Year: 2025Label: Zazen Sounds/Monastyr Records/Forbidden Keep Records Those who’ve been following this site for a while might have realized that my tastes in black metal lean in a very specific direction. If it’s knuckleheadedly, primitively and stubbornly bestial; if it … Continue reading CELESTIAL SILENCE: Silent Calls From The Other Side
Year: 1992/2025Label: Misantropia Records We’re going about this a bit backwards, reviewing first Polish black metal legend Graveland’s third demo and turning our gaze now to the first and second demos. Honestly, we could come up with some fancy and … Continue reading GRAVELAND: Necromanteion
Year: 1992/2025Label: Misantropia Records Polish Graveland have had a few distinct phases in their career. Nowadays they are known for a very epic brand of viking black metal, where the influences from viking era Bathory are proudly on display. However, … Continue reading GRAVELAND: Drunemeton
Legendary heavy metal singer, front man and larger-than-life persona Ozzy Osbourne (1948-2025) passed away yesterday at the age of 76. News of his passing came mere weeks after his final concert, the massive Back To The Beginning event in Birmingham, … Continue reading In memoriam: Ozzy Osbourne
Year: 2025Label: Bestial Burst Famously, the old saying proclaims that third time’s the charm. Finnish black metal trio Moon Oracle prove that with their third album. In our reviews of their two earlier albums (here and here) we applauded the … Continue reading MOON ORACLE: Guardians Of The Lunar Spheres
Year: 2025Label: Kymijoen levyt Everything about Finnish Kuningas and their new, second EP Naisia spells out loudly in big capital letters an earnest albeit clumsy love for heavy metal. From the shakily hand-written promo sheet to the rudimentary cover art … Continue reading KUNINGAS: Naisia
Year: 2025Label: Altare Productions/Purity Through Fire We’ve come a long way from the inception of black metal, from the days when a one-sided satanic outlook was an absolute necessity for the genre. I don’t think an album inspired by the … Continue reading PRIEURÉ: Jusqu’au Bénitier
Year: 2024Label: Rebellion Records Rebellion Records are really ushering into a new era of crossover as of late – or maybe label owner Wouter is, more like. His band Live By The Sword has been pushing the envelope of how … Continue reading HEATHEN PEACE: Civilisation Ends Here…
Year: 2025Label: Rebellion Records With their third album, US-Dutch Live By The Sword keep on consolidating their sound, and staying away from anything easy to pigeonhole. At this stage, the band exist in a liminal zone between metal and oi!, … Continue reading LIVE BY THE SWORD: The Pagan Pantheon
Year: 2025Label: Theogonia Records Greek black metal act Lloth have a long and somewhat winding history. The group was originally formed in 1995, and released a single demo in 1997. After that, they changed their name to Astarte, who were … Continue reading LLOTH: Archees Legeones
Only Death Is Real 