Mancunian trio Burial stand out for more reasons than the impressive collective build of its members: its particular brand of Blackened Death has ensured that the band maintained a popularity within its locale and beyond. Their third album Satanic Upheaval (Apocalyptic Witchcraft Recordings) is its first outing in four years and is just as uncompromising in its approach.Continue reading
I’m just going to come right out and say it: Italy’s Forgotten Tomb is one of the most criminally underrated bands in the Harsh Doom arena, most probably because its early fanbase still feels aggrieved at its reinvention from a Black metal band. Get over it: it’s been that way for the last seventeen years and eight albums. With a solid unit existing throughout that period, it’s also safe to say that this is more than Herr Morbid‘s project, and new album Nihilistic Estrangement (Agonia Records) continues to display the trio’s ever-strengthening unity with expansions on the core sound.Continue reading
When Green Carnation, the progressive Norwegian sextet that gave birth to avant-Black pioneers In The Woods, split for the second time in 2007, no-one gave it a cat in hell’s chance of reformation. Yet the green (ahem) shots of recovery spawned with 2018’s live album Last Day of Darkness (Prophecy Productions), and here we are with the band’s sixth album Leaves of Yesteryear (Season of Mist), in what is the 30th anniversary of its formation.Continue reading
There are some excellent Stoner Blues albums around right now, with enough beef to wake you from that delightful trip around the Mojave on the back of some languid solo work. The name of Memphis quintet The Heavy Eyes speaks of a lull into one of those shamanic stupors, but fourth album Love Like Machines (Kozmik Artifactz) has a ‘bad boy’ image to keep those peepers open.Continue reading
I hadn’t registered so much as a whisper of St Louis trio Wretched Empires…until I learned that vocalist Tom Ballard was also the frontman for UK Sludge-Doomers Allfather. THEN my ears pricked up. Debut EP Bloom (Independent Release) shows the new outfit to be of a Blackened persuasion, which is even more of a surprise upon realising that the other two members of the unit were formerly part of Alt-Indie sextet Redbait. Curious indeed…Continue reading
Usually, Metal from Finland is incarcerated inside a cocoon of cold Death and/or melancholy. For the last seven years, however, Helsinki trio Slave Hands has rebelled against the norm to peddle a particularly horrific brand of Doom-flavoured Sludge, and No More Feelings (Dry Cough Records/Gate Of Deliria/Minor Obscure/Sewer Prison), the band’s fourth album in that time, continues down that solitary, diseased path.Continue reading
Apparently pronounced ‘parentes 0 parentes’, Danish quintet (0) displayed arty leanings right from its beginnings: the four tracks on debut EP (0) (Self-Released) affirming the band’s fascination with numbers by being named merely after the track lengths. Debut album SkamHan (Napalm Records) expands to give imaginative song titles and further explore the dark experimentalism that was tested within that initial foray.Continue reading
“Ethereal Rock?!”, I hear you exclaim. Oh aye. Look, just stick with me on this. The U2-esque jangling chords of Celtic Rock – check; the delicate, swirling atmospheres of Ambient Drone – check; the drifting, gossamer beauty of the heavenly hereafter – check. See? Told you. Michigan duo Windy Weber and Carl Hultgren, purely known as Windy and Carl, have been quietly growing this subtle monster for two decades and latest album Allegiance and Conviction (Kranky Records), written and composed over six years, musters all of the above criteria in a realm of sinister grace.Continue reading
‘Twas a mere fifteen months ago that Baton Rouge, Louisiana trio Woorms released debut album Slake (Sludgelord Records), its grooves twisted into nasty bites of hostile Sludge Metal. Follow-up Twitching, As Prey (Sludgelord Records), stays hot on the heels of that initial full-length, both chronologically and in temperament, but shows a maturity and an inventiveness far beyond its predecessor.Continue reading
If a band consists of members from Ne Obliviscaris and Todtgelichter, it’s a fair bet that the results will be 1) bloody dark, 2) as mad as a sheep in a tree. Sure enough, Omega Infinity provides all of this, with the frosted vocal of the Aussies’ mystical Xenoyr tangling with the musical machinations of ‘lichter drummer and keyboardist Tentakel P for debut album Solar Spectre (Season of Mist).Continue reading