Atmospheric Black Metal

Obsidian Tongue – Volume III Review

By Carcharodon on September 28, 2019 in 2019, American Metal, Bindrune Recordings, Black Metal, Melodic Black Metal, Reviews, Atmospheric Black Metal, Black Metal, 29 comments

“It’s six years since this Maine duo dropped their sophomore effort, A Nest of Ravens in the Throat of Time, a time when we still linked to Myspace pages in reviews. How time flies! A Nest of Ravens was a great record, atmospheric black metal, sprawling, blisteringly heavy in places with folky elements too. Their debut, Volume I: Subradiant Architecture, wasn’t too shabby either. That Obsidian Tongue mainman and multi-instrumentalist Brendan Hayter did a brief stint in the much-missed Woods of Ypres and currently mans the bass for metal-infused folksters Thrawsunblat maybe gives some sense of where Obsidian Tongue are coming from.” Tongue on the third date.

Arctos – Beyond the Grasp of Mortal Hands Review

By Emya on September 18, 2019 in 2019, Black Metal, Canadian Metal, Northern Silence Productions, Reviews, Atmospheric Black Metal, 26 comments

“The first day of fall, my favorite season of the year, is just around the corner. That means the Seattle drizzle has made an appearance, advertisements for Oktoberfest litter the streets, and the most basic of drinks (step aside White Claw), Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte, has already been available in stores for almost an entire month. Coffee drinkers and non-coffee drinkers alike, including those who consider pumpkin spice a season and not just a drink, came in droves to get their first PSLs on August 27th this year, the earliest launch ever. Thankfully, mid-September also means the release of Arctos’ highly anticipated debut full length Beyond the Grasp of Mortal Hands.” The blackness is on the pumpkin.

Keys of Orthanc – A Battle In The Dark Lands of The Eye… Review

By Twelve on September 8, 2019 in 2019, Black Metal, Canadian Metal, Naturmacht Productions, Reviews, Atmospheric Black Metal, 10 comments

“Given the right formula, the right ingredients, and the right opportunity, metal — music in general, but metal for our purposes — can be the gateway into new worlds. Using metal as a means for escapism is both wonderfully cathartic and cathartically wonderful. And I don’t mean that in the generic Nightwish-esque ‘how about that wanderlust, eh?’ kind of way. I mean when metal grabs you by the throat, drags you across the threshold and laughs mercilessly when you try to explain that one does not simply walk into Mordor. At least, that’s what Keys of Orthanc are doing here.” Eye came, Eye saw.

Ezkaton – Sheen and Misery Review

By Twelve on September 2, 2019 in 2019, Ashen Dominion, Black Metal, Reviews, Ukrainian Metal, Atmospheric Black Metal, 61 comments

“From the opening seconds of “Altars of the Flame,” I knew Ezkaton’s Sheen and Misery was going to be a special record. The mournful, melancholy guitar melody rises and threatens to overwhelm before a voice breaks through the tension. The cold narrator quotes from the 1984 film Children of the Corn, where Issac commands the children to kill Joseph at the behest of He Who Walks Behind The Rows, and I got lost in the story.” From husk til dawn.

Deadwood Lake – Immortalised in Death Review

By Emya on August 14, 2019 in 2019, English Metal, Melodic Black Metal, Reviews, UKEM Records, Atmospheric Black Metal, Black Metal, Melodic Black Metal, 15 comments

“Sparkling cool water gently thrums against a piece of driftwood. A tiny squirrel scurries through the underbrush. I sit atop a picnic bench beside the rock strewn shore of Diamond Lake in southern Oregon mulling over how to articulate my heavy thoughts regarding an album by a band with a similar name to the very lake I overlook. When asked how they got their name, melodic atmospheric black metal band Deadwood Lake’s response is simply “we just thought it sounded cool.” It turns out that there is in fact a body of water in northern Wisconsin with the same sinister name as this relatively new yet prolific addition to the UK’s atmoblack scene.” Death at the lake.

Grima – Will of the Primordial Review

By Cherd on August 3, 2019 in 2019, Black Metal, Naturmacht Productions, Reviews, Russian Metal, Siberian Metal, Atmospheric Black Metal, Black Metal, 42 comments

“Being in forests for extended periods makes me uneasy, because 50 feet of visibility feels claustrophobic when you’re used to seeing the point where the Earth curves away. Russian atmo-black duo Grima have no such qualms. Hailing from Siberia and that same boreal forest, ‘taiga’ to them, they make music to ‘worship the elder forest…where the Grima is a supreme god…who protects only those who live in a forest, and punishes everyone who does not respect nature.’ To which I say, backing away slowly, ‘Whoa fellas, we’re all nature lovers here. Forests, amirite?'” Tree mugger.

Suicide Forest – Suicide Forest Review

By Master of Muppets on July 10, 2019 in 2019, American Metal, Avantgarde Music, Black Metal, Reviews, Atmospheric Black Metal, Black Metal, 27 comments

“Summer: blah. Rampant blinding sunlight, not a dead tree to be found, and everywhere I go is plagued by incessant seasonal euphoria… I hate it, yo. Without autumn’s dying beauty or the melancholic jubilation of winter nights, I find little to sustain the part of me that feeds on natural darkness and am forced to hunt down anything that’ll let me at least hear that which I cannot presently see or feel. Enter Suicide Forest.” Put some winter in your summer.

Celestial Grave – Secular Flesh Review

By Kenstrosity on July 9, 2019 in 2019, Black Metal, Finnish Metal, Iron Bonehead Productions, Reviews, Atmospheric Black Metal, Black Metal, 65 comments

“There are few things in this world as pleasant as raw black metal. The kind that barely registers as music to the ears of the unwashed. The kind that gives all of your family members doubts about your competency. The kind that elicits concerned glares from passers-by. You know what I’m talking about. So it was with great anticipation that I plucked Finland’s Celestial Grave from the AMG promo vault for a look-see.” When the void plucks you.

Sol Sistere – Cold Extinguished Light Review

By Master of Muppets on May 12, 2019 in 2019, Black Metal, Chilean Metal, Hammerheart Records, Reviews, Atmospheric Black Metal, Black Metal, 91 comments

“Ov all the cruel ironies in this angry metal world, black metal’s oversaturated state, at this point presumably mere days from breaching mainstream radio status, is likely the one that yanks my unicorn the most. That the brave new musical world discovered by such wanderers as Burzum, Mayhem, and Bathory would be further explored and defiled in time was never a question, yet the rampant proliferation of new obsidian acts we find ourselves plagued with is less akin to expansion than to… well, frankly, a fucking plague.” Semi-cold.

Varaha – A Passage for Lost Years Review

By Kronos on May 5, 2019 in 2019, Ambient Metal, American Metal, Black Metal, Death Metal, Doom Metal, Prosthetic Records, Reviews, Ambient Metal, Atmospheric Black Metal, Black Metal, Death Doom, Doom Metal, Symphonic Metal, 39 comments

“Those of us at not familiar with Vektor shot some great shit around the AMG office bilge warmer when we first heard that Terminal Redux was going to be 73 minutes long. A thrash album coming in at over an hour long? Don’t these wankers know that I could listen to Reign in Blood two-and-a-half times instead of their shitty album? We all know how that went down. Suffice it to say that the Reign in Blood rule can at times be violated. Yet it still surprised me when Varaha took their 47-minute-long atmospheric-goth-doom-etc. album and, in stuffing another 21 minutes of orchestral interlude tracks in, somehow improved the record.” Binge without guilt.