Year: 2025Label: self-released Although Finnish Altar Of Despair have been at it for a while already, ever since 2018 in fact, to the best of my knowledge this is their first release in a physical format. The band, still unsigned, … Continue reading ALTAR OF DESPAIR: Severance
Year: 2026Label: Bestial Burst Finnish Annihilatus have a long history behind them, but not a very long discography. Since their inception in 1999, the group have released only three albums, a mini-album and some sundries. One obvious explanation might be … Continue reading ANNIHILATUS: Exterminate
Year: 2026Label: New Approach Records The ever-amorphous, ever-unpredictable Absolute Key return with another album that sees them shift form. Experimentalism has always remained a core element of the Finnish one-man project, but within that loose context, they’ve explored a width … Continue reading ABSOLUTE KEY: Facets Of War
If you were Finnish and into black metal around the turn of the millennium, most likely you were familiar with Thyrane. And if you were from anywhere else, odds are you never heard of them, let alone heard them. Such … Continue reading From the Vaults #24: Black Harmony
Year: 2026Label: self-released Is the New Wave of Traditional Doom Metal still a thing? Probably to some extent, though not as much as in the heyday of Reverend Bizarre and the many who trod in their footsteps. It is, after … Continue reading DROWNING WITCH: s/t
Year: 2026Label: self-released There’s some new kids on the block. Finnish death metal has been going through a veritable resurgence in the last few years, with a new, young generation of kids discovering the joys of guttural vocals, down tuned … Continue reading INTUBATION: Undifferentiated Malignancies
Year: 2025Label: Out Of The Dungeon Finnish Geatkihaukr opt for a heavy dose of obscurity in their black metal. The name itself is entirely mysterious, and the font used in the booklet will give anyone who tries to decipher especially … Continue reading GEATKIHAUKR: Varjaeger
Year: 2025Label: Prophecy I’ll be honest: prior to this album, I’d heard maybe one song by Hexvessel, so this review isn’t exactly based on an in-depth knowledge of their past discography. But then again, up until recently, the band played … Continue reading HEXVESSEL: Nocturne
Year: 2025Label: Dark Descent Records There’s a bit of a death metal revival going on in Finland. A lot of new bands are popping up, many of them with young musicians; some are still in their teens, some are in … Continue reading SEPULCHRAL CURSE: Crimson Moon Evocation
Finnish The Chamberlain’s debut album Draconian Magick (review) came pretty much like a bolt out of the blue in early 2025. We admit, perhaps to our own detriment, that here at ODIR we’d never even heard of them. All of … Continue reading Talking elitism and appeal with The Chamberlain
Only Death Is Real 