RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://gravewithaview.bandcamp.com/ Admittedly, I review so few black metal albums that one may think I’m not a fan of the genre because it has the highest percentage of Satanic bands. However, that is not exactly so. For one thing, black metal is the closest metal genre to classical music, for another,…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://softffog.bandcamp.com/album/focus Considering the fact that these kick-ass Norwegian jazz proggers wrote and recorded such a stunning and unique debut album as they did back in 2022, it should come as no surprise that some of us had high hopes for this sophomore effort of theirs and expected great things. Soft Ffog are…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://facebook.com/octoploidmusic/ It has become almost a custom among heavy metal (and rock) artists that members of well-established and successful bands either make solo albums or join other bands while remaining active in their main abode. It used to be (80s and 90s), due to time and space constraints (both now…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://www.skeletal-remains.com/ Except for my brief church choir stint and occasional singing for and with children as an English teacher, I am not much of a musician, however, even I can still make the claim, as an over 30 year metal fan, that it seems not a complicated thing to make…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025 BAND URL: https://www.facebook.com/wetofficialpage/ Receiving a new album by the fabulous international constellation known as W.E.T. is always a treat and this fifth full-length LP of theirs is no exception. Their line-up is akin to a wet dream (see what I did there?) to lovers of fist-pumping melodic hard rock and there is nothing…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://officiumtriste.com/ Even though I knew what the Dutch atmospheric doom death metal sextet was capable of by the excellent Mors Viri²⁰¹³ and The Death Of Gaia²⁰¹⁹, I never expected their 7th album in 30 years, Hortus Venenum²⁰²⁴, released on September 6th via Transcending Obscurity Records, to be this utterly deep and…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://www.wordsoffarewell.com/ Sometimes it’s interesting to watch a band evolve from a genre typical act through being a lot of things at once with mixed results to, finally, come full circle and come up with something hard to define. A good example is German progressive melodic death metal sextet, Words Of…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://nyktophobia.bandcamp.com/ As much as I appreciate complex and progressive direction in melodic death metal, sometimes I want my melodeath to be just a deluge of luscious melody as in Hypocrisy¹⁹⁹⁹, Insomnium’s Across The Dark²⁰⁰⁹ or Omnium Gatherum’s The Burning Cold²⁰¹⁸, and I am always happy to discover another fantastic album of…
Being a huge fan and admirer of Balls’ excellent biographical study of the sadly missed Shane McGowan titled A Furious Devotion, I was quite naturally very keen on reading this “remastered” version of his book on the legendary Ian Dury. It turned out to be as riveting and emotionally charged as one could have hoped…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025 BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/what-lies-ahead A relatively young band in some respects, Frightful came into being in 2016 in Gdansk and have released a couple of demos and EPs since then, but the thing is that they churn out skull-rattling and tightly executed death metal as if they were veterans of the genre. Such is…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/the-monolithic-cult-of-death Leave it to Godz ov War to unearth some of the most captivating underground acts and releases and bring them to light – a case in point being this incredibly dynamic and consistently interesting 35-minute output by Deamonolith, which is as unearthly and disquieting as they come. Blackened death metal…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://onceupontheend.bandcamp.com/ One of the most interesting and innovative melodic death metal bands in recent memory, the French quartet is even uniquely named, Once Upon The End. After one EP and one full length, plus a change of vocalist, they have independently released (yet promoted by Imperative PR) another EP, the…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://borknagar.com/ For one of the three major Norwegian black metal institutions, next to Emperor and Enslaved, Borknagar have comparatively only briefly dealt pure genre, from their 1994 inception through the eponymous¹⁹⁹⁴ and, maybe even the now legendary The Olden Domain¹⁹⁹⁷, only to deviate into then unknown and uncharted territory with…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://wizrd.bandcamp.com/album/elements The musically gifted and delightfully adventurous Norwegian rockers named Wizrd released a stunning debut album titled Seasons back in 2022, and ever since then I have been looking forward to its follow- up. Elements will arrive in early December and let me tell you straight up that this could very…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://the–verge.bandcamp.com/album/the-verge The latest release on the lovable Is It Jazz? Records is a proper tour de force in every conceivable way and a dizzying yet incredibly cohesive output that harbors a raw, authentic power unlike anything else that I have come across. This musically tasty and elegant yet highly explosive…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://thermalitysweden.bandcamp.com/ I wonder if In Flames founders Anders Frieden and Björn Gelotte had been privy to listening to fellow Gothenburg melodeathsters Thermality’s independently released (3 years after formation) very good debut album Before I Get To Rest²⁰²³ when the former contemplated the direction of Foregone²⁰²³, which was released on that…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://lnk.to/martyrium The delightfully brooding and utterly compelling act known as Gurthang rarely fails to disappoint this scribe, and it just so happens that Martyrium is their most accomplished and impressive musical feat to date. Thoroughly drenched in a thick and impenetrably dark atmosphere that swallows you whole, these five addictive compositions merge somber…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://invainband.bandcamp.com/ While Nocturnus’ The Key¹⁹⁹⁰ is widely regarded as the first progressive death metal album, it is arguably Death with its third album Spiritual Healing¹⁹⁹⁰ who had paved the way for Edge Of Sanity (whose debut record, Nothing But Death Remains¹⁹⁹¹ was still standard death metal fare) who then helped…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://www.darktranquillity.com/ You hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability. It is the sound of your death – Agent Smith in “Matrix” As we inevitably approach the end times (with hindsight 2020!) we need and receive more warnings, especially in music, and, where else can we find it…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://sepulchrebythesea.bandcamp.com Sepulchre by the Sea is an atmospheric black metal band inspired by the works of Edgar Allen Poe. Springing from United Kingdom the multi-instrumentalist Ash has been working on this project since 2019. In November Sepulchre by the Sea released their first album Conqueror Worm, followed by the EP Ratiocinations.…
