“What a gloomy place Finland must be to produce so much doom metal. While you’ve likely encountered the doom giants Lord Vicar, Spiritus Mortis, or Reverend Bizarre in your travels, it is within the murky depths of the Finnish doom underground that you might stumble upon Helsinki-based Cardinals Folly. The band’s press loves to point out their status as an underground band, which feels strange.” Doom for improvement.
“American Gothic continues Wayfarer’s signature sound, forged on A Romance with Violence. While the base of black metal remains, like many US compatriots, Wayfarer use this as a starting point to explore different and atypical musical terrains. This unique aesthetic is then fused to themes and sonic templates of the American Wild West, highlighting the echoes of America’s fraught and violent past while drawing parallels with its present.” Gunsmoke is black.
“Myrkur apologists and her detractors both have a point. Her 2015 debut M succeeded as folky black metal, but aped predecessors like Ulver’s Bergtatt (1995). Two years later, Mareridt established a unique voice for Myrkur, but suffered from inconsistency. 2020’s Folkesange abandoned metal in favor of acoustic folk. A resounding success and an easy 4.5, Folkesange thrived on Amalie Bruun’s vocal melodies and her knack for arrangement. Its highly anticipated successor Spine resurrects Myrkur’s black metal roots amidst dreamy pop and mid-paced rock.” Crouching pop star, Myrkuring dragon.
“Sorcerer are back, and boy howdy did I need the sanctuary afforded by their classic epic doom sound after marinating for weeks in Autopsy’s gore-encrusted catalog! For those not familiar, Sorcerer haunted the Swedish doom scene since the late 80s without seeing a proper release until 2015s In the Shadow of the Inverted Cross. Though I was a fan of their demos and compilations in the 90s, I missed In the Shadow entirely and didn’t come back on board until 2017s The Crowning of the Fire King. That album’s loving tribute to the Candlemass school of epic doom blew my mind and ended up my Album o’ the Year. I still spin it often and it’s one of my favorite albums of the decade.” Wanded: Dead or Alive.
“A Dialogue with the Eeriest Sublime is pure unadulterated Vertebra Atlantis at its finest. Blending blackened death punishment with the grandiosity of a crashing castle, the doom-laden contemplation of the awe its destruction invokes, the blackened attack that battles ice with fire, and the atmospheric ice that coats every surface, the Italian trio has stepped up everything that gave its predecessor, the great Lustral Purge in Cerulean Bliss, its signature blend of punishing and atmospheric.” Sublime mass destruction.
“Good drone swallows you. Drone is not meant to invoke movement or adrenaline, but to evoke a mood or place. It sweeps away like the tides, not with rhythmic intensity but with mammoth weight, and dwells with you. A dybbuk is a Jewish mythological creature that sits on your chest while you sleep, and at its best this album attaches to you like a parasite. Wailing and gnashing of teeth echo across the fray, visceral and ritualistic, and as haunting as it is devastating. The place Catafalque takes you to is not the foot of great mountains or grey cityscapes, but a shadowy place that is as possessed as it is otherworldly.” Honing the droning.
“Gravesend’s 2021 full-length debut, Method of Human Disposal, hit me like an unexpected brick between the eyes. So shocking was that concussive impact, in fact, that I was a bit dazed and later had to revisit the album to adjust the score. Upwards. To a 4.0. The New York City trio’s brand of blackened grind exuded such an aura of debauched filth that it almost matched the tales of decay and depravity woven by the lyrics. While grind is not my natural go-to genre, this, apparently, is what I want from it. Whether that says more about me or Gravesend, I don’t know but the latter certainly have issues that they may want to explore with a professional. Now back with that tricky sophomore record, has two years away helped these NYC denizens?” Dirty water death dawgs.
“Beautiful and melodious in equal measure, At One with the Night Sky occupies that stratospheric space where the most ethereal atmoblack resides, evoking more faithfully the ebullient tones of Skyforest and Deafheaven than the tumultuous desperation of Mare Cognitum. Delicate twinkling effects and peaceful dalliances with cosmic ambiance characteristic of Skyborne Reveries further embellish Lightlorn’s high-flying approach.” Platonic forms of beauty.
“No stranger to this trendy, oddball scene of death metal dependent on heavy use of dissonant harmonies, Baring Teeth smiles crooked once again. Gracing these halls not once but twice with commendable offerings, our own Kronos revealed that “Baring Teeth’s greatest strength is their peerlessness” and the Texas trio “shuns accessibility”—these veterans scream the nature of this high-brow form of technical death metal. Alien yet organic, obtuse yet hypnotic, the contradictions and shades of humanity that this boundary-agnostic act continues to find allow enough of a footing in an amorphous sound to drive a crowd from navel-gazing to circle-pitting at will.” TEEF!
“I’d be lying if War Curse’s new offering didn’t take me aback. It is so different from anything they’ve done before that it took me a few spins to grasp. Like many bands before them, Confession will either be a stroke of genius or their weakest album.” Curse of evolution.
