Throaat – Black Speed Review
In spite of their unabashedly derivative nature, Brooklyn’s Throaat do something rather neat on their second EP, Black Speed—they offer a blueprint for standing out among the countless throwback acts. By reducing the run time …
Svärta – Sepultus Review
Sepultus, the full length debut from Sweden’s Svärta, is a bit of a mess of a record. At its core, it’s a whirring cacophony of unholy black/death racket, nearing war metal’s confrontational blur of sounds, …
Sacri Monti – Sacri Monti Review
The psychedelic heavy rock revival out of SoCal may have some people sneering with the same kind of skepticism caused by other retro explosions (“occult rock,” the thrash revival, etc.), but hidden in the clubs …
Vanum – Realm Of Sacrifice Review
The seed is a simple, descending tremolo line, a riff repeated in slightly different ways over the course of a phrase, but arriving at the same destination each time. It is featured in an obvious …
Shape Of Despair – Monotony Fields Review
Shape of Despair’s place within the whole of Finnish funeral doom has long been as third fiddle, never releasing an album with the influence and stature of Skepticism’s Stormcrowfleet or Thergothon’s Stream from the Heavens. …
Vattnet Viskar – Settler Review
If metalheads were a fair bunch, they’d pick on the identical wardrobes of every “war metal” band as much as they focus on the looks of bands like New Hampshire’s Vattnet Viskar. Because really, the fashions …
Nahtrunar – Symbolismus Review
Nahtrunar comes to us from Austria, conceiving full length debut Symbolismus as a tribute to the nights at the turn of the year (a European thing known as “Rauhnächte”). I can offer no insight into …
Six Thoughts: Satyricon Live at the Opera
Black metal greats Satyricon recorded a live album with the Norwegian National Opera Chorus (Scandinavia, eh?). While they have added operatic and symphonic flairs to their music in the past, going all in on a …