“Drawing on both the atmospheric doom of Black Sabbath and Witchfinder General’s stoner rock, Laser Dracul deal in dirty, lo-fi, rolling riffs, underpinned by the rumbling bass and rough, hollow cleans of Michael Brander. Sounding a bit like Dozer run through a Sleep filter, there is something oddly comforting about the sludgy rock on show on Hagridden.” Of lights and undead lords.
“Terry “Christbutcher” Clark sports an impressive discography through a number of Finnish groups of all creeds: brutal blackened death explorers Excommunion, deathmongers Dethroned, OSDM purveyors Cryptborn, and most notably to me, black/death teeth-kickers Maveth. His first release since Excommunion’s 2017 release Thronosis, he’s back in black under a new pharmaceutical-sounding project: Proscription.” Doctor’s command!
“Illkynja, like many of its country’s blackened offerings, is a project shrouded in mystery. It’s unknown how many members are involved or how prolific to the scene–only that the project is Icelandic in origin. Goathorned Productions debut Sæti Sálarinnar features all the hallmarks of Icelandic style: scathing layers of dissonance, pummeling drums, and punishing roars reminiscent of Almyrkvi or Andavald.” Iceland, man.
“Echoes from Deep November, the debut by unheralded Connecticut melodeath act Fires in the Distance, was originally slated to drop as a self-release way back in May. Then the band managed to get signed by Prosthetic Records and the release was pushed out to this week. When I was spinning the album back in May, I wondered why they weren’t signed, as they clearly posses talent and potential, so it’s nice to see them in the loving embrace of a label deal.” November coming fire.
“Today marks not only my 100th full review here at AMG, but also the first time that I will be covering a band for the second time. Double milestone! Just over a year ago, I wrote about Trinity of Deception, the debut full-length from Dutch band Burial Remains. It was thoroughly enjoyable, if somewhat unremarkable in the songwriting department, but its primary victory was in achieving the quintessential Swedish death metal sound. Recent re-listening reminded me just how potent the band’s HM-2 attack can be, so I’ve been mixing and stockpiling two-stroke gasoline to prepare for all of the chainsawing I expect to hear on follow-up Spawn of Chaos.” The saw is the law.
“Italian duo Morwinyon formed in 2019 as a side project of post-black group Falaise, offering three full tracks and an ambient outro for an atmosphere worthy of its debut’s namesake – Pristine. Utilizing a synth-heavy ambient black metal template of Golden Ashes or Midnight Odyssey, there’s little new to be found. However, it revels in its saccharine melodic qualities, liberally serving serene soundscapes for the blackened escapist, even if it might only offer cavities and headaches to the more discerning listener.” Bittersweet.
“Lured in initially by that artwork – unmistakably Mariusz Lewandowski but with a teensy variation on his typical hooded figure and preferred color palette – the advance track (“Mere Humans”) for Jupiterian’s Protosapien sounded huge; as in, geologically significant. This Brazilian four-piece was previously unknown to me, so off I scurried to the AMG archive dungeons to ensure that it could be mine to review! I was to be disappointed, as I discovered that a certain Muppet had in fact reviewed the last slab of atmospheric doom sludge dished up by Jupiterian. Then, when the news broke that Muppet was going to be pursuing interests outside The Hall, I realized that the follow up to 2017’s Terraforming was up for grabs after all.” Grab for the stars.
“Phantoms Made Permanent is the sophomore release from Maine’s Eave. It follows their 2016 debut, Purge, and 2018’s EP, Banners to the Moonswept, which I — inadvertently — smuggled into a 2019 EP post. Since Banners, Eave’s original three-piece line-up has acquired a fourth member, with the addition of guitarist Gabe Shara, and they have moved across to Bindrune Recordings. When I wrote up the excellent Banners, I said that if that EP was a foreshadowing of what we could expect from the next Eave full-length, that was pretty exciting.” The future is now!
“Being a black metal fan entails crankiness. It seems there are more critics and black metal TSA waiting in the wings than any other metal subgenre, just lurking, waiting to hit each new album with a slap of humility – some of it deserved, some of it not. No one’s ever happy, as no release will be raw enough, noisy enough, unlistenable enough, “they have a Facebook and a Bandcamp and don’t exclusively sell cassettes, are you fucking kidding me.”” The fine line between hate and kvlt hate.
