COLDNESS/IRAE: We Are The Ashes Release year: 2023Label: Nekrogoat Heresy Productions Portugese black metal and the Portugese black metal sound is something of a thing. I suppose it can be safely called an acquired taste: often leaning towards the incessantly … Continue reading Portugese ashes
MOON ORACLE: Muse Of The Nightside Release year: 2021Label: Bestial Burst/Signal Rex Considering how black metal is supposed to be individualist music, where conformity, adhering to trends and following leaders blindly are tantamount to mortal sin, it’s almost funny how … Continue reading Nightside oracles
UNOHDUS: Niin turhaan tähdet valaisivat meitä Release year: 2023Label: self-released Newcomer Unohdus is – apparently- a one-man project from Finland, who describe their style as a mixture of depressive black metal and atmospheric metal. Well, nails and heads right there, … Continue reading Oblivion under the vain light of stars
LIVE BY THE SWORD: Cernunnos Release year: 2023Label: Rebellion Records If you’ve been following our site, you may have noticed we’ve heaped praise on US-Dutch Live By The Sword in the past, in our reviews of both their debut full-length … Continue reading Ages of Sword and the Horned God
ABSOLUTE KEY: The Third Level Of Decay Release year: 2022Label: Signal Rex Previously, we reviewed Finnish one man act Absolute Key’s Sundust (here), calling its combination of industrial and black metal “an album of intriguingly twisted esoteric electronics”. The prolific … Continue reading Keys to the three levels of decay
ABSOLUTE KEY: Sundust Release year: 2022Label: Nekrogoat Heresy Productions Describing something as a mixture of industrial and black metal will most likely conjure up all kinds of rather disparate images in people’s minds. Some will think of machinized beats and … Continue reading Absolute keys to fire and dust
It’s been a while since we did one of these. In fact, looks like in all of Only Death Is Real’s history, we’ve only done one year round-up. High time for a second one, don’t you think? So, here are … Continue reading A year in summation: 2022
SIGH: Eastern Darkness Release year: 2022Label: Peaceville Sigh from Japan are one of the original weirdos of black metal, who pretty much from the onset went left-field in their expression. Personally, I’ve mostly listened to their second album Infidel Art … Continue reading Origins of eastern darkness
PARAMILITANT: Emetic Spear Of Intolerance Release year: 2022Label: self-released What’s short, sweet and to the point? An emetic spear of intolerance, of course. Har har, geddit? No? Sorry. Abortive attempts at stupid jokes aside, Emetic Spear Of Intolerance is short, … Continue reading Paramilitant vomit-inducing spears
DJEVEL: Naa Skrider Natten Sort Release year: 2022Label: Aftermath Music We’ve reviewed Norwegian Djevel’s two previous albums (here and here), and have come to consider the band as something of a single-entity latter-day resurgence of the classic norsecore sound and … Continue reading In Djevel’s black night
Only Death Is Real 