Nokturnal Mortum Tease Verity

Ukranian blackened heavy metal/”flowing black metal“/black ‘n’ roll band Nokturnal Mortum posted a teaser of their new album, Істина (“Verity”), on Youtube. Will Verity match The Voice of Steel or will it be tripe worthy of only throwing at a homeless Eastern European alcoholic pestering you for change to buy Polish potato vodka that tastes like rubbing alcohol that a cat vomited in? Will Nokturnal Mortum blend the folk and heavy metal into effective compositions or will Verity suffer from lame breakdowns for Cossack line dancing? Let’s find out!

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Ananku Out on CD

Serpent Ascending‘s Ananku came out on CD recently courtesy of I, Voidhanger Records. The solo project of Jarno Nurmi of Desecresy, Serpent Ascending compose heavy and speed metal riffs into occult narratives of blackened death metal. Ananku is limited to 300 copies and may be purchased from Jarno Nurmi himself at the Serpent Ascending bandcamp page.

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Cóndor – Sangreal (2016)

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Condor again present a wholesale blending of death metal, classical guitar, folk, and progressive rock influences into epic heavy metal songs rather than pretending instrumental masturbation is intelligent like Dream Theater or that alternative rock with power chord chugging and a couple angular or dissonant riffs is metal like Bolzer. On Sangreal attempt to convey the romanticism behind the Arthurian legend, particularly the grail cycle concerning Percival or Galahad restoring fruit and flower to the desolate Waste Land rendered infertile by the sins of the maimed and emasculated Fisher King.

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Gorgoroth – Instinctus Bestialis (2015)

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Article by Anton Rudrick.

One clear sign that a band’s direction is compromised can be seen through unity of style. In this case, we see Gorgoroth lacking a clear voice of their own, in place of which Instinctus Bestialis offers three main ways of constructing sections and a rather pop-oriented way of building whole songs. The first is a bare bones neoclassical melodic method using two guitars, which is an interesting addition to traditionally more modal and harmonically chromatic genres such as death and black metal. Due to the foreign nature of these, the incorporation can be quite delicate and ought to be treated with the utmost care. The second is a collection of standard modern metal tropes ranging from the rhythmic intonations of deathcore with a low-string chug riff, probably inherited from the most prosaic speed metal. Last is the most important of the three in a rather unexpected choice in anthemic heavy metal, which happens to be the customary choice for commercial metal acts which have become barren of inspiration and direction.

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