Sorcier des Glaces – Ritual of the End Cassette Pressing Coming Soon

Sorcier des GlacesRitual of the End, some of The Best Underground Metal of 2014, is coming out soon on compact cassette courtesy of Dread Records. French Canadian black metal maniacs who drive beat up old serial killer vans from the 80s like Buffalo Bill’s should pick it up. Everyone else should listen to Snowland MMXII and hate the human race.

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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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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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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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Irillion – Egledhron (2016)

Some releases go neglected upon release as their poor production makes it too hard to discern what is actually being played for those without neutral high-fidelity setups. Upon upgrading my own, I realized that Irillion’s debut Egledhron EP is one of them. The production is so muddy and filthy that even warm “audiophile” style setups have a hard time discerning what the downtuned and distorted electric guitars are playing. While two earlier Sadistic Metal Reviews from our staff noted the recording as a promising but inferior, listening on a more revealing setup reveals Irillion’s self-recorded musical intentions and goals: Irillion wish to play flowing Eastern European black metal like Graveland with a filthy Joined in Darkness era Demoncy style production and atmosphere and an almost Transilvanian Hunger manner of variation.

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Isvind, Sammath, and Standvast Playing Diabolical Echoes PT2

Sammath and Standvast have been booked to play the Diabolical Echoes PT 2 mini-festival with Norwegian black metal band Isvind in Groesbeek in the Netherlands on February 24th, 2018. Sammath is one of Death Metal Underground’s most highly praised modern bands while Standvast is an Ildjarn-like project from Nortfalke from Tarnkappe, Kjeld, and Kaeck. Sammath has long been a mainstay of our staff’s list of the The Best Underground Metal of the year so live shows from them should be a furious storm of riffs and whiplash.

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Ancient – Trolltaar Reissue

Ancient‘s last hurrah, the Trolltaar EP, has been reissued by Sleaszy Rider Records with three bonus live tracks from 1993 according to the band’s Facebook page. Trolltaar saw Ancient develop cyclical simple Enslaved style riffs into extended black metal epics inspired by the virtuosity of longer 1970s popular progressive rock songs from Yes, Pink Floyd, Camel, and Led Zeppelin. Ancient were one of the few death or black metal bands inspired by popular rock music where the mass-market inspirations did not render them impotent as a metal band at least at first. Ancient, lacking a truly distinct riffing style of their own, eventually ran out of ideas and decided to play Hot Topic rock after Svartalvheim and Trolltaar but that is a topic for another time.

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Kaeck – Stormkult Coming to Vinyl

Kaeck‘s Stormkult, The Best Underground Metal Album of 2015, is coming to vinyl courtesy of Heathen Tribes. The vinyl LP will feature remastered sound with a little less mud and a tad more room overhead. The LP will come in gatefold packaging befitting the lyrical and compositional themes. It will be strictly limited to 200 copies. If you are a black metal analog fanatic and miss out, you will be sorry for sure.

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Profanatica Playing Maryland Show Next Week

Profanatica are playing a one off show in suburban Silver Spring, Maryland, next week right outside of the politician-infested swamp that is Washington, D.C. This will be a good chance for capital area fanatics to see Profanatica live if they missed them at the Maryland Deathfest pre-show last year. Hopefully Profanatica will change up their set list and play songs not from from Sickened by the Holy Host / The Grand Masters Session EPs and the not so good The Curling Flame of Blasphemy. Recent shows have been very heavy on compositions from those three recordings.

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