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    Eternity - Mundicide (2023)

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    Hailing from Norway, today we have Eternity and their latest outburst of brutality titled “Mundicide”. With tons of Black Metal bands coming out of this country, it is easy to have a few fly under the radar, and what a mistake has been in this case. The band creates a very punishing and cohesive older school BM style with some modern shine, making the 43 minutes of music in this release quite vicious and well crafted. If you are looking to add another stellar Norwegian BM outfit to your playlist, Eternity is the one you have been waiting for.

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    NONE - Inevitable (2023)

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    It has been a long four years since mysterious entity NONE unleashed their last release “Damp Chill of Life”. With a very piercing and demoralizing sound, this North American outfit delivers some of the most nihilistic aural experiences you will ever encounter. With “Inevitable”, the band keeps the pain going with 56 minutes of soul crushing music. For any fan of Atmospheric Black Metal, this is exactly what dreams are made from.

    Opening with the somber “Never Came Home”, momentum is slowly built with clean guitars and atmospherics just before the wall of distortion sets it. The interplay of whispers as the harsh screams come in showcases the band’s brilliance when it comes to shift momentum and create devastating transition. Eerie pieces like “Alone, Where I Can See” and “A Reason to Be”, further push the band’s ability to deliver melancholy amongst aggressive onslaughts to completely new heights.

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    Wooden Veins - Impending Waves (2023)

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    Highly melancholic and expertly crafted, “In Finitude” was the bands excellent 2021 debut and with “Impending Waves” they show this was no fluke. Composed of musicians from Chile, but residing elsewhere, the band’s music has a certain Mar de Grises edge but with their own shroud of melancholy and despair. If you are looking for a truly engaging and melodic dose of bleakness, this release is right up your alley.

    Opening quickly with the lush “Dreamside Death”, the band quickly sets a very mellow and yet expertly crafted mood with lush layered guitars and highly emotional vocals. The mixture of proggy and doomy riffs and tempo changes makes for very unique and engaging pieces like “Tearing Seas”, “The Dreamer” and the more dynamic “Skies”. The way the band layers their guitars alongside dreamy atmospherics is excellent, creating a very intoxicating style and sound.

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    Sleep of Monsters - ΓΓΓ (2023)

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    In the last few years we have increasingly gotten into Psychedelic/Occult Rock/Folk bands as the music is quite engaging and different to our regular dose of distorted guitars and harsh vocals. Sleep of Monsters falls in this category, with a very unique and intoxicating sound. Hailing from Finland, the band is ready to drop “ΓΓΓ”, featuring ten tracks and nearly 50 minutes of enigmatic music. For fans of bands like Sabbath Assembly, Årabrot, Hexvessel, King Dude, etc., this outfit will certainly haunt you with its gloomy moodiness.

    Getting down to business with the sultry “Black Blacker Than Black”, the band sets a very mysterious and yet lively mood. With a multi-pronged vocal approach, the overlay of female and male clean vocals works wonders, adding depth to the band’s sound and creating some lush moments on songs like the gloomy “Language of the Birds”, or the more upbeat “Alexandia” and “Melinoe”. Aside from the band’s crafty vocal melodies, the instrumentation in this release is quite warm and fuzzy, creating very unique soundscapes, captivating the listener as hits like “Language of the Birds”, “The Singer”, and the mystical “Nyktophoros” roll around.

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    Heretoir - Wastelands (2023)

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    It has been a while since we had new music from Germany’s Heretoir and their dreamy post-Black Metal music, since 2017 to be exact. With the EP “Wastelands” the band unleashes three new songs and three live recordings, creating a solid mix of anticipation and insight into the band’s intense live performances. If you are a fan of the genre, or outfits like (older) Lantlos, Ghost Bath, and Alcest to some degree, you should not miss out on this excellent band and this solid release.

    Opening with the expansive “Anima”, perfectly layering mellow vocal arrangements and the band’s signature guitars. We particularly enjoy the tempo changes and overall atmospheric brilliance of the song, creating a very engaging and yet dynamic soundscape. Our favorite track in this EP has to be “At Dusk” and its dreamy vocals overlaid over atmospheric arrangements, certainly having a very Alcest-ish vibe to it from their “Shelter” days.

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    Vintersea - Woven Into Ashes (2023)

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    There are few albums that span almost every possible genre of Metal, in a cohesive and creative way. Today, Vintersea manages to achieve the near-impossible with their latest opus “Woven Into Ashes”. Further expanding their Progressive Death/Black Metal core, the band throws in some Doom/Djent/Goth elements to the nearly 50 minutes of music split in eight tracks. If you liked the band’s previous effort, “Illuminated”, you will certainly love this one.

    Opening with crafty guitars and very lively tempo changes, “Unveiling Light” gives us that Into Eternity vibe from their “Buried In Oblivion/The Scattering of Ashes” days. Things get quite heavy, in a very Death Metal way on “Devil’s Churn”, with quite brutal and intense opening that suddenly waves back and forth melodic clean-vocal sections. Avienne Low is a very talented vocalist that perfectly transitions between hypnotic clean vocals and powerful harsh screams as the blistering “At the Gloaming Void” and “Lonesome Tide”.

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    Hasard - Malivore (2023)

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    Unleashing a monumental nightmare-inducing behemoth of a release, today we have Hasard and their chaotic opus “Malivore”. Filled with intensity and lunacy, this release delivers five tracks and roughly 45 minutes of some of the most disturbing music ever created. With elements from bands like Blut Aus Nord and Ævangelist paired with the theatrics of Devil Doll and Elend, this release is both punishing and haunting.

    The release kicks off with the foul “Hypnocentrisme”, and its cavernous first few minutes. Mixing creepy and harsh vocals with lush and over-the-top orchestral arrangements, this album quickly sets a haunting vibe as it gets under your skin. Both “Vicivers” and the album title track slowly creep on you with funky atmospherics and heavy Black Metal onslaughts, creating a very visceral and disturbing atmosphere that few have dared to craft.

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    Chrome Waves - Earth Will Shed Its Skin (2023)

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    North America’s finest Post-Black Metal band returns with another brilliantly melancholic and crushing release titled “Earth Will Shed Its Skin”. Featuring six tracks and exactly 42 minutes of misery-inducing music, the band further hones their trade delivering a masterful mixture of melancholy and aggression, paired with bleak atmospherics. If you liked the band’s earlier efforts, this release will be right up your alley as it is more refined and yet maintains the band’s core sound.

    Opening with the mellow “Forward”, the band sets a very moody and engaging tempo that is both aggressive and yet catchy, thanks to its weeping guitars and atmospherics. As “Under the Weight of a Billion Souls”, we get additional catchiness mixed in with intricate bass guitar lines, shoegazey passages, and crafty vocal arrangements. The band’s sound is quite dynamic as it weaves back and forth between fast and punishing to introspective and melancholic, as we can hear in pieces like “The Long Rope” and “What Desperate Looks Like”.

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    Outlaw - Reaching Beyond Assiah (2023)

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    Featuring a pummeling intensity, today we have International outfit Outlaw and their third full-length release “Reaching Beyond Assiah”. With a huge Dissection/Thulcandra vibe, this band delivers seven memorable anthems that clock in at around 45 minutes. Filled with melody and explosiveness, this release is certainly for Black Metal fans that want to be headbanging for almost an hour straight.

    Opening with the blistering intensity of “Bliss of Soul”, we get a nice balanced onslaught of melodic riffs and a hectic tempo. The Dissection worship starts with the epic “To Burn This World And Dissolve The Flesh”, a track filled with very familiar sounding riffs, but nicely arranged to fit the band’s relentless style. We particularly enjoyed the lead guitars in the aforementioned track and other melodic standouts like “Beyond The Realms of God” and “The Unending Night”.

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    Countless Skies - Resonance (2023)

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    As one of the most promising and epic Melodic Death Metal bands, Countless Skies has blown us away with their killer full length releases “Glow” and “New Dawn”. With “Resonance”, the band dabbles into the live in the studio recordings territory with great success. Featuring songs from both their full-length releases, this five track EP is just what the doctor ordered to keep the momentum going for this excellent band.

    The release opens with “Daybreak” from their “New Dawn” release and they completely nail it. We love how this track sounds slightly different with a higher emphasis on the cello arrangements from Arianna Mahsayeh. The other track from the same release is a shorter version of the Insomnium-esque “Wanderer”, again showcasing their insanely good lead guitars alongside melancholy dripping melodic passages.

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