Hænesy: EsentiaOut 25th September on Purity Through Fire Five years ago this Hungarian outfit presented an interesting proposition with ‘Garabontzia’, a black metal album crafted almost entirely fr…

Critical Defiance: Rivers of BloodOut 25th September on Dying Victims Productions 2024 was the year Critical Defiance suddenly caught the attention of a broader international audience with ‘The Sea…

Krolok: Hričov – Súľov – LietavaOut 25th September on Osmose Productions Slovakia’s Krolok continue to grow into their skin with this third offering. A finely balanced ingredients list …

Book report – Melancology: black metal theory and ecology Dominik Irtenkauf: [black metal theory] seems to be more about speculative interpretations of a musical sub-culture than developing a…

DecayOut 25th September on Relapse Records Hellfest 2010 was a pretty special festival. John Garcia got 75% of the band back together as Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri took the stage for a few number…

Hail Conjurer: Abyss & EkstasisOut 23rd September on Into Endless Chaos Records / Crypt of the Wizard Over several albums, Finland’s Hail Conjurer have been offering curiously deconstructive ta…

What does the metalhead do on their day off and why is it ambient? I listened to all the “black ambient” releases from the 90s to find out. Black metal ambient (Part I) In Part I we ranged through …

What does the metalhead do on their day off and why is it ambient? I listened to all the “black ambient” releases from the 90s to find out. If you were to press me on a pithy definition of metal, I…

Mittags-Abgrund: Mittags-AbgrundOut 15th September on Darkness Shall Rise Productions True to the legacy of Russian black metal, this is a piece of impeccably landscaped material, conjuring a fully…

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V bažinách vědomíOut 10th September on Me Saco Un Ojo / Dark Descent Records It’s been a long time coming, but finally Czechia’s Sněť deliver on the second album. The upgrades to the debut may be m…

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Atomic Aggressor: The Occult ForcesOut 28th August on Hells Headbangers With a history stretching back to the mid-80s, Atomic Aggressor are arguably one of the first to enter Chile’s death metal ra…

Rahaty: Bestial LustmordOut 28th August on Sentient Ruin Another attempt to bleed the deathgrind sponge dry without refreshing the underlying template. This time by taking things in a blackened dir…

Ceremonial Worship: Between Sleep and DeathOut 31st July on Eternal Death Undergoing something of an orchestral refit since their previous offering ‘Seven Gateways to Eternal Misanthropy’, the prom…

Hulder: VerbolgenOut 7th August on Season of Mist/20 Buck Spin Arranging the history of black metal into waves is a method as arbitrary as it is useful. The first wave being a retrospective concept…

Vafurlogi: Gneisti af eldi GuðsOut 26th June on NoEvDia/Oration True to the spirit of Icelandic black metal, this is a rhythmically informal, cyclically structured set of layered guitar chords defi…

Sepulcrum: LaceratorOut 24th July on Chaos Records Chile’s Sepulcrum land the second album with ease, delivering a near perfect elaboration on 2023’s ‘Lamentations of Immolated Souls’ without over …

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Sallow Moth: Hydrophilous BroodOut 24th July on Willowtip Records Surrealist brutal death metal redrafts elements of ‘Obscura’ and post 2000s Suffocation, but as with most contemporary avant-garde …

Towards RebirthOut 24th July on Dark Descent Records With its roots in Merciless or Massacra, but growing branches out to death metal with a more developed melodic palette comes the latest album fr…

Deathisthemasterofthisworld: Death is the Master of this WorldOut 8th July on New Era Productions From the mind of Jan Kruitwagen of Sammath and Kaeck fame comes this new dark ambient project. Spli…

Coprolith: PutrescenceOut 3rd July on Me Saco Un Ojo / Rotted Life Low effort death metal combines Incantation and Autopsy into a route one interpretation of death/doom, oscillating between slow an…

Czechia’s Brutal Assault just completed its twenty ninth cycle. And with festival season wrapping up, what better time to curse the nature of change by meticulously focusing on the gripes. 2026 was…

A hundred death metal albums not from the USA The final period in this series is also the ultimate motivation for this little exercise. There are few who would deny that death metal peaked between …

A hundred death metal albums not from the USA Between 1993 and 1994, death metal popped its head above the underground parapet to peek into the mainstream. From airplay on MTV’s Headbangers Ball, t…

Apocalyptic SteelOut 26th June on Season of Mist Underground Activists Say what you like about Nargaroth, but the guy dances to the beat of his own drum. In his earliest period Ash was simply conte…

A hundred death metal albums not from the USA Where were you in 92? Well, I was being shepherded between various preschool childcare arrangements, blissfully unaware of the exploding death metal sc…

Ultima RequiesOut 26th June on ATMF The third album from this Italian outfit relives the streaming lamentations of the Blazebirth Hall scene, but populates this infamously barren Russian style with…

Defiled: Altered StateOut 12th June on Season of Mist The latest effort from this long standing Japanese entity offers flashes of brilliance between long stretches of uninspired number crunching. S…

A hundred death metal albums not from the USA This is essentially a housekeeping exercise I decided to inflict on other eyeballs. A broad sweep through death metal’s classical era in a hundred albu…

The Temples of Offal/Return of the AncientsOut 10th June on ATMF (originally released in 1991) One often forgets that – along with the likes of Massacre and Napalm Death- Absu were another Tr…

Waan van de leegteOut 6th June on Terratur Possessions Similar to the recent Selenite Scrolls in its ability to insert itself into a very crowded style and still find room for a USP. This debut slo…

W.M.D.: Against all WarningsOut 5th June, self-released Tempers the legacy of Vektor into a tighter, more focused entity of progressive thrash. An earthy punk immediacy and even some hints at party…

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Channeling the EgregoreOut 15th May on Medieval Prophecy Records The debut album from this Belgium outfit marries the uncanny, atmospheric mysticism of Beherit and Demoncy with a more symphonic amb…

Oh no, a cheap clickbait listacle! Fear not, however, I come with good intentions. Staying abreast of new material in 2026 feels like navigating a tiny dinghy through a great storm of biblical scal…

Dire Garden of the AgesOut 29th May on Naturmacht Productions The second album from this Irish solo project could be framed as a transfer of styles from one zone to another. Whilst the debut behave…

Words by P.B. Elsewhere in this blog, it has been said that there are four metal subgenres — heavy, speed (incorrectly called “thrash”), death, and black.  However, in the article where this …

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Назустріч Останньому Світанку (Towards the Last Dawn)Out 29th May on ATMF The debut EP from this Ukrainian outfit is reminiscent of early Abigor in the way it roots a romanticist aspiration in the …

Dysthen: DysthenOut 29th May, self-released Brings a tight, crisp survey of Nordic black metal that, whilst not exactly offering anything new, justifies the extent of its emotive intensity through …

Fournier: DemoOut 22nd May on Caligari Records Angular, tangential death metal chases the dragon of compositional unity meshed with explicit complexity in the spirit of Immolation or Morbid Angel. …

The Secret of DeathOut 21st May on Xtreem Music Since the departure of Jarno Nurmi in 2016, Tommi Grönqvist has steered the good ship Desecresy in painfully incremental steps from one album to the …

MournholdOut 15th May on True Cult Records Following a promising debut that stitched a foggy haze of thrash and melodic death metal with a thread of black metal, Tyrannus push this loose alliance t…

Möhrkvlth: Gwenojennoù An Ankounac’hOut 5th May on Antiq Sickly sweet post hardcore rendered in black metal form. Every riff geared toward emotional catharsis, achieving nothing as a result g…

Permit me to perform a magic trick. Having not listened to a note of Darkthrone’s latest Darkthrone album, behold, as I begin typing a review: “another fearless, authentic, and infectiously f…

Lúgubres Devaneios De Abismos E SombrasOut 5th May on Haloran Records Portugal’s Grievance have long been a holdout of authentic second wave black metal most obviously cut from the cloth of – but n…

Ὅρκος ἐκλεκτῶνOut 30th April on Zombi Danz Records After five years of silence, Greece’s Caedes Cruenta return with an unprecedented document dump of material, spanning an hour and a half in length…

The First GeometryOut 26th April, self-released Somewhere between the arcane mysticism of formative Greek black metal and the barbaric militarism of early Graveland sits this self-released debut. R…