SHINING have finished recording their tenth studio album, ‘X – Varg Utan Flock’ (“Wolf without a Pack”).
Mastermind Niklas Kvarforth comments:” It has been an ordeal of gigantic proportions, but I am pleased to announce that the recording of our tenth album have now come to an end, and I am currently working on the final visual details before this aural nightmare can be sent off to our label and fuck up your lives.
‘X – Varg Utan Flock’ is the direct follow up to our fifth album, but, as usual it does contain a few unexpected twists and turns that will send cold shivers down your spines. It was an honour to serve for two decades as the grand puppet-master and bringer of chaos.
Northern trees sometimes bear strange fruit. Arising from the shadow of mental institutions and personal secret corners comes the Norwegian Urarv (“Ancient Heritage”), the new project spearheaded by avant-metal stalwart Björn Aldrahn Dencker of DHG and The Deathtrip and Thorns fame. “The ideas and visions for Urarv started actually back in 2003 during a stay that I had at the local mental institution where I live,” comments Aldrahn. “It began dawning on me one evening as I was locked out on to the perimeter of the facilities to have a stroll.”
At first, Urarv was going to be a folkish song-oriented solo-project exclusively, but as time went by, those thoughts proved themselves to be much too dysfunctional, and in the end, it would take several years until it all began taking shape properly. It wasn’t until the summer of 2013, however, when enough material for a full-length album was ready. From thereon, Aldrahn sought out for fellow musicians to join his escapade of sonar expedition and relinquishment of artistic restraints. He was lucky enough to find two excellent creatures to do the drums and bass. Patricia and Sturt joined in with great enthusiasm and conviction when rehearsals began taking place later that year.
While Urarv recognizes the ancient heritage of Norwegian black metal, it also tramples across limitations. At the core of the project lies the idea of experimentation with various unorthodox tunings and curious sounds. “We want to tap into uncharted territories to see what lies hidden under the rocks and dead horses and beneath the cold vastness of uncertainty,” says Aldrahn. “We’re traveling to remote regions of metal music and mental space with this music. Although our message is one of emotional putrefaction, we want to help listeners find a way through the black hole.”
Aurum is set for international release on September 22nd via Svart Records on CD, LP, and digital formats.
Tracklisting for Urarv’s Aurum
1. Forvitringstid
2. Ancient DNA
3. The Retortion
4. Broken Wand
5. Guru
6. Valens Tempel
7. Fancy Daggers
8. Red Circle
Today, Shadow Kingdom Records announces September 29th as the international release date for the highly anticipated third album of the UK’s Horrified, Allure of the Fallen. A work of towering, melodic death metal majesty, Allure of the Fallen is the record by which Horrified continue their ascent and truly stake their claim as the genre’s elite – and render a new modern classic to the canon.
Hailing from Newcastle upon Tyne, Horrified was born in 2012 with humble beginnings. An acolyte worshiping the altar of old-school death metal, founder and creator Dan Alderson would later transform the project into a full band. Like so many of their predecessors, Horrified took a sidestep and evolved into melodic and grandiose territory, adding twin-guitar harmonies and increasing its scope into epic territory without sacrificing their original vision of savage OSDM. After releasing two full-length albums on various labels, assaulting UK underground audiences with tight, energetic live performances and taking their aural onslaught to European audiences, Horrified took steps up from the underground with wide, positive acclaim for the second full-length album Of Despair.
But now, with the impending release of third album Allure of the Fallen, Horrified has been reborn into something far more vast than ever originally imagined. Comprising six expansive tracks in an epic 46 minutes, Allure of the Fallen finds the band in an enviable state of maturity, exuding class and power in equal measure, their ever-winding but never-extraneous compositions truly taking the listener on a journey into what real – and really melodic – death metal can encompass. Thus, Horrified’s signing to Shadow Kingdom for the album’s release is a logical alliance to bolster the band’s ever-growing evolution and constant broadening of vision, scope, and horizons.
Patient but never slumbering, Horrified arises from the ashes of a barren landscape, shrouded in majesty, resurrected in ancient art. This is the Allure of the Fallen: pay witness to the dawn of majesty.
“This band just keeps getting better with each album. On Allure of the Fallen, they shed much of their ‘Sunlight’ influences sound- and music-wise, and incorporate a lot more black metal and doom. It’s melodic, heavy, and catchy as hell. It brings to mind fond memories when I first discovered bands like Unanimated, Sacramentum, etc, and that’s an awesome thing. This will definitely be a highlight for a lot of folks in 2017!” – Damain Herring (Horrendous)
First track and preorder info to be announced shortly. Cover art, by Adam Burke, and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Horrified (UK)’s Allure of the Fallen
1. Allure of the Fallen
2. Light’s Dissolution
3. The Perceiver
4. Unanswered
5. Shorn
6. The Promise of Solace
Today, KVLT sets September 29th as the international release date for Asagraum’s highly anticipated debut album, Potestas Magicum Diaboli. A magickal work of nighsky majesty, simmering celestial aggression, and the most potent tenets of ’90s Scandinavian black metal, Potestas Magicum Diaboli breathes and billows a blast-from-the-past classicism that nevertheless manages to sound fresh among the modern BM landscape, outstripping the prevailing trends and the pretenders who enable them. Perhaps more importantly, it is the work of two women – a rarity in black metal, both past and especially present – who hereby render gender an irrelevant argument. Simply, Potestas Magicum Diaboli stands on its own, towering and terrifying.
A cross-continental entity, Asagraum was founded in the autumn of 2015 by vocalist/guitarist Obscura and drummer T. Kolsvart. The original intent was to play pure, Satanic black metal, in all its aspects, with the old-school feeling of the eternal ’90s greats but also with dark psychedelic influences. A three-track promo recording was released earlier this year, laying bare Asagraum’s aims and accordingly special sound. Wasting no time, Potestas Magicum Diaboli was then recorded, fleshing out further those aims into an eight-song, 44-minute work which maintains a fuller, more windswept totality. It heaves and weaves to both aggression and atmosphere, walking a delicate balance but always boldly. It is both unapologetically modern and authentically ’90s.
With anticipation high for the release of Potestas Magicum Diaboli, Asagraum will be touring Europe later this year, utilizing a bass-player – either Mortifero or Makashanah – for live performances. Onstage, the band is equally deadly, proving their left-hand-path black art knows no boundaries. Until then, let Potestas Magicum Diaboli revive the old cult of the witches, radiating forever the black flame of Lilith. “Black Sun Prayer,” the first track to be revealed from the album.
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Asagraum’s Potestas Magicum Diaboli
1. Transformation
2. Black Triangle Temple
3. Leviathan
4. Gospel of Ignition
5. Daar Waar Ik Sterf
6. Black Sun Prayer
7. Carried by Lucifer’s Wings
8. I Burn within the Devil
To coincide with a full tour of the United States this August, on July 21st internationally, Hells Headbangers will release a new 7″ EP from Italy’s Barbarian. Simply self-titled, this new two-song banger presents Barbarian at their roughest, rowdiest, and arguably heaviest yet. Riding high on the critical acclaim afforded their first album for Hells Headbangers (and third overall), Cult of the Empty Grave, Barbarian go from strength to strength, taking the blackened traditional metal of that album and here firing it full of a dangerous octane. Both tracks – “Simulacra of the Ageless Need” and the telltale “Stench of God” – are both brand-new and exclusive to this release, featuring the band’s new lineup, so get ready for summer slaughter with the Barbarian 7″!
A statement from the band reads: “Barbarian are ready to hit US soil for the first time and defile stages all over the country! Our axes are already honed and our bone knives sharpened, so if you want it ugly and obtuse, join us for the absolute Regressive Metal desecration!”
The updated list of full dates & venues for Barbarian’s summer American tour are as follows :
August 4 – Chicago, IL @ LiveWire Lounge
August 5 – Milwaukee, WI @ Frank’s Power Plant
August 6 – Minneapolis, MN @ Hexagon Bar
August 7 – Rapid City, SD @ West Dakota Improv
August 9 – Seattle, WA @ Highline Bar
August 10 – Portland, OR @ Twilight Cafe
August 11 – San Francisco, CA @ RS94109
August 12 – Los Angeles, CA @ Five Star Bar
August 13 – Las Vegas, NV
August 14 – Lost Lake, Denver, CO
August 15 – Kansas City, MO
August 16 – St. Louis, MO @ Fubar
August 17 – Cincinnati, OH @ Rake’s End
August 18 – New York, NY @ Metal Kingdom
August 19 – New Carrollton, MD @ El Gran Chaparral
August 20 – Worcester, MA
August 21 – Rochester, NY @ Bug Jar
August 22 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Rock Room
August 23 – Nashville, TN – The East Room
August 24 – Richmond, VA @ Strange Matter
August 25 – Philadelphia, PA
Further updates to follow shortly. Currently, the track “Simulacra of the Ageless Need” is streaming at Hells Headbangers’ Bandcamp HERE, where the Barbarian 7″ EP can be preordered. Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Barbarian (Italy)’s Barbarian EP
1. Simulacra of the Ageless Need
2. Stench of God
Today, Portuguese black metal cult Ordem Satânica stream the entirety of their highly anticipated debut album, Monte da Lua. Set for international release today via Signal Rex, hear Ordem Satânica’s Monte da Lua in its entirety here
Hailing from the rawest core of the thriving Portuguese black metal scene, Ordem Satânica are possessed by a hideous grimness that’s utterly hypnotizing. Despite not belonging to Portugal’s Black Circle (Mons Veneris, Vetala, Irae), Ordem Satânica’s sound is comparably chaotic and necrotic, bleary and blown-out. And yet, the trio possess a deceptive sense of melody, malformed and miasmic, dissonant and distressed, that favorably reminds of France’s immortal Black Legions from the dark days of the 1990s. For verily, this BLACK METAL from an ancient time – AGAINST the modern world, and against the modern “black metal” scene.
To date, Ordem Satânica have built a coveted canon of thoroughly underground works, each more challenging and cantankerous than the last. Just earlier this year, this enviable escalation of aesthetic antagonization reached its apotheosis with Signal Rex’s release of the In Aeterna Crudelitate cassette – like the old ways/days, limited to only 66 copies and selling out almost immediately. But alas, Ordem Satânica transcend all prior with Monte da Lua, the most mesmerizing distillation of their crude-yet-cultivated art. Stripped completely bare and blown out in an almost brittle manner, Monte da Lua is a windswept travail across desolation and disgust, ever inwards and maybe even backwards. Modernity doesn’t exist here; there is only the past, which passed before it began. Time stands still here, and the listener is powerless against Ordem Satânica’s evocations of a better/worse world.
When there are still revisionist reveries for the early ’90s boom of black metal, which inevitably died a slow death, there are bands in this millennium who harness that very real, very primordial power, and the raw Portuguese scene is currently at the forefront
Tracklisting for Ordem Satânica’s Monte da Lua
-LADO A-
1. Belial os Bosques e o Pentagrama
2. Monte da Lua
3. Lagoa da Serpente Eterna
4. Pelo Misticismo…
-LADO B-
5. Negras aparições
6. Tempestades Nocturnas e Invocações Satânicas sob os céus de Sintra
7. Solstício de Inverno
8. Entre Árvores Sombrias
Canadian black metallers Kafirun premier a new song “Eschaton” off their highly anticipated debut album, of the same name, Eschaton. Set for international release on June 26th via Seance Records.
A deeply occultic work, Eschaton explores the end of the manifested world – an apocalypse that brings the end of all life and begets the opening of a new beginning through death – and opens this portal through thoroughly dizzying, manically majestic black metal. Finding that elusive balance between the resolutely raw ‘n’ primitive and the dynamically complex, Kafirun create a constantly shapeshifting maelstrom of macrocosm-crushing chaos and (dis)order. Across seven tracks within a concise ‘n’ cutting 42 minutes, the quartet portray a bold vision, and one whose maturity belies the band’s brief existence so far.
Hailing from Vancouver, British Columbia, Kafirun sprung to deathly life in in 2014. The band’s first release was an EP titled Death Worship – a title which has served to guide Kafirun’s prevailing principles – and was released on cassette format that same year, garnering a strong and positive response across the worldwide metal underground. A year later, another EP followed, titled Glorification of Holy Death – again, another telltale title – which released by the band digitally and as a very limited CD. This release brought the band further in their sinister journey towards total cosmic death. Alas, just last year, both EPs were jointly reissued as The Worship and Glorification of Holy Death compilation, which was quickly followed by a split 7″ with Austria’s Transilvania.
Now, with that swift ‘n’ decisive experience behind them, Kafirun are set to unleash their first full-length work, Eschaton, under the auspices of Seance Records. Sonically painting the eternal void of death, Eschaton perversely brims with an illuminating light, devouring the cosmic light of life and everything within, scurrying through the sort of black metal whose radiance is so obsidian as to consume energy as austerely as it expends it; verily, it is death of the self and all reason. In this moment which is eternal yet transitory, a new and pure energy grows within the womb of chaos, and which ignites the source of a new aeon, a flame needless of air to exist. A new true god that breeds its new self, purified and sanctified in chaos without an end nor a beginning: here stands Kafirun.
Although the moniker Kafirun stems from Islam – meaning disbelievers or infidels and is mentioned over a hundred times in the religious text and verses – the band state that “in our lyrics, we do not have anything about Islam at all. Our concept is about death and nothingness. We try to not use generic occult notions. Surely, we are influenced by the old beliefs, the occult, myths, esoteric ideas, and the Luciferian path, but we try to create our own concepts. Death is the only true god, and it is the only god that reveals itself to living things. So we explore death, nothingness, and what lies beyond the boundaries of the flesh. Some things are incomprehensible to a man and can only be experienced through death. So Kafirun is against the monotheistic dogmas and submission to their teachings on a philosophical level. It is a flame, an idea for a total chaotic new beginning on the individual level.”
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Kafirun’s Eschaton
1. Lord of Blessed Murder
2. Eschaton
3. Omega Serpent
4. Divine Providence
5. Prophetic Death Trance
6. Ephemerality of the Flesh
7. Omnipresence
Boston Death Metal quintet SOUL REMNANTS will release its third album, Ouroboros, July 21 on eOne/LifeBlood. A concept album revolving around a futuristic, dystopic war amongst all mankind, Ouroboros is the SOUL REMNANTS’ most ambitious recording to date. While the new album is more dynamic than its predecessors, it still maintains the uniquely crushing style that SOUL REMNANTS has cultivated over its career.
So few emerging bands in this day in age can pride themselves on being a Death Metal band, committing to the title, uncaring of consequence and fostering the ability to stick to the slime that creeps down the walls of all hyperbolic underground musical trends. Hailing from the Boston-area and beyond, within the depths of New England, SOUL REMNANTS catalyze a major point that Death Metal is by far the most punishable to all.
Track Listing:
1. Mechanical Synapse Modulations
2. Regurgitated and Consumed
3. Depravity’s Lock
4. Walled City
5. Mental Tourniquet
6. Echoes of Insanity
7. Dissolving into Obscurity
8. Decomposition
Today, Svart Records sets August 18th as the international release date for Kimi Kärki ‘s highly anticipated second album, Eye for an Eye.
Kimi Kärki is a Finnish cultural historian, guitar-player, and singer-songwriter. Known for his versatile guitar playing and somber compositions for Reverend Bizarre, Lord Vicar, Orne, E-Musikgruppe Lux Ohr, and, most recently, Uhrijuhla, Kärki has developed his recognizable playing style within doom metal, progressive, folk, and electric ambient scenes. This variety of mostly underground styles reflects the open and intuitive approach to music, which is in the very heart of Kärki’s craft.
Eye for an Eye is Kärki’s second singer-songwriter album. It is a follow-up to The Bone of My Bones, a 2013 effort that was also released by Svart Records. When the first one was built on 12-string guitar foundation, this time, things are even more intimate, personal, and heartfelt; the songs are played with warm nylon string tones that come closer to the listener. But that heart is supported by a rich decoration of other sounds and harmonies.
The stories told on this record are romantic, in the old meaning of the world. They have their origins in both lived life and what could be called the Dreaming, but also resonate the culture that surrounds the dreamer. Both the pain and the joy are real. Give these songs some time and they might heal you a bit, just like they healed the songwriter himself. Please listen loud, and preferably when you can forget everything else for a while. Even the silences speak volumes here.
To maximize the listening pleasure, Kärki again decided to invite some friends to contribute additional guest vocals. Patrick Walker is best known as the emotional vocalist and songwriter of both Warning and 40 Watt Sun, and John Richardson — who just released his superb debut album on Svart Records — is an old-school musician and the Professor of Musicology at University of Turku. He was already heard on the first album, just like the two stunning female vocalists, Anna-Elena Pääkkölä and Pirita Känkänen, whose clear harmonies juxtapose Kärki’s somber delivery. The album was again engineered by Joona Lukala. The collaboration with this sharp-eared audio wizard helped Kärki to realize the ambitious aural stories as intended — enjoy Eye for an Eye.
First track premiere and video both to be revealed shortly. Cover and tracklisting
Tracklisting for Kimi Kärki’s Eye for an Eye
1. Entangled in Pleasure
2. Augurs of Winter
3. Lustful, Wrathful, Sullen
4. Beyond Distance
5. Good Things in Life
6. The Load We Carry
7. Spearhead
8. The River of Shadows
9. The Last Wave
Seasons of Mist Records have been on a roll lately and their new dark melodic metal signing Deathwhite just adds to their already amazing roster:
Season of Mist are proud to announce the signing of DEATHWHITE. The enigmatic bringers of darkness will release their debut album, ‘For a Black Tomorrow’ via Season of Mist.
The band comments: “We are incredibly honoured to join the Season of Mist roster. DEATHWHITE started in 2012 as a basic studio project with the aim of playing dark metal in the vein of some of our most beloved bands. To have one of metal’s leading independent labels take an interest in us is far beyond our expectations. We now turn our attention to the proper release of our first full-length, ‘For a Black Tomorrow’, and look forward to among other things, our first live performances, and a strong as well as enduring partnership with Season of Mist.”
Formed in 2012, DEATHWHITE were created in part to follow on the path first explored by dark metal torchbearers such as ANATHEMA, KATATONIA, MY DYING BRIDE, and PARADISE LOST.
The band’s ‘Ethereal’ EP (2014) successfully established a template of melodic, clean vocals alongside melancholic, but heavy riffing. Their debut created an early buzz within the metal underground that grew significantly with the following ‘Solitary Martyr’ EP (2015), which was hailed by critics as “thick with emotion” and “wonderfully engrossing.”
Backed by such praise, DEATHWHITE spent 2016 writing and recording their first full-length under the supervision of producer and engineer Shane Mayer. ‘For a Black Tomorrow’ was originally scheduled for release in March of 2017, but after signing to Season of Mist the release has now been slated for early 2018.
