When one thinks about black metal, the image that probably comes to mind is that of the pine barrens and frozen desolation of Norway, the extreme cold only briefly warmed by burning churches dotting the landscape. Scotland, on the other hand, is not usually the landscape that one imagines, but rather than the icy fjords of Scandinavia, Cnoc An Tursa hail from Falkirk.” Scottish metal just sounds tough, doesn’t it? Well, Cnoc An Tursa is obsessed with scottish poetry about battles and death, which is clerarly tough. Natalie Zed will tell you if they’re good as well as tough.
Candlelight
Anaal Nathrakh – Vanitas Review
Anaal Nathrakh is a name that commands mucho respect in the frowny, downy world of black metal. Happy Metal Guy tells us if Vanitas keeps the flame of blackness burning bright in the dark of the winter night. Hey, that rhymed!
Daylight Dies – A Frail Becoming Review
More doom-death for Steel Druhm! Daylight Dies returns with a very Ghost Brigage-y take on the genre. Finnish-style doom-death from North Carolina?? Can it work? Should it even be attempted? Find out inside.
Vision of Disorder – The Cursed Remain Cursed Review
Alex discusses the rise and fall of hardcore heroes Vision of Disorder and also takes a few swipes at Long Island music fans. Let’s hope Steel Druhm doesn’t read that part.
Khors – Wisdom of Centuries Review
Steel Druhm is a big fan of Khors (the band, not the watery, unbeer-like beer) and their melodic black metal. He’s especially taken with their Return to Abandoned opus. Find out how the new album stacks up and if he’ll need a stronger brew to wash it down.
Reverence – The Asthenic Ascension Review
Natalie is here to tell you all about French black metallers, Reverence. She seems quite smitten with them but it sounds like an abusive relationship to me.
Cold in Berlin – And Yet Review
It looks as if they were all wrong. For years, critics of all sorts have assumed that punk could not, and would not mix up with the likes of those who thought that the light at the end of the tunnel is a truck coming in their direction. I mean, the nihilist stance of bands such as The Sex Pistols and Discharge, their “new luddism,” aimed at destroying and denying progress for the lack of an acceptable alternative, undeniably struck a chord in the goth camp. But, if destruction would act as a unifier, the means to achieve it were indeed on the opposite ends of the spectrum. The passive, almost fatalistic melancholy of goth clashed (sometimes in more that one way) with the actively destructive attitude of punk. Could we ever imagine that a synthesis would have been possible? Not until 45 Grave and deathrock came about in the early 1980s. Fast-forward to 2012 and what we find is a band that combines Joy Division, Christian Death and Refused. The good news is that it does it terribly well. The bad news? Well, this time there isn’t any. Simply because a band that tries to add something to the menu can’t fail. And if it does it with such angst and power, then it means that there’s still hope for angry music in this world.
Zatokrev – The Bat, the Wheel and a Long Road to Nowhere Review
Lord Doom tells you about Zatokrev’s Candlelight debut The Bat, the Wheel and a Long Road to Nowhere which is, conveniently, a doom metal record. We’re smart around here.
Kontinuum – Earth Blood Magic Review
Kontinuum’s eclectic style threw me slightly off balance when the first track started up and truthfully my first thought was – is this an indie band, lost in a metal club improvising to not get the crap kicked out of them by a bunch of angry metal heads. Rest assured this is not the case, Earth Blood Magic is a crazy, kick-ass mix of what feels like a range of different influences that just somehow melts together as if by… dare I say it… magic?
Nachtmystium – Silencing Machine Review
This post has been removed because it promoted Nazi or Nazi-adjacent metal bands or musicians. We apologize.