Today, Teutonic black metallers Pestlegion stream the entirety of their highly anticipated second album, Sathanas Grand Victoria. Set for international release on September 30th via Osmose Productions on CD format – the vinyl LP version will follow later this year – hear Pestlegion‘s Sathanas Grand Victoria in its entirety here:
The German black metal kommando Pestlegion was founded in 2012. They released the CD-EP March To War in 2014, the debut album CD Dominus Profundum in 2017, and the 7″ vinyl EP Entsage Gott in 2018.
With Sathanas Grand Victoria, Pestlegion return with a grim black assault on all that is holy. Their 2022 album destroys all hope for a better future by focusing on the essence of human life and efforts; it concentrates on death itself, the final victory of the seducer of mankind. The four German maniacs composed eight songs which lead into a dark and lost existence, surrounded by fear and infernal thunder. Pestlegion soundscapes are wide and dynamic but primitive and analogue at the same time.
Mixed and mastered by Sodom drummer Toni Merkel and backed up by Tom Angelripper’s vocals, Pestlegion clearly show that they deeply stick in the old-school beginning of black metal but propel the genre to a new and ghastly highlight, compounding darkness, speed, brutality, and atmosphere to a sheer cacophony…supporting everything which sounds unholy or even dead.
Preorder info can be found HERE. Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Pestlegion’s Sathanas Grand Victoria 1. Intro 2. We Deny Thy Name 3. The Portal 4. Into The Golden Valley 5. Ketzer Reim 6. Sathanas Grand Victoria 7. Adjuration Of The Elder Gods 8. Entsage Gott 9. The Warlock’s Curse
Ready, Set, Go! The German black metal experimentalists of DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT are all fired up to start their European tour! This Friday it will all kick-off at the Slaughter Club in Milano (IT) and continues to wreak havoc throughout 5 more countries until a final curtain in Strasbourg (FR) on October 1st.
Special guests during all confirmed dates are label mates REGARDE LES HOMMES TOMBER and the recently signed black metal outfit BIZARREKULT!
DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT +REGARDE LES HOMMES TOMBER +BIZARREKULT 16.09.2022 IT Milano, Slaughter Club 17.09.2022 IT Bologna, Circolo Dev 18.09.2022 AT Vienna, Viper Room 19.09.2022 DE Munich, Backstage 20.09.2022 DE Stuttgart, Im Wizemann 21.09.2022 CZ Prague, Futurum 22.09.2022 DE Dresden, Beatpol 23.09.2022 DE Jena, F-Haus 24.09.2022 DE Trier, Mergener Hof 25.09.2022 DE Hamburg, Knust 26.09.2022 DE Kassel, Goldgrube 27.09.2022 DE Aschaffenburg, Colos-Saal 28.09.2022 FR Lille, Black Lab 29.09.2022 CH Aarau, Kiff 30.09.2022 CH Fribourg, Le Nouveau Monde 01.10.2022 FR Strasbourg, La Laiterie
DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT Festivals 2022 29.10.2022 BE Hasselt, Samhain Festival
DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT will be playing in support of ‘Noktvrn’, which was released via Season of Mist on November 19, 2022. The album is available the Season of Mist shop on CD digipak, Deluxe CD + DVD box, Vinyl and Cassette HERE. Listen to the full album HERE. The cover artwork of ‘Noktvrn’ was created by Max Löffler and can be found below together with the track list.
Tracklist: 1. Finisterre II (01:52) 2. Monument (06:46) 3. Am Rande der Dunkelheit (08:18) 4. Immortal (06:50) 5. Morgen (07:00) 6. Gegen das Licht (11:13) 7. Haven (05:45) Total: 0:47:44
For more information on the band, please find their page HERE
Australian black metal project WOODS OF DESOLATION come bearing great news. The release of their first single, which is the track title of the upcoming full-length album: “The Falling Tide“. This full album treat of WOODS OF DESOLATION will be released upon the world on December 9, 2022.
Check out the new track ‘The Falling Tide’ here:
Pre-save the album “The Falling Tide” HERE and pre-order HERE
WOODS OF DESOLATION furthermore reveal the cover artwork and album info, which can be found below.
Tracklist The Falling Tide: 1. Far From Here (7:02) 2. Beneath a Sea of Stars (7:23) 3. Illumination (5:01) 4. The Falling Tide (6:32) (WATCH) 5. The Passing… (3:45) 6. Anew (6:39) Total Duration (36:22)
WOODS OF DESOLATION was formed by multi-instrumentalist D. in 2005 as a means for personal expression through music. Firmly built upon this ethos, a series of demo recordings garnered attention and a solid following within underground black metal circles worldwide. Continually evolving and working with different guest musicians in pursuit of new artistic territory, D. began to showcase his talent for crafting melancholic, yet at times uplifting, melodies on the debut album Toward The Depths (2008), further refining it on the Sorh EP (2009) and the influential sophomore full-length Torn Beyond Reason (2011).
In 2014, WOODS OF DESOLATION released the critically acclaimed third full-length As The Stars, receiving strong places on Decibel’s “Top 40 Albums of 2014” and Stereogum’s “50 Best Albums of 2014” list. This album saw D. further introduce a wider array of musical influences, such as post rock and shoegaze, into his unique take on black metal, becoming one of the main protagonists in what would become the burgeoning genre of post black metal. Additionally, lyrical themes were expanded beyond what had come before – nature, life, sorrow – now personally exploring the metaphysical aspects of spirituality and the afterlife.
In the intervening years that followed, D. created and worked on two new black metal projects REMETE & UNFELLED, simultaneously writing and developing material for the next WOODS OF DESOLATION full-length. In 2021, finally ready, D. teamed up with Vlad (DRUDKH, WINDSWEPT) on drums & keys to record the long-awaited follow-up to As The Stars, slated for release via Season of Mist. This forthcoming album sees the musical palette of D. and WOODS OF DESOLATION continue to grow, exploring higher peaks, deeper depths, all the while maintaining honest artistic expression, unfettered and free – remaining ever faithful to those principles that lead the way all those years ago.
Today, “new” old Norwegian black metallers Vathr premiere the new video “March of the Dead”. The track is the second to be revealed from the band’s highly anticipated debut mini-album, Dead & United, set for international release on September 16th via Edged Circle Productions. See & hear Vathr‘s “March of the Dead” video in its entirety here:
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!
Also hear the previously revealed track “Crimson Cold Curse” HERE at Edged Circle‘s Bandcamp, where the mini-album can also be preordered. 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]
Today, Danish death metallers Dead Void stream the entirety of their highly anticipated debut album, Volatile Forms. Set for international release on September 15th – Me Saco Un Ojo Records will handle the vinyl version while Dark Descent Records will handle the CD version – hear Dead Void‘s Volatile Forms in its entirety here:
After some silence since their magnificent demo, Dead Void return from the depths to bestow a crushing debut LP upon us. Drawing in on doomy yet certainly not-meek atmospherics, the sheer monstrous tone of which will pin you to the wall, it is clear this is something unwieldy. Murmuring bass seeps through buzzing guitars in a manner that sounds profoundly unwelcoming, while the daunting vocals and crashing drums give no alleviation from the bludgeoning force. While the hostile and claustrophobic sounds of the record cannot be ignored, equally impactful are the grooves which hit like a hammer of pure malice when carefully spliced with the caverns of eerily contorting death metal. When the pounding drums break through the guitars, they have a real hard tone, while the seeping filth of the strings is not overshadowed. Clearly, the three demos and spacing between have allowed the band to develop into the best version of themselves, as on this debut album, we hear a refined-but-unpolished and inhospitable cut of truly awesome music take form.
Moving forth, the hooks, the grooves, and the expanses of doom and desolation all conjure something inescapable and dread-tinged while the malignant hammering of pure old-school violence is not lost or forgotten, as warped riffs and blastbeats meet gutturally spewed vocals and occasional lead oddities. Contrasting often-nuanced moments with an assault of bestial ferocity, there is no predictability or obvious pattern – rather, a chaotic and honest approach to all of the songs. These tracks move in a lumbering fashion with organically composed structures while not feeling formulaic or running in circles with the same idea. Dead Void fantastically curate their most vile elements into a cohesive and ultimately expansive experience that takes the promise shown on the demos to unfathomable new heights. This is not simple or easily pigeonholed death metal to follow a tiny niche; this is barbarity, extremity, and atmospherics in death metal contorted to a whole new template of their own, which isn’t followed easily, but this defining debut album certainly makes the vision clear, for those who seek it in the murk.
Mark the day, for it shall be your last, when you hear Dead Void‘s definitively obliterating debut album. Additionally, catch their album launch show at Loppen in Copenhagen on August 26th. (text by Jørgen Sven Kirby, Nattskog webzine)
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Dead Void’s Volatile Forms 1. Atrophy [9:41] 2. Entrails of Chaos [6:16] 3. Sadistic Mind [8:03] 4. The Reptilian Drive [9:00] 5. Perpetually Circling the Void [11:01]
Today, uprising Australian death metallers Sarcophagum stream the entirety of their highly anticipated debut EP, Conduits to the Underworld. Set for international release on September 12th via Nuclear WinterRecords, hear Sarcophagum‘s Conduits to the Underworld in its entirety here:
Sarcophagum spawned to life in the early half of 2021, during the time of the plague, as a side-project of Golgothan Remains members past and present. Their purpose? To provide a channel to explore new ideas and sounds in a studio-only setting. The dark death metal realm remains their primary influence, and the forthcoming debut EP, Conduits to the Underworld, is just the first taste of further impending death to come.
And what a taste it is: malevolent, martial, mesmerizing. Truly, this is twisted ‘n’ terrorizing death metal seemingly sent from a sepulchral cosmos, both impossibly massive in suffocating scope whilst eerily atmospheric, almost airy in its serpentine swirl. As such, Sarcophagum sound familiar and foreign simultaneously; death metal is undoubtedly the template, but the pieces binding it together are of a strange (and scourging) material. Each of the record’s three tracks emit epic sensations and yet almost race by with a palpitating swiftness, creating an engaging headfuck – Conduits to the Underworld, indeed!
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Sarcophagum’s Conduits to the Underworld 1. Pits of Hate [5:04] 2. Netherengines [4:43] 3. Between Two Worlds [6:41]
Today, Portuguese underground legends Mons Veneris stream the entirety of their highly anticipated fifth album, Inversados d’Um Abismo de Podridão. Set for international release on September 11th via Signal Rex on CD and cassette tape formats – the vinyl LP version will follow later this year – hear Mons Veneris‘ Inversados d’Um Abismo de Podridão in its entirety here:
For those who know and truly understand actual underground black metal, Mons Veneris require no introduction. For nearly 20 years now, this shadowy and insanely prolific Portuguese cabal have pursued a uniquely vile vision with an unquenchable thirst. From hammering primitivism to medieval melancholy, volcanic drone to chaotic oblivion, nods to the French Black Legions to frequencies far outside of metal, there’s never any guarantee of how Mons Veneris‘ vision will manifest itself – only that they’ll explore a darkness few have the constitution to tread.
And so it goes with their fifth album, Inversados d’Um Abismo de Podridã, which is intended as a homage to the original wave of Portuguese proto-black metal – namely Black Cross, Filii Nigrantium Infernalium, and Summum Malum – and thus is their native tongue invoked here. Mons Veneris full-lengths come when they come, always with countless EPs, splits, and demos in between, but rarely are a summation of what’s come before; for example, see the unsettling experimentalism of 2016’s Sibilando com o Mestre Negro, comprised entirely of classical guitar and violin. And while 2020’s Mistérios Satânicos Disformes Infernais featured two half-hour improv-heavy compositions, Inversados d’Um Abismo de Podridão sees Mons Veneris pursuing more song-based chunks of coruscating violence and primal-scream therapy. In other bands’ hands, such a return to more palatable “songs” would spell insufferable normalcy, but Mons Veneris are not like other bands. Each of the album’s eight songs shimmer with harrowing hues of disgust, dread, and disease; sometimes they headbang, sometimes they’re hummable, and sometimes they implode upon themselves; but most of all, they CHALLENGE the listener to withstand – to withstand not only the “noise” presented, but more so the NOISE within one’s soul, that calls unfalteringly and seductively, truth and taboo devouring each other like the Ouroboros. Or, simply know that Inversados d’Um Abismo de Podridão was not made for you.
No other words needed: this is Mons Veneris. A more righteous and rigorous exploration of black metal’s original unorthodox impulses one will not find nowadays.
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Mons Veneris’ Inversados d’Um Abismo de Podridão 1. Crueza Lúgubre 2. As Garras do Velho Escrito 3. Urna da Virgem Desalmada 4. Sê a Minha Morte 5. O do Fosso da Vida 6. Satanás Impera 7. No Trono do Desconhecido 8. Discípulo do Mal
Blackened Death Doom outfit STRIGOI are now proudly releasing their brand new single ‘An Ocean of Blood’, which is taken from the band’s upcoming album “Viscera”. The track can now be listened to here:
The album is set for worldwide release on September 30, 2022 via Season of Mist and can already be pre-saved HERE. Pre-orders are still live HERE.
STRIGOI comment: “We chose this track as the third single taken from our new album VISCERA due to it’s almost cinematic take on the internal and external conflict of existence. A transformational journey into the bloodshed and horror of the human condition.”
The cover artwork for ‘Viscera’, which has been created by Brian Sheehan of Legerdemain Art, can be found below along with the track-list and further album details.
Track-list 1. United in Viscera (6:44) 2. King of All Terror (2:38) [LISTEN] 3. An Ocean of Blood (4:13) [WATCH] 4. Napalm Frost (2:26) 5. Hollow (6:20) [WATCH] 6. A Begotten Son (3:51) 7. Bathed in a Black Sun (4:19) 8. Byzantine Tragedy (5:28) 9. Redeemer (2:38) 10. Iron Lung (7:55) Total: 46:32
Unsettling: it’s a word which can be used to describe a good swathe of the music which has come from the mind of Greg Mackintosh over the years, but in the context of Strigoi, it feels particularly apt.
Formed immediately after previous side project Vallenfyre had run its course, Strigoi found Greg and Vallenfyre bassist Chris Casket reconfiguring the aesthetics of that band. Their 2019 debut, Abandon All Faith, was a notable transition, taking the crust punk, death metal and grind influences which had defined Vallenfyre and deriving from those an extreme music amalgam which was altogether more…well, unsettling.
But if Abandon All Faith was a record where the memory of Vallenfyre exerted an inevitable, but important, influence, then second album Viscera is where Strigoi define and express themselves on their own terms.
“It’s the second album and we’re pushing those limits,” says Chris Casket. “The longer songs are longer; the shorter songs are shorter. It’s fully realising the concept. When we did the first album, there were certain expectations as we were coming from Vallenfyre. I felt that it was a really good transition from one to the other. But I feel that with this record, it’s more of a fully fleshed out concept. It’s pushing the light and shade further out.”
“The first album was us giving it its own identity separate from Vallenfyre, even though it’s kind of an obvious continuation, in a way,” adds Greg. “But with Viscera, it’s a combination of pushing the envelope a little bit, making it a bit less raw. Because, we had done that to the Nth degree with Vallenfyre. I’d also say there’s a bit of sound design in there, too, to make it very creepy and, yes, unsettling, sound wise.”
With Covid thwarting Strigoi’s plans to do shows to promote Abandon All Faith, Greg and Chris used the down-time to work on what would eventually become Viscera.
“We have a strange way of working,” says Chris. “I will send words, prose, whatever it may be to Greg. He likes that process, because he reads what I’ve written and it inspires the music he comes up with. I’ve never worked that way before. But that and the added time we had, the space away from things, is what I think has made Viscera what it is.”
Greg adds, “If it’s a song where Chris’ lyrics sound angry, I’ll do a song that’s more, I guess, grounded in the essence of early grindcore. Something that expresses that mood. But if it’s something more sombre or unnerving, then I’ll start with a bit of sound design and work towards riffs. I’ve always thought of music in terms of visuals, and that might come from the lyrics. The last song on the album, ‘Iron Lung’, for example: I actually said to Chris that I had an idea for a song where it feels that you can’t breathe, that it feels like you’ve got a weight on your chest. And the result is probably the toughest going song on the record to get through. But I think it does get that across.”
Viscera, then, clearly defines the Strigoi sound and vision – as Chris says, it’s a “mix tape of misery” and points at ways in which the band may develop in the years ahead.
“I get bored easily,” Greg laughs. “I’ve got a very short attention span. I love doom metal, I love funeral doom, crust punk, grindcore…all these things. But usually after two songs of each I’m thinking, ‘Right, what’s next?’ And that’s my problem, but it does determine what this band and this music is like.”
“There’s not much light on this record at all. If there’s any, it’s there just to emphasise how dark the shade is, really. And what I loved about early death metal, which is when I got into it, is that everything had its own feel back then. That was at the back of my mind the whole time when making Viscera – that I wanted to give it its own feel. But the listeners are going to have to decide whether that was successful or not.”
Ukrainian black metal stalwart DRUDKH is now revealing the brand new track ‘November’! The song is accompanied by a lyric video and can be viewed here:
‘November’ is the second track released from the newest album “All Belong to the Night” which will be see the light of day on November 11, 2022. The previous track‘The Nocturnal One’ was released in February 2022 and can be found HERE.
The album can be pre-saved on all streaming services HERE. Pre-orders for “All Belong to the Night” are live HERE.
DRUDKH have furthermore revealed the cover artwork and album info which can be found below.
Tracklisting: 1. The Nocturnal One/ Нічний (10.23) (WATCH) 2. Windmills/ Нічний (11.30) 3. November/ Листопад (8.25) (WATCH) 4. Till We Become the Haze/ Поки Зникнем у Млі (15.32)
The year is 2022. Pop culture has decayed to the point where social media platforms set the narrative and by the sheer force of ubiquity, rule the day. On a recent popular television show, heavy metal devotees were portrayed and once again, nothing has changed. Despite all of its nuance, ‘metalheads’ are still the quaint, anachronistic, congenial oafs they were thought to be in the 1980’s. Social media then faithfully broadcasts the fad of the moment to everyone. And while all of that may be harmless, one would have to search long and hard for a genre of music that more seriously reckons the larger questions of the human condition than metal and all that falls beneath its banner. Sometimes these themes are encountered in broad strokes, the threads of stories teased and tugged from the weave of history as a whole. A bit rarer, but no less engaging, come glimpses through the lenses of nations, into the cultural realities of struggles far beyond what memes or profile filters can evince.
Enter the work of Roman Saenko, the man behind the universe that is the band DRUDKH. As productive as they are secretive, this entity emerged from Kharkiv, Ukraine in 2002, coalescing from earlier forms such as Blood of Kingu, Hate Forest, and Astrofaes to blend the trappings of black metal into a Slavonic tapestry of sound unique to them. Twenty years hence, already with a library of acclaimed work to their name, DRUDKH is releasing their eleventh studio album entitled All Belong To The Night. They are doing this from a homeland flush with uncertainty, embroiled in a political tug-of-war with which it’s people are all too familiar.
For DRUDKH, immersion into regional struggle is nothing new. Saenko’s grasp on it forms the underpinnings of much of his work. And what’s more, he lives within its very crucible. There is no comfortable distance from which he can compose, and we can only guess what it is like to work from the inside of such a sphere of potential violence. The music of DRUDKH has always done the talking, so much so that Saenko’s established boundaries around his art have never been breached. Like Darkthrone and Falkenbach, there are no live shows. Unlike Mgla, Gaerea, and Uada, there are not even figures behind masks for our imaginations to hinge upon. But there is a soul in the music of DRUDKH. A longing spirit, akin to the original blueprint of black metal to whom anonymity was so fundamental. Corpse-painted people shrouded in gloom, bearing mythic monikers instead of their given names, helped to establish that otherness that made black metal so appealing to the few who were willing to follow it. DRUDKH takes this several steps further, and the history from which they draw inspiration is far closer to our now than the medieval darkness of old.
Of course, simple enjoyment of DRUDKH’s music for its own sake is both permissible and possible, as a band who provides little insight beyond recorded output leaves non-Ukrainian fans little choice. Lyrics that are rarely printed or translated, song titles expressed in native tongue; beyond exceptions such as “Ukrainian Insurgent Army” (from 2005’s Blood In Our Wells) leave much to be guessed at for those who wish to go deeper. And unlike the aforementioned 80’s metal fan trope, those who seek this music will at the very least wonder about what is going on beneath the surface. Many more will delve these depths.
Inevitably, many will cast judgment upon Saenko’s vision. Many have, and from the cushy viewpoint of fans in the West, it is amusing to watch the keyboard class pivot from casting aspersions on Saenko’s Ukrainian nationalism to celebrating it, especially when the latter impulse appears to have been beckoned by their big-tech overlords. This is not to say that there isn’t a ton of genuine sympathy for the plight of Ukrainians. There is, but the journey undertaken with this album is not married to ‘the current thing.’ As on past works, what Saenko appears to be saying on All Belong To The Night eclipses the flimsiness of trends.
For those willing to go deeper, Saenko once more brings to life the voices of Ukrainian past on “The Nocturnal One,” the new album’s opening epic and statement-maker. Based at least in part upon the work of Yakiv Savchenko, and his poem “The Victims Of The Nocturnal One,” this tempered piece hones in on feelings of despair and the encroaching darkness which beset Ukraine during his lifetime. Executed by the regime of Joseph Stalin in 1937, Savchenko’s poetry cannot help but resonate once again, coaxed into consciousness by the empire camped today upon Ukrainian soil. The names change, but the feeling of being beset does not. Featuring sedate midsections with proggy bass guitar, the listener is offered respite from the tortured screams and passion of ever-present vocalist Thurios. The song takes its time, unfurling in cold grandeur with plenty of sonic surprises layered into its breadth.
The pursuit of understanding through myth is called into being on fifteen-minute endcap “Till We Become The Haze.” This is also based upon the work of Savchenko. Rolling along at midtempo, it too offers contemplative oases of inspirational tension-building. As most of the people who will consume this music do not sit poised at the edge of a war, it offers of course the cinematic atmosphere DRUDKH is so good at evoking. Fans of competing disciplines of extreme music will find much that is appealing here, as the melding of black metal, prog, and traditional heavy metal offers the connoisseur a little bit of everything.
In the meat of the album, “Windmills” departs with the conventional. It begins with a melancholic chant, painting monochrome hellscapes of displaced village folk, wandering from danger into danger. But is there not perseverance layered into these notes and phrases? Can we not detect a throb of defiance in the lush guitar tones and Thurios’ caustic growls? The pounding drums, courtesy of Vlad, remind us that DRUDKH is at its heart from the realm of black metal, and this crescendo of pulse-raising speed comes laden with a melodic lead section that communicates beyond the limit of language something Saenko is offering to the world and his people – hope.
“November” is the third movement in the album, and DRUDKH marries their raging heart with sections of a doomy, yet whimsical nature, vaguely reminiscent of something My Dying Bride might do. As with the rest of the album, DRUDKH is melding a plethora of moods and textures into their sound. As is their nature, they defy categorization, making art that is as timeless as the strife and romanticism of the Ukrainian people. All Belong To The Night belongs to everyone who fights invading forces, be they tangible or otherwise, because somewhere in all of our histories our ancestors had to unite before struggle and woe, and it is this which shapes us as people. DRUDKH will therefore always resonate, long after the algorithms direct our collective attention elsewhere.
Today, Primitive Reaction announces November 25th as the international release date for the highly anticipated second album of Finland’s Black Beast, Arctic Darkness.
For many years, Black Beast were the great “what if?” of Finnish black metal. Formed in 2002, when Finnish black metal was just beginning to assert its dominance over the underground, Black Beast released a self-titled 7″ EP in 2005 and, a year later, a split album with comrades Bloodhammer, which was the first release by a then-young Primitive Reaction. Across both recordings, the then-duo exhibited a sound that slotted well alongside the prevailing Finnish paradigm, yet they refreshingly exuded a Motorheaded aspect (or at least one Venomous) that was asskicking to the extreme.
Strangely, the name Black Beast thereafter receded into the shadows, only to appear once again in 2019 with their long-awaited debut album, Nocturnal Bloodlust. Now a power-trio, Black Beast indeed picked up exactly where they left off…and then pumped that quintessential Finnish black metal full of black magick, witchcraft, and (of course) nocturnal bloodlust. The result was just as asskicking as before, charging hard and giving no quarter, but the trio also managed to lace that waste with a tasteful touch of atmosphere, underlining that they truly are a BLACK METAL band above all.
Presumably here to stay, Black Beast return to survey the carnage with second album Arctic Darkness. A simple-yet-elegant title, Arctic Darkness is the sound of Black Beast maximizing that atmosphere. The Motorcharge is most definitely still there, as is the almost-sexual surge suggestive of classic Impaled Nazarene – grandfathers of both Finnish black metal AND bringing back the Motorhead influence into black metal at large – but with a subtly subliminal glaze of synths and a wider variation of tempos and general songcraft, the now-quartet march into new realms across this Arctic Darkness (bassist Xilocybe joined the band prior to the album); just witness the utterly EPIC ten-minute closer, “Hymn of the Freezing Wind,” where clean ‘n’ chorused guitars play counterpoint to a sleazy four-on-the-floor beat…truly, this landscape is a much more brazen one.
No more “what if?” and just more of WHAT IS, Black Beast plant their feet firmly in the snow with Arctic Darkness.
Plant your own feet in that snow with the brand-new track “Black Magic and Witchcraft” here:
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Black Beast (Finland)’s Arctic Darkness 1. Intro [1:50] 2. Black Magic and Witchcraft [4:27] 3. Fullmoon [4:46] 4. Sadistic Act in Demonic Lust [4:17] 5. Four Days in Paradise of Fornication [3:25] 6. Depths of Damnation [4:32] 7. Kuoleman Kylmästä Kosketuksesta [1:48] 8. Night of the Arctic Darkness [3:21] 9. I am He [3:16] 10. Summon the Angels [5:17] 11. Hymn of the Freezing Wind [10:28]
