Thirty Years Under the Sign of the Black Mark

Bathory‘s Under the Sign of the Black Mark turned turned thirty years​ old last month. The album marked the start of Quorthon adding in the epic atmosphere of Manowar and Iron Maiden which would come to fruition on Blood Fire Death. Under the Sign of the Black Mark also happened to be one of the first black metal CDs I ever purchased, which I preceded to play non-stop for about a week until getting bored of it and going back to listening to Altars of Madness.

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Rainbow Releases Two New Songs

Rainbow has just released two new recording songs for the first time in over two decades. “Land of Hope and Glory” is  Ritchie Blackmore reworking the traditional British song and the band also rerecorded their 1981 glam rock song “I Surrender” with their current vocalist, Ronnie Romero.

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Tobacco Activists Launch “World Smoke Tobacco Day” To Counter “World No Tobacco Day”

Your elected leaders and tax dollars go toward a nanny state that wants to tell you what you cannot do simply because other people are screwing up in many ways, and if the politicians pick the easy problems instead of the hard ones, they can get re-elected because they made an appearance of doing something while doing nothing that they can actually fail at. (more…)

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Gawith, Hoggarth & Co. – Burley And Bright

Long ago, there was Nicotiana Rustica which the Asian natives of the New World smoked in various forms. It had a taste like burnt squash when smoked and a potent blast of Nicotine. The Caucasian newcomers began to experiment with different cultivars of Nicotiana, and eventually settled on using Nicotiana Tabacum, a domesticated version from South America. (more…)

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Sammath & Standvast Löberschütz Show 2/23/2018

Sammath, Standvast, and Isvind are playing a show in Löberschütz, Thuringia, Germany on February 23rd, 2018, the night before their Diabolical Echoes PT2 gig. German fans in the area should check it out as Sammath are the most ferocious current death and black metal band. Yes both death and black metal. Sammath are that good if our staff have not emphasized that enough. Standvast aren’t bad either but they’re no Sammath; Standvast are not going to go Duke Nukem on posers and hipsters like Sammath will.

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Death Fortress Preview “The Warrior’s Mantle”

Death Fortress previewed a new track, “The Warrior’s Mantle”, from their upcoming album Triumph of the Undying. Unlike the band’s earlier material such as Deathless March of the Unyielding, the primary influence of “The Warrior’s Mantle” seems to be Immortal instead of Hate Forest. This is a sign of potentially great improvements. Have Death Fortress ascended the “Mountains of Might” to join the lords of the raven realm in Valhalla? Probably not but we will have to see when Triumph of the Undying is actually released.

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Vallenfyre Preview New Album

Vallenfyre premiered a new Swedish sounding track, “Nihilist” (Get it?) from their upcoming album, Fear Those Who Fear Him, which comes out June 2nd on Century Media. “Nihilist” is nothing special in the grand scheme of things but is not nearly as godawful as much of the metalcore pretending to be metal today. The earlier preview track, “An Apathetic Grave”, was reminiscent of Autopsy, one of the main influences on Entombed, Carnage, Dismember, and Grave.

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Desecresy Releases First Single “Amidst” From Fifth Album The Mortal Horizon To Be Released In August

Finnish ambient death metal band Desecresy let loose its single “Amidst” yesterday. This track comes to us from the fifth Desecresy album, The Mortal Horizon, which will be released in August through Xtreem Music, who released the four previous full-lengths from the band.

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White Death – White Death (2017)

White Death turn black metal into pop rock on their self-titled album, White Death, for scenesters who want to be tough and are mad that black metal songwriting was based melodic narratives instead of hooky pop-singalongs like Gothenburg metal. White Death aim to reach out to that group of scenesters who used to shop at Hot Topic back when they were teenagers. White Death even have an edgy Finnish nationalist theme to go with their generic, non-descript Satanism! Scenesters don’t have to want to send the world back to the Dark Ages anymore, they can just drink beer for the evil and chant sing-alongs about the 5’3 Simo Häyhä shooting hundreds of frost-bitten Ivans! Wait White Death’s lyrics are not even about the Winter War, just generic mall Satanism; the Auntie Anne’s Pretzels of evil.

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