Anagnorisis – Beyond All Light Review
I don’t really know what America is, y’know? A place this big and beautiful and awful and ridiculous, though, I suppose it can’t ever be A Single Thing. (Which, probably, is also what makes it …
Vasaeleth – All Uproarious Darkness Review
They say he uses the whip, the manacles and the torment-frame they call Skeffington’s Daughter. It is a portable device, into which a man is folded, knees to chest, with a hoop of iron across …
Lychgate – Lychgate Review
For a genre as steeped in the rich, pungent peat of occult historicism as black metal, Lychgate is nearly a perfect band name. A lychgate is a small gate topped with a pointed wooden roof …
Venus Star – Nigredo Expulsion Review
Artistic minimalism can be a tough act to pull off convincingly. When it’s done well, the end result can be courageously focused and direct, clearly unwilling to allow anything extraneous to blur the edges of …
Autopsy – The Headless Ritual Review
By my count, The Headless Ritual took exactly twenty-five seconds to make its argument for being a supremely ass-kicking album. The remaining forty-four minutes or so? Just a victory lap. Autopsy has never seen nearly …
Summoning – Old Mornings Dawn Review
Why is fantasy such a hard pill to swallow? Lord knows reality’s a rotten enough morass to make any sane person long for escapism, right? After all, it’s only mercenaries, cutthroats, and lunatics that thrive …
Aborym – Dirty Review
Let’s get the main thing out of the way right up front: Dirty is not a good album. In fact, it’s a pretty lousy album. But, okay, let’s give them that. Win some, lose some, …
Botanist – IV: Mandragora Review
The children’s story of Goldilocks and the three bears has had a poisonous effect on the rhetorical skills of too many. *Crickets.* Yes, sure, it’s just a story about some thrill-seeking lady who likes her …