Tag: Avant-garde
Hexvessel – Polar Veil Review
In the pantheon of “ways to reveal oneself as ill-qualified to tell strangers how to feel about the latest Hexvessel album,” telling you that I last checked in on the band at the time of …
Fleshvessel – Yearning: Promethean Fates Sealed Review
[Cover art by Carlos Agraz] I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but life is A LOT, friends. Beyond your own dealings with career and family and social scenes and whatever else you might have going …
Porta Nigra – Weltende Review
[Cover art: Aufruhr (1899) by Käthe Kollwitz] Anyone who has traversed the gates of black metal understands how powerfully it pulls from the past. It’s so often a necrotic art, breathing dark romanticism into corpses …
Petrale – Salvation Precipitates Review
The day I first listened to Petrale’s new album, Salvation Precipitates, was also the day that I read a Substack newsletter from Phil Freeman about the Swedish band Air Raid. Freeman is a journalist whose …
Henget – Beyond North Star Review
The debut album from Finland’s Henget is an attractive synthesis of styles that, while somewhat disjointed, fires with enough varied inspiration to remain compelling. The brainchild primarily of the improbably named King Aleijster de Satan …
Dødheimsgard – Black Medium Current Review
[Album artwork by Łukasz Jaszak] Let’s celebrate weirdness without getting too philosophical about what exactly constitutes “weird.” We all know weird, we all know it keeps life interesting, and we all likely hope to encounter …
Sigh – Shiki Review
Genre Funeral Theatre Heavy metal is about a lot of things. I guess you can try to bang out a list of restrictive musical requirements, but in the lyrics department, heavy metal music on the …
Ashenspire – Hostile Architecture Review
Here’s a truth about art that is all too often forgotten: art needs to be political. Art begs to be political. Here’s another truth about art that is all too often forgotten: art needs to …