Article by David Rosales.
A legendary time and place for underground metal, the Norway of 1993 is an esoteric landmark (1994 being the exoteric) in time and space in black metal history. It saw the rise of a mythology of its own, the mythology of black metal, and an eventual catastrophic demise worthy of a saga of its own.
25 CommentsTags: 1993, Black Metal, burzum, darkthrone, Det Som Engang Var, gorgoroth, norway, pentagram, Under a Funeral Moon
Greyhaze Records is reissuing Sarcófago‘s 1989 Rotting EP on CD in digipack format this September.
No CommentsTags: beer metal, Black Metal, Brazil, Crossover, crossover thrash, death metal, digipak, EP, Greyhaze Records, reissue, sarcofago, Speed Metal, thrash metal
Sammath have replaced their long term drummer, Koos Bos, with Wim van der Valk of Inquisitor.
6 CommentsTags: Black Metal, death metal, hammerheart records, Inquisitor, jan kruitwagen, new drummer, news, sammath
Only the flames can purify these rehashed and generic sinners.
17 CommentsTags: Advermix, Black Metal, Daat, metalcore, modern metal, sadistic metal reviews, Speed Metal, ThrOes
Article by Lance Viggiano.
Into the Cunt of the Witch is grainy fatalistic pap embellished with agonizing atonal voids where music should exist. When the haze clears just enough for a melody to become audible it possesses a character of passivity and reception but is always intensely grating in its pointlessness. The tired corpse of speed metal and heavy metal drags lethargically through chromatic sections that form the locus of this work. Lightly struck syncopated rhythms are relied too heavily upon and flatten into a sterile ticking that results in a pure time keeping effect not unlike a distraught prisoner tallying his cell wall; tracking his sentence until his song merely ends – a fair metaphor for the experience of this record. Individual songs are parts of four whole works and do not stand well on their own; ending abruptly without proper conclusions before jumping into the next section in a greater cycle. Vocals operate in two essential modes: an apathetic crooning within artificial caverns as well as a faux-distraught occult street preacher reminiscent of contemporary orthodox/occult black metal.
30 CommentsTags: 2016, Black Metal, Blliigghhtted, female vocals, hipster bullshit, Into the Cunt of the Witch, modern metal, sadistic metal reviews, women in metal
Artistically bankrupt metal bands typically rerecord their early material after milking the revenue streams dry through reissues, remasters, anniversary tours, and boxed sets. While the original recordings typically aren’t pristine productions, all charm is lost in the sample-replaced, quantized, digitally-reamped, and phase-butchered retreads shat out by an obsessive tinkerer’s digital audio workstation. All enthusiasm in the performances is butchered by years of alcohol abuse and aging journeyman musicians collecting just another paycheck, e.g. Sodom’s The Final Sign of Evil, Manowar’s Battle Hymns MMXI, and Bolt Thrower’s “World Eater ‘94”. Snowland MMXII is one of the few exceptions to this rule of rehash.
5 CommentsTags: 2012, Black Metal, rerecording, review, Snowland MMXII, sorcier des glaces
Article by David Rosales.
More Ghost Scooby-Doo music mixed with random Deathspell Omega retardation than cohesive and nuanced terror, Sovereign Nailing Shut the Sacrosanct Orifice presents yet another example of the many failures of modern black metal: pretentious in lyrical orientation, vacuous in concrete musical content, mediocre in the putting together of structures that form an intelligible narrative. The lyrics themselves, in any case, will appear cursorily written, superficial, and sensationalist for anyone that has delved semi-seriously into the subjects.
1 CommentTags: Black Metal, hipster bullshit, modern metal, Nailing Shut the Sacrosanct Orifice, poser metal, posers, sadistic metal reviews, sovereign
Article by David Rosales.
Splits are usually revealing for reasons the bands do not intend. By allowing their music to be placed alongside that of another band in a way that listening to them one after the other is not only encouraged but, in metal culture, almost mandatory, they make comparisons and judgements based on performance differences inevitable. The aim might be to publish a few tracks more efficiently and getting the music to more people since people who know one of the two bands will listen to the other band out of curiosity. The more zealous metal fans, however, are bound to make harsher judgements of anything that is placed too close to the band they follow.
8 CommentsTags: black 'n roll, Black Metal, flowing black metal, folk, folk metal, graveland, neofolk, nokturnal mortum, review, split, synth neofolk
Sanctuaire hearken back to an imagined Canadian Viking past in the hope of explaining their national hockey skills. Le Sang sur l’Acier presents three black metal songs written in a style similar to their compatriots Sorcier des Glaces but genericized for mass appeal.
3 CommentsTags: 2016, Black Metal, canada, Canadian Black Metal, EP, Le Sang sur l'Acier, modern metal, quebec, Québécois, Sanctuaire, Viking Metal
Article by Corey M.
Tags: 2014, Black Metal, Italy, mortuary drape, review, Speed Metal
