Natalie Zed swings by for Black Metal History Month to teach us about ever-obscure, but pioneering Von and how they overcame all obstacles to release their long-awaited debut. Bring an apple for teacher!
Dark Funeral
The Wretched End – Inroads Review
Some bands can easily blur the line separating thrash and death metal. You find yourself enjoying blast beats with screams, mid-tempo chugs with blistering solos, a trebly production with some deep throat growls. They are the elements we all love so much about those two very convincing reasons for man’s existence on this planet. But what do you actually call it? Is it Death metal? Thrash metal? Death/Thrash metal? And how about that ridiculous tag ‘deathrash’?
Marduk – Iron Dawn Review
This post has been removed because it promoted Nazi or Nazi-adjacent metal bands or musicians. We apologize.
Rev 16:8 – Ashlands Review
For today’s selection, we have the up and coming Swedish black metal act Rev 16:8 (formely known as both Bloodshed and Scythe). Ashlands is their second release and up until I got the promo I’d never heard a thing about them under any of their numerous names (of all of them, the new one is the pits). They play what could be called modern black metal and Ashlands is loaded with rough, ugly black metal mostly played at blasting speeds. While they don’t exactly reinvent the wheel or bring anything very new to the genre, they execute well and some of the material shines with potential and talent. In a field that has grown increasingly overloaded with copycat acts and stagnation, do they have what it takes to rise above the black masses and stand out? Well, not yet but maybe soon.
Belphegor – Blood Magick Necromance Review
I’m pretty sure loads of people were waiting for this one with baited black breath. Well, the wait is over and Austrian black/death mongers Belphegor have exceeded expectations to unleash a truly monstrous opus of blasting and burning to blight and ravage all the lands. Prepare thyself for one of the more intense, epic and fucking GREAT blackened death metal albums to come around in a while. Taking the best of both the black and death metal genres and stitching them together into a tentacled, writhing mass of gelatinous evil, Belphegor has created one mercilessly heavy yet strangely melodic beast with Blood Magick and Necromance and in the process, eclipsed the entirety of their past works (no easy feat since their previous releases were very good indeed [note: very good (3.5) is indeed the rating I gave Walpurgis Rites: Hexenwahn – AMG). In case it didn’t come across, I love this album!
