“Crack a beer and get comfy folks, it’s storytime. Our tale is about a brave group of Swedes who decided to storm the castle of greatness, knowing full well the dangers and hardships they’d face. The lofty standards of age-old records loved worldwide would need to be breached. Our protagonists would need to deftly maneuver within clear and defined stylistic boundaries. These Swedes go by the name Hyperion, and the tome of their triumph is called Seraphical Euphony. Storytime!
“Oranssi Pazuzu narrowly missed out on Captain Ricard’s Best Black Metal Album of 2013 award (that went to Teethed Glory and Injury) with the magnificent Vaonielu. An instantly accessible yet bizarre and musically deep record, Vaonielu kept me away from my Toto loop for weeks with its sublime blend of catchy, aggressive riffs, trippy grooves, psychedelic synths, and menacing atmosphere.” Fear the wrath of Pazuzu’s schlong!
“I was relatively surprised to find I wasn’t yet acquainted with Crimson Moonlight. Party to the ‘unblack’ metal scene emerging in the latter 90s in Scandinavia, their Swedish roots stretch back to the infertile earth of 1997, associated with the relative popularity of the likes of Extol and Antestor in their unorthodox fusion of black metal with Christianity. The 19 years since their first demo has only seen 2 studio albums and Divine Darkness is their first in 12. This leaves question marks over their contemporary relevance and lack of recent experience with the project: would they be able to harness the anachronistic spirit of their unblackened origins, wherein Christian black metal was almost as sacrilegious as black metal itself?” Can this much metallic irony be good?
“”New year. New me.” Those four words were uttered by practically everyone on my social media feed at approximately 12:01 am on January 1st of this year. All great and everything, but why must you be entirely new? I, for example, am quite happy being a cantankerous dude whose alter ego is one-half adorable internet meme, and one-half winner of last month’s Record o’ the Month honors. Another thing that won’t ever change is my luck when it comes to reviewing one-person black metal bands.” Grymm is rolling the dice at Casino Vardan.
This post has been removed because it promoted Nazi or Nazi-adjacent metal bands or musicians. We apologize.
“Without a doubt, Urgehal’s final release, Aeons in Sodom, has to be the toughest review I’ve yet written. It’s not difficult because it sucks or lacks anything worth writing about; rather, it’s difficult because of the strong personal and emotional attachment I have to Urgehal. I am a fanboy, in the truest sense of the word. What makes it worse is that Aeons of Sodom should have never happened.” The Doctor needs a therapist, stat!
“At what point do we call something a comeback? L.L. Cool J seems to think that if someone’s “been here for years” then we are not to refer to whatever they may do as a comeback. Mightiest, a German black metal band, have technically been here for years in the form of releasing scattered demos and EP’s since 1994 and what their promo material tells me was a legendary German gig back in 1997.” Don’t fool with Cool J.
“I have a unique history with Greek black metal institution Rotting Christ. As a youngin’, I was first introduced to them via (what else?) Metal Maniacs Magazine. They were hyped up as a great second-wave black metal band with interesting melodies and a unique cultural viewpoint.” The phalanx is ready to rumble once again. Release the Kraken!
“Though I have no musical ability, back in high school I used to love plucking random strings on my friend’s Stratocaster knockoff and imagining I was composing an avant-garde interlude for some progressive screamo album.” You know, with an intro like that, I’m pretty sure you’ll end up not trusting this guy’s judgement anyway…
“I’ll be honest with you; the only reason I’m even passingly familiar with Entropia’s existence comes from their commendable decision to sample a few lines of dialogue from the excellent (and yes, very brutal) Christopher Nolan film, The Prestige. The late David Bowie’s tempered portrayal of an eccentric and misunderstood Nikola Tesla living out his days in a quasi-exile in Colorado Springs brings a wistful sort of conscience to the film’s dueling protagonists, and a story of such single-minded self-destruction couldn’t be more suited for a metal adaptation. That’s just low hanging fruit, metal bands, I’m doing your work for you here.” And we don’t get paid to do PR!
