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SHORT BUT SWEET: ULTHA AND MORAST — A BATHORY TRIBUTE
During this past weekend two very good German bands released a split in which each of them covers a song by the almighty Bathory. The bands are Ultha and Morast. The split is available on Bandcmp...
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SHORT BUT SWEET: MONTE LUNA —“THE HOUND”
(Todd Manning provides this review of a debut EP by the Texas band Monte Luna.) Austin, Texas duo Monte Luna have just released their debut two-song demo on Bandcamp at the name-your-price level,...
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SEEN AND HEARD: BÖLZER, INSULTERS, PANZERGOD
I’ve been racking up the airline miles lately. I got back to Seattle late last night after a whirlwind trip to New York for my day job, one in which I probably spent as much time in airport security...
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SHADES OF BLACK: DRAUGSÓL, SROGOŚĆ, CANCER, LASHBLOOD, SHRINE OV BELIAL,...
Once again I find myself drowning in attractive new black metal. I’ve assembled some of my new discoveries in this post and have in mind pulling together a second round-up for tomorrow — but yes, I...
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ACHERONTAS / SLIDHR: “DEATH OF THE EGO / CHAINS OF THE FALLEN”
(Andy Synn wrote this review of the new split by Acherontas from Greece and Slidhr from Ireland.) A good split-release, such as the Nightbringer/Dødsengel effort Circumambulations of the Solar...
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A THANKSGIVING FEAST: NIDINGR, ENDALOK, DARKREVERIE, GRAVECOVEN, ECHELON,...
Here in the good old U.S. of A. it’s Thanksgiving Day today, and so to all of our American readers, I want to wish you a happy fucking Thanksgiving. And if you’re puzzling over what to be thankful...
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AN NCS EP PREMIERE: CHARLENE BERETAH —“DEPRAVED / A VERY LONG WEEK”
Let’s have a show of hands: How many of you are fans of Stanley Kubrick’s film Full Metal Jacket? Well, quite a lot of you, though I can’t say I’m surprised. Now, raise your hand if you remember...
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DARKNESS DESCENDS: AKSAYA, FROWNING, DDENT, MONTE PENUMBRA, FAMISHGOD,...
Lots of people are starting to make year-end lists, and we’re continuing to gear up for our own LISTMANIA extravaganza (we invited our readers to begin sharing their lists here earlier today), but...
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AN NSC EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW) MYLINGAR: “DÖDA VÄGAR”
Last month we premiered a song from the debut EP Döda Vägar by the mysterious Swedish band Mylingar. At that time I decided to defer my thoughts about the EP as a whole, with the idea of completing...
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CALL OF THE VOID: “AYFKM” (A REVIEW AND THE PREMIERE OF A SPECIAL VIDEO TRAILER)
This post is divided into three parts. It includes a review of the new EP, AYFKM, by Colorado’s Call of the Void, which will be released by Translation Loss on December 16. You’ll also find a brief...
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SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): EMPTINESS, HYPERDONTIA, ZOLOA, WIZARD UNION
As the title says, this is the second part of a round-up of new music I thought was worth sharing to begin this week. As often happens, in between posting Part 1 and this Part 2 I came across some...
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AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): UR —“HAIL DEATH”
I listen to a lot of new black metal every week. As most serious metal lovers are well aware, the genre has become remarkably diverse, so much so that I’d venture to say that it now encompasses more...
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KRALLICE: “PRELAPSARIAN”
(Andy Synn has pounced with alacrity upon the just-released Prelapsarian by Krallice and prepared this timely review.) Oh you poor, deluded fools… did you really think we were done with reviews,...
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BANDS YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING TO: STONE HEALER
(TheMadIsraeli wrote this feature about Connecticut-based Stone Healer.) About a week ago I spent some time digging for older releases by bands people should know about. Stone Healer is such a band...
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AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VACIVUS —“NUCLEAR CHAOS”
I first paid attention to the UK black/death metal band Vacivus when discovering their 2015 EP Rite of Ascension, much as one might pay attention to a nuclear air burst overhead, just before the...
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MISERIST: SELF-TITLED EP
(This is Todd Manning’s review of the debut EP by Australia’s mysterious Miserist.) A new year is upon us and there’s no reason to believe we’re not just one more step closer to the carnivorous...
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LEPROUS VORTEX SUN
(Austin Weber reviews the new album by the Belarusian band Leprous Vortex Sun.) Try as I might, it’s just not possible to catch every new gem that dropped in 2016, especially among releases that...
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AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VITRIOL —“VITRIOL”
Vitriol have accomplished something remarkable on their first release, in fact so remarkable that it’s going to leave the brains of a certain segment of the listening public spinning around like...
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SHORT BUT SWEET: POLARITY OF LIFE —“BEGINNING / END / BEGINNING”
(TheMadIsraeli prepared this brief review of the new EP by Polarity of Life from Croatia.) At least in terms of its global profile, Croatia seems to be a very underrepresented part of Europe, given...
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SHADES OF BLACK: FERNDAL, MYSTAGOS, HYPNOS, MORAST, ERDVE, MISERY, EDEN WEINT...
Those of you impeccably tasteful metal aficionados who follow my Shades of Black posts know that I was too incapacitated to get one done for last Sunday. So I’m doing one now, although none of the...
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