One of the many things I love about being a music journalist is the never-ending stream of new music that comes my way on any given day. Sometimes it’s good stuff, sometimes it’s terrible, and sometimes it’s “where have you been all my life?” The last one is how I felt after just one listen to Kariti’s latest album, Still Life (Lay Bare Recordings).Continue reading
Drill For Absentee are a Philadelphia trio whose original run lasted from 1995 to 1999. Their catalogue is hardly the most extensive. Since their 2021 covid era reunion the band, Kevin Kelly – Bass, Guitar, Vocals, Michael Nace – Guitar, Vocals and new Drummer Ken Kuniyoshi (replacing co-founding member Bryan Sargent) have been busy in the recording studio. What they’ve come up with are two EP’s which have been put together as one LP (Note – Vol. 1 was put out digitally on September 13, 2022) while Vol 2 was forged between August 2022 to March 2025, out now via Expert Work Records. Continue reading
Today we delve into an experimental, cacophonous take on progressive death metal as VoidCeremony unveils their third full-length album, Abditum (20 Buck Spin Records). The band continues its search for meaning within chaotic riff structures, though this time the journey feels more fragmented than illuminating. Their trademark fusion of astral dissonance and technical precision remains intact, yet the cohesion that made their previous release, Threads of Unknowing, so compelling seems to have fractured. Continue reading
Missing Halloween by a couple of weeks, but still coming in well before Christmas, if you prefer the the smell of decaying flesh to mulled wine and mistletoe then look no further than the collaborative efforts of Season of the Dead. An array of US and European talent that come together in blood-soaked disharmony on full length debut release Zombie Chronicles Vol. 1 (Time To Kill Records). Continue reading
For Alice Ronzini (better known as Ailise Blake in her current musical guise) the visual component of her art is no incidental afterthought. Indeed the cover photo of her latest record Soave (These Hands Melt), with Blake sitting on a wooden frame, her face obscured, grass and trees around her, very well captures the mysterious, paganistic atmosphere of the music contained within. Continue reading
Ukrainian blackened stoic sentinels 1914 conjure their fourth full-length pantheon, Viribus Unitis (Napalm Records), Latin for “With United Forces.” The colossi title unveils the resilience through destruction and malice brought from war, building on the band’s acclaimed concept, delving further into vehemence and severity. Continue reading
Released under Terminus Hate City, Asheville-based All Hell releases their fifth full length album entitled Sunsetter– fusing altogether first wave Black Metal references with many other references too such as Deathrock, Punk, and film score type of atmospheres. Best known for occult-horror storytelling and narratively transgressive sounds, this time they conceptualized an album with a vast range from ancient myth to modern day apocalyptic undertones. The core themes being explored on this album include exile, rebirth, cosmic vengeance, lineage, vices and virtues, as well as the ordeals of surviving as well as apocalyptic worlds– incorporating references like Lilith, the curse of Cain, and a bloodline that is damned.Continue reading
Kali Malone and Drew McDowall’s Magnetism (Ideologic Organ) is the product of a decade-long friendship. McDowall is known for his work with Coil and Psychic TV, whilst Malone has forged a varied career including work in the field of contemporary classical music and collaborations with Stephen O’Malley, Lucy Railton, Caterina Barbieri and Leila Bordreuil. The two renowned artists got together in McDowall’s Brooklyn studio and began to spontaneously create, with the results ultimately being the the music that forms this album.Continue reading
In a way, every album has a story. In the case of Songs of Abandon (Supernatural Cat Records) though, the latest release from solo project THE MON, the story is a specific and unique one. Several years ago, Urlo (bass player and vocalist for doomy, heavy-rock unit Ufomammut) decided to try writing nine songs, each one in a day—just himself and an acoustic guitar. Fast forward to 2025 and Songs of Abandon comes as the first part of a two-album concept: Embrace The Abandon (to be followed by Songs of Embrace in the new year). The result is an intimate and eerie collection that favours subtlety over sonic extremes, while maintaining an understated power.
