal albums I’ve revisited since the year's end, some of them half a dozen times by now. Amongst those phenomenal albums was Serpent Column’s Mirror In Darkness, my first brush with the band, which certainly set my expectations high and they were quickly fulfilled by their EP/mini album Endless Detainment from earlier this year. I was blown away and already left extremely impressed, but clearly even that wasn’t enough for Serpent Column as shortly after it was followed up by their latest opus, and topic of today’s discussion, Kathodos. |
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We provide thoughtful reviews of music that is heavy, gloomy...and loud enough to wake us from slumber. Written by a highfalutin peasantry!
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