Month: May 2021

EISENKULT set release date for new PURITY THROUGH FIRE album, reveal first track – features members of MAVORIM, TOTENWACHE, MUECHELMORD+++

Today, Purity ThroughFire sets June 7th as the international release date for Eisenkult‘s highly anticipated second album, …vom Himmel, hoch herab, on CD and A5 digipack formats. The vinyl LP and cassette tape versions shall follow later this year.

It was but a year ago when Eisenkult made their bolt-from-the-blue debut statement with …gedenken wir der Finsternis. A blood pact shared among members of Mavorim, Totenwache, and Muechelmord, it was only logical for Purity ThroughFire to further the propaganda with the release of Eisenkult‘s debut album. Perhaps not surprisingly, …gedenken wir der Finsternis gleamed with the righteous steel of Teutonic black metal: pure, proud, and traditional!

Wasting no time keeping that enviable momentum going, Eisenkult‘s second full-length strike arrives 11 months later bearing the title …vom Himmel, hoch herab. Once again boasting an evocative 8-bit-style intro, the listener is immediately whisked away to forgotten realms as the power-trio plunge into stoutly second-wave classicism, here even more folkloric and fantastical than their not-inconsiderable debut album. And whereas that debut LP shocked & awed with its succinct 28-minute runtime, here with the 42-minute …vom Himmel, hoch herab do Eisenkult reveal the full splendor of their powers, deftly moving from anthemic mid-tempos to mystical swooshes of speed, the atmosphere most medieval and the songwriting simply stunning. Likewise, the production across this album is gritty-yet-clear, convincingly mid-to-late ’90s as its content.

Dark melodrama for dreamers, journeyers, and all others against the modern world, Eisenkult come bearing better chainmail and sharper swords with …vom Himmel, hoch herab. The past is more alive than ever!

Raise your sword to the brand-new track “Eisenkult” here:

Cover and tracklisting as follows:

Tracklisting for Eisenkult’s …vom Himmel, hoch herab
1. Einklang
2. Ein Leib, ein Feuer
3. Ein Brunnen voller Aas
4. Wie es dröhnt und wie es schallt
5. Eisenkult
6. Brutal und furchtlos Stumpf
7. Totenglocke
8. Wir klagen deiner Wunden
9. Vom Himmel, hoch herab
10. Ausklang

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/eisenkult

Nidrosian Black Metal progenitors Beyond Man premiere new track

Today, Nidrosian Black Metal progenitors Beyond Man premiere the new track “Ave Usera”. The track is the first to be revealed from the band’s long-awaited debut album, Beyond Man, set for international release on June the 21st via The Sinister Flame. Hear Beyond Man‘s “Ave Usera” in its entirety here:

Indeed, good things come to those who wait, but the best things are announced by a sulfurous stench, as in diabolic apparitions. Dormant for over a decade, Beyond Man has been awakened like an ancient curse from an old and sandy burial ground. In an epoch of records in which resounds the dull embellished atmosphere of a cozy bedroom, Beyond Man‘s self-titled album smells of old amplifiers drenched in rotten blood, ash and whisky, the reek of a cave I dare you to enter, where the frustrations of a group of Satanic cowboys take sonic form together with their zealot visions and nightmares, veiled by a truly ferocious and sinister aura.

Call it black metal if you wish, or envision Morbid Angel sitting down with Black Sabbath and listening to Norwegian black metal while sharing a bottle of red wine followed by straight shots of heavy smoked whisky. Nidrosian Black Metal at its very finest, straight from the source!

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Beyond Man’s Beyond Man
1. Intro [1:26]
2. Helel Ben Sahar [5:46]
3. Art Beyond Man [6:06]
4. World Without End [6:25]
5. Ave Usera [6:08]
6. The World Encircler [7:18]

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/beyondmanband

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

PA VESH EN set release date for new IRON BONEHEAD album, reveal first track

Today, Iron Bonehead Productions announces September 10th as the international release date for Pa Vesh En‘s highly anticipated third album, Maniac Manifest, on CD, vinyl LP, and cassette tape formats.

In less than five years, the mysterious Belarusian entity known as Pa Vesh En has built a formidable discography, all under the aegis of Iron Bonehead. From the earliest demo tapes to two long-form works as well as last year’s well-received Burial mini-album, Pa Vesh En has emphatically embodied the sound of total and utter emptiness. “Black metal” in definition, sure, but the sonorities lurking above and below their vast murk often elude easy description, if not easy digestion altogether: you don’t so much “experience” Pa Vesh En as suffer the sonic consequences.

And whereas the Belarusian loner has so far explored fringe elements of DSBM, with Maniac Manifest does Pa Vesh En exhibit a startling violence that opens up yet more possibilities in the band’s characteristic chasm of uncomfort. As suggested by the title itself, Maniac Manifest immediately charges forward with a far-more-Alpha surge than before; while not more conventionally “metal,” Pa Vesh En here at least give diehards something halfway more headbanging. But all-consuming/all-nullifying violence is the order of the day here, as the band’s swirling sound of yore gets an uptick in energy as well as increasingly better production – still raw and bleeding, but more ably capturing the reverberating undercurrents that take on a(n undead) life of their own. Gooey-thick yet ghostly, Maniac Manifest smothers the senses into a quickly moving state of inertia-unto-oblivion; in short, Pa Vesh Enparalyze you no matter the tempo. Throughout, though, an aching-yet-subtle shroud of shattered melody hangs, providing a perverse disconnect from the slipstream at hand.

Life is hard, and it usually only gets worse. Pa Vesh En encapsulate this experience with pulse-threatening delirium with Maniac Manifest.

Begin experiencing it with the brand-new track “The Eyes Full of Horror” here:

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Pa Vesh En’s Maniac Manifest
1. Homicidal Sacrifice
2. The Eyes Full of Horror
3. Chamber of the Rotten Flesh
4. In the Wood of Hanged Men
5. Conquerentes de Iniqua Nece Confessionem
6. Spellbound by the Witchmoon
7. The Black Coffin
8. Sister of Sin
9. …

further info:

https://www.facebook.com/IronBoneheadProductions

NEFARIOUS DUSK set release date for new PURITY THROUGH FIRE album, reveal first track – features members of THY DYING LIGHT and ÚLFARR+++

Today, Purity ThroughFire sets June 7th as the international release date for Nefarious Dusk‘s highly anticipated second album, Nefarious Dusk, on CD and A5 digipack formats. The vinyl LP and cassette tape versions shall follow later this year.

Residing in the dankest dungeons of the UK black metal scene, Nefarious Dusk was formed in 2011 by the ever-prolific Dominus, AKA Hrafn, who currently counts the considerable Thy Dying Light and Úlfarr among his activities. A couple of demos followed before Azrael joined on vocals for 2014’s God is Dead demo. Four years followed with silence before the aptly titled Cold Shadows Over Transylvania EP. Joined by Fog on drums, Nefarious Dusk released their debut album, The Wanderer of the Cold North, via Purity ThroughFire in late 2019, proving that the past was proudly alive with their masterfully second-wave classicism.

Just as frost gives way to fire, along comes Nefarious Dusk‘s second full-length, simply self-titled. Like its celebrated predecessor, Nefarious Dusk is an iron-fisted iteration of Cumbrian Black Metal – proudly dedicated to and inspired by Cumbria, much like Úlfarr – and even with Dominus now solely joined by Azrael on drums, the vision is still the same…and still chilling! Indeed, the cryogenic winds blow stoutly across these landscapes, a chilling-yet-rousing canvas of ancient atmosphere and hypnotic pulse tastefully dusted by a subtle fog of synth. But whereas that predecessor tended toward the epic during its nearly hour-long journey, Nefarious Dusk‘s second album is shockingly succinct and judiciously concise: a tight ‘n’ taut ten tracks across 30 minutes. However, the duo’s songwriting is just as spellbinding as ever and arguably more rockin’ or at least more aggravated, for time waits for no man and swords must be drawn!

Completed by cold & clear production that conveys a wealth of nuance, with Nefarious Dusk do Nefarious Dusk once again prove that traditionalist black metal need not be unimaginative and reductive to convey a power and poignancy that last long after the record’s over. Cumbrian Black Metal coming for you! 

And it’s coming for you with the brand-new track “Nefarious Dusk” here:

Cover and tracklisting as follows:

Tracklisting for Nefarious Dusk’s Nefarious Dusk
1. Cold Shadows Over Transylvania – Part II
2. Nefarious Dusk
3. In The Shadows
4. Master of the Night
5. Fallen Kingdom
6. Nefarious Dusk II
7. Cold Shadows Over Transylvania – Part III
8. Twisted Thorns
9. Cold Shadows Over Transylvania – Part VI
10. Shadows of Dawn

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/nduk666

Sonic alchemists The Flight of Sleipnir stream their highly anticipated seventh album

Today, sonic alchemists The Flight of Sleipnir stream the entirety of their highly anticipated seventh album, Eventide. Set for international release on May 28th via Eisenwald, hear The Flight of Sleipnir‘s Eventide in its entirety here:

The Flight of Sleipnir are one of the metal underground’s most unique and consistently compelling bands. Forming in Colorado in 2007, this hydra-headed ensemble has built an always adventurous canon that defies easy categorization but always is in service of The Muse. For them – and, of course, suggested by their moniker itself – The Flight of Sleipnir‘s creation stemmed from a desire to explore ethereal and progressive sounds with themes that reflect upon the rich literature of ancient Scandinavia. On their vast canvas do they paint with tones of doom, prog, black metal, folk, post-rock, and even country; to date, their sonic paintings have been released by such labels as Napalm, Northern Silence, and now Eisenwald, who released 2017’s critically acclaimed Skadi and who will endeavor to reissue the band’s crucial early work.

But, The Flight of Sleipnir‘s muse is very much of the present, as much as it reverentially draws inspiration from the past: what matters most is that Now, and in this present arrives Eventide. Arguably the band’s starkest and sparsest work to date, Eventide is an audial rumination on the vast mysteries of nighttime. Its cover depiction of the stars and nightingale are visual springboards for where The Flight of Sleipnir whisk the listener into the sprawling beyond of sleep and darkness, of dreams and impossibility; Eventide‘s artwork suitably keeps apace with the band’s continually elegant standards of visual presentation, always delivered by founding drummer/vocalist David Csisely. With the opening notes inviting the listener forward with a brave sense of warmth, the album begins building patient vistas of splendor, tension, and release. Always moving in a most labyrinthine manner, The Flight of Sleipnir‘s strident density is ably balanced by the band’s exploration of dynamics, here on Eventide allowing for an even-greater emphasis on simmering softness – and the results are beautiful, breathtaking, and absolutely cathartic. Their ensemble playing is simply astounding: this is the work of a true BAND, of master musicians putting their considerable instrumental expertise to endlessly evocative use in service of The Song…and yes, The Muse.

We sleep, we dream, we exist on another plane of understanding…shadow worlds or alternate realties? And how do we dependably arrive at them? The Flight of Sleipnir lead the way with Eventide.

Pre-save link for all platforms can be found HERE. Aforementioned cover art and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for The Flight of Sleipnir’s Eventide
1. Volund
2. January
3. Thaw
4. Bathe the Stone in Blood
5. Harvest
6. Servitude

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/theflightofsleipnir

www.eisenton.de
www.facebook.com/eisenwaldofficial
www.youtube.com/eisenwaldofficial
www.twitter.com/EisenwaldHammer
www.instagram.com/eisenwald.official

Canada’s ANTEDILUVIAN set release date for new NUCLEAR WAR NOW! album, reveal first track

Today, Nuclear War Now! Productions announces September 1st as the international release date for the highly anticipated third album of Canada’s Antediluvian, The Divine Punishment, on vinyl LP format.

Nearly eight years after the release of Antediluvian’s sophomore album, λόγος, the band returns with a new full-length entitled The Divine Punishment. Originally a duo before later inviting additional members into the fold, Antediluvian has always fundamentally been a collaboration between guitarist/vocalist Haasiophis (Black Death Cult, Revenge) and percussionist Mars Sekhmet, whose relocation to Austria precipitated the band’s hiatus. After re-forming for a series of live performances, with a lineup that also featured bassist Aedh Zugna (Solar Winds, Allfather), the band set about writing and recording new material, culminating in this monumental album.

The Divine Punishment defies the preconceptions that many listeners might have going into it. Thematically centered around the many manifestations of carnal deviance—pathological, unrestrained, cruel—the album is a contorted rendering of the spirit, once pure, blemished and bespoiled through sexual blasphemy. The recoil of ecstatic release. The organs of reproductive union mutilated, splayed. Unbounded perversion, the primal transgression.

Musically, this is the most abstract and experimental release in the band’s catalog but also the most accessible, due in no small part to the album’s production, which is as vital to its power as the songs themselves. The densely layered tracks are masterfully woven together, accentuating the composition rather than muddling it. Constructed from the blurry discordance of Haasiophis’s riffs, idiosyncratic elements permeate the album. Penetrating and unyielding and knotted with passages of spiraling repetition, The Divine Punishment is a work that is darkly kaleidoscopic, with strategically placed effects, synths, samples, and even violin accentuating its multidimensional impact. The roiling chaos of Mars’s tom-laden drumming and the pummeling, daedal fury of Aedh’s bass lines undergird the composition, anchoring yet also contributing to the discord.

The Divine Punishment is not merely a return to form for Antediluvian, it reflects the band’s evolution from their inception, extrapolated, over the near-decade since their last album, to reveal a meticulously sculpted masterwork that continues to push boundaries, just as the band has done for the last 15 years.

In the meantime, hear the brand-new track “All Along the Sigils Deep” here:

cover and tracklsiting as follows:

Tracklisting for Antediluvian (Canada)’s The Divine Punishment 1. Obscene Pornography Manifests in the Divine Universal Consciousness [9:47]
2. All Along the Sigils Deep [6:03]
3. How the Watchers Granted the Humans Sex Magick in the Primordial Aeon [8:36]
4. Guardians of the Liminal [4:13]
5. Tamasic Masturbation Ritual [3:15]
6. Sadomaniacal Katabasis (Last Fuck of The Dying) [1:11]
7. Temple Prostitute [5:14]
8. Circumcision Covenant [5:23]
9. White Throne [6:42]
10. The Liar’s Path [5:39]
11. Winged Ascent unto the Twelve Runed Solar Anus [9:02]

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/antediluvian.official

www.nwnprod.com

Rural black metal ruffians Ascète stream their highly anticipated debut album

Today, rural black metal ruffians Ascète stream the entirety of their highly anticipated debut album, Calamites & les Calamités. Set for international release on May 28th via Antiq, hear Ascète‘s Calamites & les Calamités in its entirety here:

Created by Torve and Patrie Moine towards the end of 2015, then joined by Olematus on bass and Ancien Temps on drums, Ascète is a band whose atmosphere is filled by the soil where it grew: Black Périgord, or its local name of Peirigòrd Nègre, in South West France. It embodies the grim face of Périgord’s ruined minor landmarks and its dark and strange folklore. Musically, Ascète creates a countryside black metal with a punk spirit, of which the music is carried by magnificent lines of melodic guitars and bass, drowning the whole towards cavernous dark depths of music, through which some epic lights still shine.
 
Calamites & les Calamités is the first full-length of Ascète. Through a rusty black metal, joyfully old, Ascète gives its vision of a forgotten and forlorn countryside, where the small, poor people of the rural lands slowly die in the shadow of indifference of big cities’ administrations. Melodic black metal with punk/Oi! influences, Calamites & les Calamités haunts us in ridiculously different Périgord legends, carried by the decadent proclamations howled in an almost ruined, out-of-age barn… (vocals were actually recorded there). The magnificent work on guitars and sound will carry you to a forgotten countryside, where an aging population, almost feral and animal-looking, discretely and suspiciously wanders in its misery among the remains of minor historical landmark monuments, which return to Earth, too: slower, maybe, but in the same definitive manner.

Antiq is a label dedicated to the fully coherent concept of making music through sound, image, video, and attitude. They have been putting their entire existence into it since 2009. Over the years, Antiq have been identified as producers of not only perfectly coherent lyrics and themes through music, but also conceptual art and, of course, the manufacturing of beautiful objects. The label tries as much as it can to work with French creators, and if possible, with the smallest and most serious structures.

 Cover artwork, courtesy of LaurineM (Borie de la Combe Noire), and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Ascète’s Calamites & les Calamités
1. Les Causses s’en Gaussent [6:44]
2. Danse de la Sénescence [6:48]
3. Courroux du Lébérou [6:49]
4. Sorlodais Huroux [5:32]
5. Héritiers de l’Austérité [1:59]
6. La Lanterne du Mort [8:37]
7. Calamites & les Calamités [10:07]

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/AscetePerigordNoir

www.antiqrecords.com
www.facebook.com/antiq.label 


TRANCE OF THE UNDEAD set release date for IRON BONEHEAD debut, reveal first track

Today, Iron Bonehead Productions announces September 10th as the international release date for Trance of the Undead‘s striking debut album, Chalice of Disease, on CD and vinyl LP formats.

Hailing from a small city located in the southern region of Brazil without any metal presence and named after a Negative Plane song, Trance of the Undead was conceived in 2019, inspired by the classic works of Beherit, Sarcófago, Demoncy, Archgoat, Mortuary Drape, Rotting Christ, and Mystifier as well as the aura of old horror movies like the horrific works of José Mojica Marins (AKA Coffin Joe). After the release of the first demo, Transe sepulcral, still highly inspired by the same set of influences, the project took on a more personal and focused approach, with death as the central theme, resulting in the creation of Chalice of Disease.

Although “just” Trance of the Undead‘s debut album, Chalice of Disease evinces an ancient, olde-worlde flavor of malodorous metal, when EVIL was not so dogmatically divided between “black metal” and “death metal.” No, Chalice of Disease incites a mania of miasmic proportions: gibbering in intensity yet somehow briskly laidback or least effortlessly doled out, riffs that gnaw with purpose and pulse, and world-eating vocals spawned from the maw of chaos itself. It’s a familiar brew, but one that’s comforting in a most perverse way; language need not be “improved,” only spoken in more profane tongues. Trance of the Undead understand this intrinsic truth, and apply it to rotting-death, burned-black METAL.

The bells of doom toll as Trance of the Undead compel you to drink deeply of their Chalice of Disease…

Begin drinking deeply of the brand-new track “Grave Sacrament” here:

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Trance of the Undead’s Chalice of Disease
1. The Old Abbey [2:05]
2. Grave Sacrament [4:46]
3. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi [6:15]
4. Angel of the Bottomless Pit [6:11]
5. Overture to Uncreation [6:06]
6. Archaic Knowledge Unveiled [5:24]
7. Chalice of Disease [8:22]

MORE INFO:
www.tranceoftheundead.bandcamp.com

www.facebook.com/IronBoneheadProductions

VREXIZA set release date for SIGNAL REX debut demo, reveal first track

On July 30th internationally, Signal Rex is proud to present Vrexiza‘s striking debut demo, self-titled Vrexiza, on cassette tape format.

Vrexiza was formed in 2019 by J., A., and M., friends with long-standing ties. Frustrated with the lack of true underground black metal in the Toronto scene, Vrexiza emerged to fill that void. Drawing inspirations from the French, Ukrainian, and Finnish scenes of old, the trio proudly play pure black metal driven by riffs and songwriting rather than the devoid bullshit pageantry often associated with modern “black metal.”

Vrexiza‘s public debut, Vrexiza was recorded live off the floor, spanning four tracks across 21 minutes. The band in general and the demo in particular are inspired by war, battle, and conflicts around the globe of centuries past. Their songs and lyrics are directly lifted from historical events, spanning the conflicts of Germanic tribes and the Roman Empire to the Napoleonic Wars and WWII.

From the godless north comes Vrexiza…summon the age of supremacy with their stalwart debut demo!

Begin summoning that age with the brand-new track “Iron Spectres” here:

Cover and tracklisting as folllows:

Tracklisting for Vrexiza’s Vrexiza
1. Iron Spectres [5:06]
2. Hürtgenwald [6:19]
3. Corpses of Fervor [4:55]
4. Vanitas I [5:04]

www.signalrex.com
www.facebook.com/signalrex

WARMOON LORD set release date for new WEREWOLF album, reveal first track – features members of OLD SORCERY+++

Today, Werewolf Records sets June 25th as the international release date for Warmoon Lord‘s highly anticipated second album, Battlespells, on CD format. The vinyl LP version will follow later this year.

Warmoon Lord is arguably the best-kept secret of the ever-fertile Finnish black metal underground. The band is the sole work of one Lord Vrăjitor, a prolific figure in the wider Finnish music underground, but also concurrently the mainman of Old Sorcery. But whereas that band largely/mostly works within the dungeon synth genre, Warmoon Lord is pure & proud black metal of a most fantastical nature – equally medieval, maybe even more so, but burning with icy-hot passion that so fired the second wave during the mythical 1990s.

And if the band’s Burning Banners of the Funereal War proved to be a bolt-from-the-blue statement of strident classicism, then Warmoon Lord‘s Battlespells follow-up trumps all with its windswept grandeur, martial surge, and orkish execution. Lord Vrăjitor here exhibits many of the hallmarks of paradigmatic, turn-of-the-millennium Finnish BM, but more importantly does this second album integrate a whole host of other noble influences – namely, all equally old Isvind, Throne of Ahaz, Swordmaster, and even Ancient – paradoxically resulting in a remarkably fresh recasting of archaic, vintage obsidian. It’s simultaneously familiar and foreign, telling tales you might’ve heard before, but perhaps not quite in this strange, serpentine tongue… Or, simply look at the awe-inspiring cover art and realize that THIS is what black metal is and SHOULD sound like. Not everything goes!

Raise the banners and begin the war funeral march: Warmoon Lord hereby thrust you into their Battlespells!

Raise the first banner with the brand-new track “Of a Moribund Vision” here:

Cover and tracklisting as follows:

Tracklisting for Warmoon Lord’s Battlespells
1. Virtus Tenebris [2:32]
2. Purging Nefarious Vortex [4:35]
3. Of a Moribund Vision [5:10]
4. The Key of the Moonpiercer [6:55]
5. Empowered with Battlespells [6:39]
6. Oracles of War [4:44]
7. In Perennial Twilight [8:06]

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/Warmoon-Lord-2041557332639009

www.facebook.com/werewolf.rex
www.werewolfrex.bandcamp.com