RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://orcd.co/enthronedashspawn The Belgian black metal trailblazers known as Enthroned have been rather prolific since the band’s inception back in 1993, and the remarkable thing about this most unholy and impenetrably dark outfit is that they are getting better and better with time. With that in mind, let us take a closer look…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://zebulondoom.bandcamp.com/album/come-day-of-reckoning-2 The splendid Norwegian doom metal outfit known as Zebulon unleashed this musically dynamic force of nature just a couple of weeks ago, and there is an exciting and emotive edge as well as heaps of gloom to the 6-track effort, which sports the evocative title Come Day of Reckoning, reflecting its…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://doublemute.bandcamp.com/album/corporate-culture-final-v2 One of the most unique entities out there today is undoubtedly the deeply intriguing Double Mute and their highly eclectic and delightfully twisted on all things progressive. Also, for the sake of clarity, let there be no doubt that main man Jake Rosenberg is a musical genius whose ideas and visions…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://patriarchy.bandcamp.com/album/manual-for-dying-2 Hot on the heels of their wicked live album (namely Suffer with Me) released earlier this year comes this riveting new studio offering, which sports the brilliant title Manual for Dying, and the disc is nothing if not consistent, cohesive, and mesmeric. Its ten sharp and memorable tracks represent the very…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://lnk.to/theaphoticvortex Spawned in Austria nearly twenty years ago and having undergone quite the interesting musical evolution since then, Asphagor recently unleashed their fifth full-length onslaught via Immortal Frost Productions, and it just so happens that The Aphotic Vortex ticks pretty much all the right black/death metal boxes and delivers plenty of chills…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://airbagsound.bandcamp.com/album/airbag-dysphoria-live-in-the-netherlands A live album by Norwegian prog rock stalwarts Airbag is not something to be taken lightly; it is a huge-sounding representation of some of their most outstanding and inspired epics being performed by a tight, well-oiled machine that knows exactly how to stir the senses and stimulate the mind of the…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://ringvanmbius.bandcamp.com/album/firebrand The legendary Norwegian proggers collectively known as Ring Van Möbius have consistently made remarkable albums of which no two were alike, and that turns out to be the case with Firebrand also, which came out in early October via Apollon Records Prog. The record differs from everything that came before…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://robec.bandcamp.com/album/the-forest-is-too-loud This one did not entirely come out of the blue as I was fortunate enough to get to listen to a few snippets and extracts from it when stopping by for coffee and a chat at Gymnocal Industries’ headquarters on two or three occasions, and I was immediately hooked and started…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://www.sumofrofficial.com/ Formed by Swiss sound-shaper Reto Mäder and completed by Finnish visionaries Marko Neuman and Jukka Rämänen, Sum Of R channel cosmic vibrations more than genre – summoning music that feels unearthed rather than written. Spectral is the sound of a séance captured on tape: raw yet spacious, disciplined yet dreamlike – is what the promo for this interesting…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://glutton.bandcamp.com/album/skiva-heter-vishnu The musically eclectic and consistently playful Norwegian trio known as Glutton are experts at churning out highly dynamic and oftentimes explosive songs that shift seamlessly between hard-hitting jazz rock, old-school prog, and a wee bit of psychedelia for good measure, and the results are not merely satisfying but also thoroughly intoxicating.…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://asira.bandcamp.com/ What we have here is a highly interesting and uniquely crafted release that displays passion and ambition in equal measure. Somewhere between post-black metal, modern progressive rock, and experimental shoegaze lies this epic and emotionally intense opus titled As Ink in Water by the Reading-based outfit intriguingly named Asira. Sweeping melodies,…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://authorandpunisher.bandcamp.com/album/nocturnal-birding The talented sonic sculptor Tristan Shone never ceases to amaze this scribe and few out there are better at crafting intensely heavy, claustrophobic soundscapes of the gritty industrial variety than said artist is. Author & Punisher has been at it for twenty-something years, but Nocturnal Birding may in fact be Shone’s…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://panzerpappa.bandcamp.com/album/landsbysladder It has been a long time since I last sat with a new record by the lovely Norwegian proggers known as Panzerpappa between my hands, but I can honestly that this time around has been the most exciting and stimulating one yet. Landsbysladder, which roughly translates to village gossip, sees the…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://whitewillow.bandcamp.com/album/terminal-twilight-remaster Originally released fourteen years ago, Terminal Twilight marked a return of sorts as White Willow had more or less ceased activities for a while following the release of Signal to Noise (2006), and although it is hardly the most accessible entry in the group’s varied discography, Terminal Twilight is the most…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://www.mascotlabelgroup.com/ Dedicated to his late brother, Manuel Gales, and featuring some mighty impressive guest appearances by the likes of Buddy Guy, Joe Bonamassa, Roosevelt Collier and Josh Smith just to list a few, A Tribute to LJK sees the remarkably gifted Eric Gales pay homage to lost loved one in a classy…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://www.waltertrout.com/home Legendary blues rocker Walter Trout is the ultimate survivor and a divinely gifted songwriter whose compositions overflow with raw nerve, fiery passion, words that speak to the soul, and gritty riffs with enough power to shake loose your fillings and prompt you to call that much-dreaded dentist of yours. There is…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://deeppurple.com/ A much-overlooked entry in Purple’s impressive catalog is the classy and well-written Rapture of the Deep, which is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year. What better way to mark that occasion than remixing and remastering the entire thing and including a handful of bonus track?”! I have always felt that their…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://omnibuspress.com/ Author Graeme Thomson composed the brilliantly evocative Small Hours: The Long Night of John Martyn five years ago, which captivated and inspired this scribe immensely, and once Omnibus Press announced that his Behind the Locked Door opus had been included in the publisher’s recently launched Remastered series, anticipation and excitement were…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://babymetal.com Origins and Evolution Formed in 2010 as a genre-defying blend of idol pop and heavy metal, BABYMETAL quickly became a global phenomenon with their theatrical performances, intricate choreography, and innovative “kawaii metal” sound. Anchored by the core trio of Su-metal, Moametal, and new member Momometal, they have evolved from viral…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://enrapture1.bandcamp.com/ The Norwegian progressive post death metal ensemble Enrapture’s third installment, Drønn²⁰²⁴ EP, independently released last April 5th is, to, again (as I’ve used it before) quote Patrick Bateman from “American Psycho” a curious little dish I was surprisingly presented by our dear chief editor, Andrea, quite a while ago,…
