Month: August 2022

WHITE RUNE stream HAMMER OF HATE debut at – features members of SIELUNVIHOLLINEN, EHRE+++

Today, uprising Finnish black metallers White Rune stream the entirety of their highly anticipated debut album, Dawn of the White Rune. Set for international release on August 19th via Hammer of Hate, hear White Rune‘s Dawn of the White Rune in its entirety here:

Although a brand-new entity, White Rune are a duo of Sielunvihollinen frontman Ruttokieli on vocals, guitar, bass, and keyboards and his drummer brother Soldau, also currently of Ehre. In 2021, they exploded into being with two shockingly accomplished demos, The Spell of Winter Holocaust and The Eternal Fires of Cleansing, showing a new face to Finnish black metal by, paradoxically, harkening back to old times.

And now that face is fully revealed with the full-length Dawn of the White Rune. Indeed consolidating White Rune‘s considerable strengths, the band’s aptly titled debut album bursts forth with an effervescence that’s undeniable – and undeniably unique, within the wider sphere of Finnish black metal. With vampiric organ to the fore but thankfully eluding the mawkish excess of “vampiric black metal,” White Rune proceed to wind and wend through an ever-surging storm of mysticism and malevolence. Their violence is real and the passion palpable, but there’s a deft touch to their dynamics here; nightsky splendor and astral awe are always present, no matter the tempo, and actual lead guitar plays an equally central role in conveying the emotions coursing through Dawn of the White Rune. And while comparisons to contemporaneous countrymen Faustian Pact, Vargrav, and Mooncitadel are certainly valid, more accurately could White Rune here harken back to the late ’90s works of Darkwoods My Betrothed, Thyrane, Alghazanth, Trollheims Grott, and even …And Oceans, thereby bringing the lineage full circle like the Ouroboros itself.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, Hammer of Hate will also release a compilation titled The Spell of Eternal Fire, bringing together both White Rune demos. In the meantime, open thine eyes and witness the Dawn of the White Rune!

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for White Rune’s Dawn of the White Rune
1. Brought by the Touch of Death
2. The Iron Claws of Satan
3. White Rune Rising
4. Soulstorm
5. Death at Sundown
6. Echoes of Torment
7. Crimson Lament
8. The Ravenous Part 1 – Altar of Defeat
9. The Ravenous Part 2 – Torn Kingdom Come

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/WhiteRuneBM

Kvlt.fi

PAINGIVER sign with MEMENTO MORI, prepare debut album

In their endless quest to push and support current underground acts that perpetuate the odor of vintage death metal, Memento Mori are extremely thrilled to announce a new signing: Paingiver, from the United States.

Founded in 2020 by the brothers Sam and Zach Bigby in Houston, Texas, Paingiver is a crushing new band that delivers all the grit of riff-centered, charnel, and bone-shattering death metal with a textured and grimly dark approach and a massive sound, influenced by Grave, Morbid Angel, Bloodbath, Incantation, Blood Red Throne, Bolt Thrower… Eldritch Death Metal domination!

Memento Mori will unleash the CD version of their debut full-length in the first half of 2023. Further details to follow in the coming months. For more info, consult the links below.

MORE INFO:

www.facebook.com/paingivertx
www.paingiver.bandcamp.com

www.memento-mori.es

VATHR set release date for EDGED CIRCLE debut mini-album, reveal first track

Today, Edged Circle Productions announces September 16th as the international release date for Vathr‘s striking debut mini-album, Dead & United, on 12″ vinyl and cassette tape formats.

Vathr is a new band, but also an old one. True, it is a new formation hailing from Bergen, Norway, but the members behind the band hold a fiery past forged in the ancient days of the notorious early ’90s scene. But rather than namedrop and create perhaps-unrealistic expectations – much less rely on past laurels, for that matter – the members of Vathr instead want to burn down the past and build a better, more monolithic future.

Indeed, they accomplish exactly that with the short & sweet mini-album Dead & United. At three songs across 20 minutes, Vathr map out a soundworld parallel to Bathory’s immortal Blood Fire Death, but teasingly reveal provocative new paths splintering off it. With a stellar mix & mastering courtesy of C. Korsvold at Cloud City Studios, Bergen, Dead & United swirls and stomps with a seductive atmosphere, stoic and heroic at every turn but never rushed nor never belabored. It moves the way it moves, how it wants to, enveloping the listener in an invigorating iciness truly steeped in the tundra of ancient Norway. Vathr may sound familiar, but only because their black metal authentically hails from the darkest past.

To restate the obvious, Vathr awaken the ancient spirit with this first step into the fire. For fans of Blood Fire Death-era Bathory and early Nordic black metal – and this is but a foretaste of the band’s even-grander debut album forthcoming from Edged Circle!

In the meantime, hear the brand-new track “Crimson Cold Curse here:

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Vathr’s Dead & United
1. March of the Dead [6:09]
2. Messiah (Heaven Nor Hell) [5:27]
3. Crimson Cold Curse [8:19]

MORE INFO:
www.edgedcircleproductions.com

HANGHEDIEF set release date for IRON BONEHEAD debut mini-album, reveal first track – features members of POSSESSION, POX+++

Today, Iron Bonehead Productions announces October 14th as the international release date for Hanghedief‘s striking debut mini-album, Overduyvelsche Boosheit, on CD, 12″ vinyl, and cassette tape formats.

Hanghedief is a brand-new formation between the selfsame Hanghedief from Belgium’s POX and Possession‘s Pz. Kpfw. Together, both men stick to a strange ‘n’ singular style of black metal steeped in the more unorthodox days of the 1990s. Featuring five tracks across 25 minutes, the duo’s Overduyvelsche Boosheit is at once familiar and foreign. That they conclude the record with an Ancient Rites cover gives some clue to their no-less-beguiling direction, and the songs themselves – seemingly far more epic than their individual runtimes suggest – emit an elegant iciness comparable to very earliest Behemoth. However, with the almost-wholesale lack of bass (think Veles’ Black Hateful Metal), an eerily levitational sensation is created, which makes the medieval melodicism sound even more maniacal. Then, there’s Hanghedief‘s visual side, represented by the bright ‘n’ bold cover artwork of CINIS (Seresian Cobra) and especially the band’s similarly monstrous portraiture by same: an undoubtedly unique twist of the knife. In sum, Overduyvelsche Boosheit is the embodiment of CULT.

In the meantime, hear the brand-new track “1634, K.M.” here:

Aforementioned cover art and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Hanghedief’s Overduyvelsche Boosheit
1. 1611, V.C.
2. 1634, K.M.
3. Meesters van de Hooge Wercken
4. 1638, D.V.J.
5. Longing for the Ancient Kingdom II [Ancient Rites cover]

More Info here : Iron Bonehead Productions

ATRONOS set release date for PURITY THROUGH FIRE debut album, reveal first track – features members of MAVORIM, EISENKULT, AD MORTEM, DRUDENSANG+++

Today, Purity Through Fire announces September 21st as the international release date for Atronos‘ highly anticipated debut album, Fehde, on CD, A5 digipack, and cassette tape formats. The vinyl LP version will follow later.

Formed in 2020, it was not until early 2022 that Atronos released their first demo, Fehde. However, mainman Henker is a prolific underground veteran whose current bands include Ad Mortem, Drudensang, and Blodskut, so it should come as no surprise that Atronos arrived as an already-serious proposition. More specifically, Atronos is a continuation of Henker’s vision after the end of Temple of Oblivion; many of the ideas he had for that band are now becoming a reality under the Atronos banner. Undeniably Teutonic in their stoic march and folkish fury, the Fehde demo was absolutely addicting in its catchiness, so it was no surprise that Purity Through Fire reissued those demo tracks as a split with fellow Teutonic titans Eisenkult and made a blood pact with the band for their debut album.

Striking while the iron’s red-hot, Atronos unsheathe their debut album, Fehde. Indeed bearing the same title as their first demo, the debut album Fehde reprises that demo’s four tracks but in superior versions, sharper and more stealthy. In fact, to qualify the album as sharp and stealthy succinctly summarizes Atronos‘ secret of steel: raucous and rabble-rousing, for sure, their black metal nevertheless bleeds a noble heroism and marching glory that put Fehde in more serious territory than other punkish black metal. Touches of melancholy folk color their black-magick riffing, lending tragedy as much as triumph to that arsenal, and the ripp(l)ingly clear production only makes that attack that much more energizing and effervescent. Leading the charge is the addition of erstwhile Mavorim / Eisenkult vocalist Baptist, whose commanding annunciation sounds like the herald of ancient war. But above all, it’s the earworming songwriting that shows Atronos as true masters, even at this early juncture; you’d be hard-pressed to find a more powerful and professional iteration of modern roots-oriented German black metal than this.

Eight swords-aloft anthems, 37 mesmerizing minutes: Atronos have come to conquer with the debut album Fehde!

Raise the first sword with the brand-new track “Ohne Gestern, ohne Morgen” here:

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Atronos’ Fehde
1. Mit Speeren und Harpunen
2. Ohne Gestern, ohne Morgen
3. Dein Zauber
4. Feuer und Stahl
5. Der Pakt
6. Ich bin der Sieg
7. Nicht auf dieser Welt
8. Ein Gebet aus Panzerketten

MORE INFO:
www.atronos.bandcamp.com

EXORDIUM MORS set release date for new PRAETORIAN SWORD album, reveal first track

Today, Praetorian Sword Records announces October 31st as the international release date for the long-awaited second album of Exordium Mors, As Legends Fade and Gods Die, on vinyl LP and digital formats.

If there’s a word to describe Exordium Mors, it’s outlier. The New Zealand-based band have forged their own path for nearly two decades, disregarding the trends that have come and gone both within the established “underground” and in the more accepted sections of the metal world. This has resulted in hymns that are a chaotic and volatile blend of speed, dynamics, melody, vitriol, and outright violence – too hostile for technically minded “musicians” and, at the same time, too “technical” for those who like simple brutality music. Exordium Mors‘ sound is akin to a glorious sun burning everything in its sight.
 
The rabid words spat forth to this music rise from Ancient Roman and Hellenic wisdom forged with Satanism and Nietzschean thought: a parable of disdain against the modern world, against the 21st century morality and ultimately against death itself. Exordium Mors are comprised of men who draw from years of experience in metal, both in New Zealand and in Southeast Asia – life experience that knows that the human condition is the same everywhere and that humanity overall deserves contempt.   
 
Over the years, Exordium Mors have been branded “blackthrash,” but this term doesn’t do the band justice, as the music and lyrics are harsher, darker, and more complicated than most bands who fit that often-too-convenient description. Point proof is the band’s long-awaited second album, As Legends Fade and Gods Die. Eight long years after their cult The Apotheosis of Death debut, Exordium Mors‘ second long-playing salvo spreads ultraviolence in all directions, dizzying in construction and DEADLY in execution. There’s fire and finesse in equal measure, as epic songwriting gets ramped up to dangerous speeds and the listener’s sense of safety (and sanity) are wholly disregarded as the quintet dive headfirst into a maelstrom of malice and mystery. More than anything, As Legends Fade and Gods Die displays Exordium Mors at their most nuanced and also most unique; respectively, the production is crystal-clear and gleaming but sacrifices not one ounce of power, and the currents coursing through that songwriting bend and break metallic conventions to their own diabolic design. To restate the obvious, this band is an outlier and not for everybody, and their second album decisively draws a line in the blood-soaked sand.

“The reckoning of my soul hath liberated me from their path. No man is born equal. No man is born free.”

In the meantime, see & hear a visualizer for the brand-new track “A Pyrrhic Sacrament” here:

Also hear the track HERE at Exordium Mors‘ Bandcamp, where the album can also be preordered. Cover artwork, courtesy of Khaos Diktator Design, and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Exordium Mors’ As Legends Fade and Gods Die

1. I Saw Oblivion [5:57]
2. A Pyrrhic Sacrament [4:12]
3. Flesh Of The Heathen [8:25]
4. Surrounded By Serpents [4:23]
5. Crown Of Dust [7:30]
6. Torn Usunder [4:47]
7. Triumphator [8:06]

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/exordiummors
www.exordiummors.bandcamp.com  

www.praetoriansword.company.site

Blackened darkwavers Hours of Worship premiere new track

Today, blackened darkwavers Hours of Worship premiere the new track “There By The Window”. The track is the second to be revealed from the band’s highly anticipated debut album, The Cold That You Left, set for international release on August 19th via Iron Bonehead Productions. Hear Hours of Worship‘s “There By The Window” in its entirety here:

Hours of Worship are a New York City/Lisbon-based duo creating depressing music. Their music contains tragic sadness built around epic, doomed themes. Second-wave black metal atmosphere and goth depression appear in equal measures to create a distinct sound.

One listen to the duo’s debut album, The Cold That You Left, will leave a lasting impression that Hours of Worship have indeed created a distinct sound. While something electronically oriented being on Iron Bonehead may seem anathema to the label’s original tenets, it’s worth noting that Iron Bonehead first introduced Rope Sect and Light of the Morning Star to the world – both groups being far closer to deathrock and early goth than anything conventionally “extreme.” Nevertheless, the emotions coursing through The Cold That You Left are, in fact, extremely intense. Lyrically, Hours of Worship‘s deeply personal focus is on themes of nihilism, misanthropy, and veneration of isolation, and they wrap these weighty themes in a dark, sometimes-detouring pulse full of wide-open spaces. That the duo manage to somehow be paradoxically suffocating with this deceptively sensual, spacious sound is a black magick known only to them.

Beautifully bleak and impossibly dense, The Cold That You Left is a clarion call for all outsiders: members Trembling Master and Wound ruminate on their endless, cruel, and unusual hate for this piece-of-shit world. Fans of Death in June, Type O Negative, early The Cure, Shape of Despair, and Lifelover will embrace Hours of Worship‘s uniquely hopeless offering.

Begin embracing hopelessness with the previously revealed “Your Lonely Death My Crown” HERE at Iron Bonehead‘s Soundcloud. Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Hours of Worship’s The Cold That You Left
1. Your Lonely Death My Crown
2. Fear in Bloom
3. Watching You Beg for Your Life
4. Ancient Pain
5. Deep Depression
6. A Wretch and a Liar
7. I Know It Hurts You
8. There By the Window
9. Wasting Away Forever

For more info:

Iron Bonehead Productions

WEREGOAT stream new IRON BONEHEAD / PARASITIC mini-album


Today, American barbarians Weregoat stream the entirety of their highly anticipated new mini-album, The Devil’s Lust. Set for international release on August 12th via Iron Bonehead Productions in conspiracy with Parasitic Records, hear Weregoat‘s The Devil’s Lust in its entirety here:

Formed in 2009, Weregoat have assaulted the black/death underground on their own terms. The power-trio are all veterans of the Portland, Oregon extreme metal scene, and while Weregoat‘s catalog to date has been patiently sparse, with the 2017 debut LP Pestilential Rites of Infernal Fornication being their most recent studio recording, they more than make up for this paucity with a pulverizing sound that’s OTT bestiality personified.

And so it goes with The Devil’s Lust, Weregoat‘s first new recording in five years. Characteristically graced with hypersexual cover art courtesy of the legendary Rok, Weregoat waste no time in approximating that tableau with their bestial black/death. Uniquely, the production across the six-song/23-minute record is sharper, drier, and more brittle than most of their bestial brethren. However, with this newfound clarity do the trio render their attack more unhinged than ever, as every element literally assaults from every angle in 3D dementia. And, just as they’ve proven over their handful of records the past decade, Weregoat have a keen knack for actual catchiness, further elevating the band away from the usual Black Witchery / Archgoat clones and closer to Vulcano and very earliest Sepultura.

No other words necessary: this is Weregoat‘s fucking The Devil’s Lust!

Aforementioned cover artwork and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Weregoat’s The Devil’s Lust
1. Tempter! Abuser! Satan her Master! [3:34]
2. Merciless Execution [2:29]
3. Festering Womb of Uncreation [4:54]
4. The Devil’s Lust [3:44]
5. Goat Perversion [3:46]
6. Burn Deep the Signs of Hell [4:21]

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/pages/Weregoat/194437767248125 

CELESTIAL GRAVE set release date for new THE SINISTER FLAME album

On September 23rd, the autumn equinox, The Sinister Flame is proud to present Celestial Grave’s highly anticipated second album, Vitriolic Atonement, on CD, vinyl LP, and cassette tape formats.
 
Since their public unveiling in 2016 with the hideous & haunting Burial Ground Trance demo, Finland’s Celestial Grave have been steadily perfecting a craft that already arrived fully formed. While the band’s brand of black metal does bear some semblance to certain sectors of their native land’s long-running and -esteemed scene, Celestial Grave largely unshackle themselves from “Finnish black metal” and locate a muse that’s uniquely focused and fiercely personal. Such was the case with the epic four-song Secular Flesh debut album in 2019, and now, three years later, that case is even stronger with their second album, Vitriolic Atonement.

“Vitriolic Atonement is a sonic and visual exploration of the dreadful yet beautiful aspects of life and death,” they begin. “It was a comprehensive work for us, where not only the music and lyrics but also the artwork were really central from the start.”
 
Indeed, lose thyself in the hypnotic layers of that cover art and you’ll begin to understand the experience that awaits within Vitriolic Atonement. In a most disarming fashion, Celestial Grave here sound both bolder and more brittle – robust lead lines painting melancholy and might in equal measure, the execution seemingly more scattered and strident, the songwriting tending toward the anthemic yet upended by haunting twists of texture – whilst not losing that mesmerizing personality that made its predecessors so compelling. As such, Vitriolic Atonement is a full-album experience that’s paradoxically more approachable and more alien: allow that wounded melodicism into your soul, all enticingly come-hither, and then witness the swirlingly obsidian rot spread.

“Vitriolic Atonement goes through different sacraments and rites,” they conclude. “Inhale and take in the aspects of darkness, death, and the beyond that are in reach on this mortal plane. Give in, admire its beauty, and come to terms with it. Prepare for the inevitable, because the beyond will be something no mind nor soul can fully comprehend.”

First track premiere to be revealed shortly. Aforementioned cover art and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Celestial Grave’s Vitriolic Atonement
1. Eucharist [5:57]
2. Cadaverous Solace [6:03]
3. Clemency [7:55]
4. The Abyss Exhales [3:34]
5. Exaltation [5:32]
6. Radiant Tides Below [5:03]


MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/celestialgrave

www.thesinisterflame.com
www.facebook.com/thesinisterflame

SKARE set release date for AMOR FATI debut, reveal first track

On September 12th internationally, Amor Fati Productions is proud to present Skare‘s striking debut album, simply self-titled Skare, on vinyl LP format. The CD version will be released by Dark Adversary Productions.

A mysterious entity perhaps hailing from the ever-fertile Australian black metal underground, Skare is both traditionalism and idiosyncrasy defined. The band’s sound is undoubtedly rooted in the ancient tropes of ’90s black metal classicism – magick, mysticism, medieval madness – and across the epic expanses of Skare does the band lead the listener on a winding, cobwebbed path of frostbitten fury and majestic melancholy. Peel away those cobwebs and one will find unselfconscious twists of the knife that draw in funer(e)al doom and organ-led dementia, impossibly acrobatic riffing and even-more-impossibly engaging melodicism, and most crucially songwriting that’s simultaneously direct and distant. Which is to say nothing of the production and tones of the album, which evade the usual cliches of “raw” and harken more to an earthy, almost rock ‘n’ roll vintage. Truly, Skare in general and Skare in particular are mystery made flesh, and the 35 minutes contained herein unfold new vistas of the imagination.

Whether your taste runs from the sanguineous surge of old Obtained Enslavement or the swords-drawn swoosh of Perished or especially the recent-years revival of vampiric black metal, Skare‘s debut album is a vital sign of undead life.

The first vital sign can be found with the brand-new track “Threshold Into Death” here:

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Skare’s Skare
1. The Lonesome Ibex [4:39]
2. A Sordid Ceremony [7:38]
3. Beyond The Church Spires [10:10]
4. The Threshold Into Death [6:44]
5. Into Icy Pewter Sky [5:41]

www.amor-fati-productions.de 
www.amorfatiproductions.bandcamp.com