The five-piece atmospheric black metal act Ershetu releases debut album entitled Xibalba (Debemur Morti Productions), a label focusing on Black, Death, Doom, Sludge amd avant-garde extreme metal, and which has worked with several renowned names such as Blut Aus Nord and Archgoat.
American Gothic (Profound Lore) opens with a great deal of fanfare – a Western-tinged throb of guitar before you are reminded Wayfarer are a Black Metal band: snarled vocals control the mic, the drummer leans into a deliberate double-bass attack rather than joining the blast-beaten status quo… the band displaying a dynamic progression as songwriters on their fifth album as they continue to get even better with each release.
There is something about the wine in France that brings out a unique progressive slant to the Black Metal that hails from its soil. Ardraos (Florian Denis) is a part of this legacy, and he is now forging his own path with Sühnopfer. From the opening track of fourth offering Nous sommes d’Hierument (Debemur Morti), a powerful, impactful musical statement, he lashes out with a dynamic blend of melodic atmosphere, expanding the mood beyond the screams of torment hurtling at you. Choirs ring out from the background of the blackened chaos, baroque themes woven in are taken from composers Charpentier and Cherubini.
I’ve been looking forward to wrapping my ears around Svalbard’s new material after catching snippets of what was to come when I caught them live supporting Russian Circles and Cult Of Luna over in Berlin earlier in 2023. And landing that European tour signified a fine start to a year which has also seen the Bristol based band sign for Nuclear Blast Records, with The Weight Of The Mask their first album for the prestigious new label and their first collection of new songs since the excellent When I Die, Will I Get Better? which was released on Church Road Records back in 2020.
Ask anyone to name their all time favourite Irish metal bands and Primordial will likely sit near the top, if not at the very summit of the list. Formed three decades ago but with roots that date back further to when they were known as Forsaken, the Dublin based act have only ever made the barest minimum of changes to their line-up over the years, their most recent move seeing them return to operating with four members after nearly twenty years as a five-piece.
It has been six years since we last saw new material from Chris Grigg’s Black Metal outfit Woe, and on a global scale it has certainly been an eventful and ultimately catastrophic time in which humanity seems consciously hell-bent on self-destruction and that of the world itself. It is pretty easy to see therefore just where Grigg’s inspiration comes from in the overarching narrative of Legacies of Frailty (Vendetta Records), an album that holds the anguish of such at its forefront alongside a sound of striking ferocity.
Having reviewed Grave Pleasures‘ Plagueboys for Ghost Cult earlier this year, as a Mat McNerney fan I was excited to see he had another record out, this time via his folk-orientated project Hexvessel.
Mayhem have one of extreme metal’s most *ahem* colorful histories. With that notoriety along with their groundbreaking and phenomenal album, De Myseriis Dom Sathanas, Mayhem has always been the black metal band to check out when you first discover the genre.
Black metal, in and of itself, can be very polarizing due to the imagery, lyrical content, and if the band is “true” black metal or not (side note: what a stupid debate to have). One such polarizing band, UADA, has dropped their fourth full-length album, Crepuscule Natura (Eisenwald Records) and is some of their best work to date. Sticking to their signature melodic black metal sound with lyrics mostly about nature and the cosmos, the Portland, Oregon, four-piece put us on a spiritual journey for forty minutes.
Disharmonium – Nahal (Debemur Morti Productions) is the sixteenth full-length release from Blut Aus Nord, the enigmatic French avant-garde black metal band that have now existed for thirty years. Following on from last year’s Disharmonium – Undreamable Abysses, this new record also draws inspiration from H.P Lovecraft and is claimed by its accompanying press release to be “womb-like, detail-rich, disturbed and transformative”.
