“It’s funny that as the UK experiences a heatwave, I am writing about an album called Eis (Ice). Contrasting the cool summer breeze with the ferocious wind of blackened blastbeat barrages. Juxtaposing the clear blue skies with a grey mist of echoing feedback. Opposing the heat that has everyone spontaneously organizing a barbecue with cold, depressive atmospheres and morose vocals that make you want to stay inside and watch the rain. Responsible are Viennese four-piece Loather, and this is their debut, though they’ve been around since 2016.” Fire and Eis.
Wiegedood
Predatory Void – Seven Keys to the Discomfort of Being Review
“Voids are not an uncommon thing to discuss in metal. Somehow putting to music the vastness, the unfathomability, the colossus of nothingness is a feat in and of itself, and many have attempted to bring it to life. It’s the ultimate futility, the great vanity. While many have tried, from the mysterious Prava Kollektiv’s Voidsphere, the Swiss enigma Death. Void. Terror., and the dense death metal of Desolate Shrine or Abyssal, they are mere glimpses of the monument, the perspective of madness. When the cold nothingness attaches to the skull and does not shake, will Predatory Void provide the siren’s song sprinting to the early grave?” When voids attacks.
Zifir – Demoniac Ethics Review
“Look at that album art, yo. Just look at it. LOOK AT IT!!! You might not necessarily be able to discern just what, exactly, is transpiring in that depiction, but you do know one thing: This… is… Black Metal! Perhaps that’s not enough to pique your interests, given the prolific prevalence ov metal’s best subgenre in recent years. Ok, you standards-having turd factories, would you be more intrigued by Zifir’s Demoniac Ethics if I were to tell you that this particular treat is a Turkish delight? Still nothing? Jesus, you people are impossible.” Evil ethics and pompous muppets.
Sol Sistere – Cold Extinguished Light Review
“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.
Murdryck – Födelsen Review
“’The first draft of almost everything you produce is shit. And the second draft is usually also shit. But you never wind up with anything worthwhile without producing those early drafts.’ A wise supervisor once told me these words, and she was right. Whether a terrified n00b trying to avoid the perils of the AMG Skull Pit, or attempting a complicated academic research paper, the early stages of anything worthwhile are often about finding your identity and your voice. That process can be messy and unglamorous, but it’s how anything great gets made.” Revise, Mutherf_ _ _ _ _!
Cataya – Firn Review
“Music is a visual experience for me, so much so that when I see something instrumental smoldering in the Angry Metal Heap ov Dreams, I grow curious rather than cautious. Such was the case with Cataya’s Firn, and I met its four-track challenge with all kinds of optimism: I ain’t afraid of no vox.” Less talk, more mood.
Arkuum – Die Letzte Agonie Review
“There are some truths which we all hold to be self-evident no matter who we are. Examples of such universal certainties include that you will breathe oxygen under a blue sky, fire will be hot eleven times out of ten, and that, one day, you will die. Most do their damnedest to disarm that last trvth bomb, but it’s the only thing Germany’s Arkuum are thinking about on their sophomore effort, Die Letzte Agonie. With a fittingly foreboding production and a staunch refusal to smile, one man fatalist army Arkas cradles that aforementioned bombshell like a kvlt and cvddly baby, singing life itself to sleep with a 50-minute blackened lullaby.”Hvsh little baby.
Wilt – Ruin Review
“The Angry Metal Promo Bin is a fickle mistress. She can conceal highly sought after treasures by surrounding them with infinite no-names, and she can trick you into believing that Rapture is Rapture. Worse yet, she mistags like a motherfucker, calling this genre that and slapping the black metal label on albums with wild abandon. It’s frustrating enough when selecting an unknown band only to find that she’s lied again, but there’s something even more personally offensive in seeing a band that you actually do know and love flagged under the wrong genre. Enter: Wilt’s Ruin, billed (like everything else) as black metal.” Black is the new bin.
Amenra – Mass VI [Things You Might Have Missed 2017]
“Sometimes life gets dark. I’m not referring to the bullshit in the news, the whore we know as world politics, or the hopeless struggle to remediate the things we’ve done to this planet. No, I mean things get dark. For how selfish it sounds, sometimes things happen to you that make all the worldly issues scatter across the floor, like mercury from a broken thermometer. No matter how you try, you don’t give a shit about anything as you fall deeper and deeper into yourself. That’s the power of depression.” Given to the falling.
Limbonic Art – Spectre Abysm Review
“I have to admit, I’m impressed with some of the black metal records so far this year. Of the records that I reviewed, I find myself returning to Ophiuchi, Wiegedood, and Havukruunu on a regular basis. Not to mention the solid output from old-school black metallers, Ofermod and Svartsyn. But, for how excited I’ve been for most of these releases, I was most excited for Limbonic Art’s Spectre Abysm. If you’ve never heard of these Norwegian symphonic black metal beasts, you should fix that.” Limber up.