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: Awakening Records/Futhark Records Here’s a group with an unfortunate name – Metal Archives knows three other artists named Cultist plus a small throng of alternate spellings, Discogs knows six Cultists, some with releases antedatring the current Cultist. Especially … Continue reading CULTIST: Spiritual Atrophy
Year: 2026Label: self-released I’ll be honest, I almost skipped this album in my promo queue because the name of the band sounded silly. I know, that’s a stupid reason to ignore a band, but when you’ve got hundreds and hundreds … Continue reading FUNERAL PILE: Summoning
Year: 2026Label: Century Media Seven years ago, Norwegian black metal pioneers Mayhem released their sixth studio album, Daemon (review). The album saw them abandon the decidedly progressive and experimental territory they’d explored on previous albums Esoteric Warfare (2014) and Ordo … Continue reading MAYHEM: Liturgy Of Death
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: Meuse Music Records Funeral doom has always been one of those genres that are great on paper, but in practice the execution often leaves something to be desired. Truth be told, just about the only album that fully … Continue reading ENNUI: Qroba
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: The Circle Music If you’ve studied your black metal history, the combination of Greece and Magus should bring to mind a legendary character within the genre. I am, of course, referring to Magus Wampyr Daoloth, a scene legend … Continue reading THE MAGUS: Daemonosophia
I’ve waxed poetical about the mythical days of yore, when not every nugget of information was available online and us teens of the 90’s would buy albums solely based on the album cover, title and the track names. See for … Continue reading From the Vaults #22: Into The Woods Of Belial
Only Death Is Real 