Batushka – Панихида
Bands are a lot like families. They are a group of people
held together by bonds who live together and often work on common goals. They
have good times and bad and see similar struggles to try and stay togethe... Read More...
Hey! Listen to The Chemical Mind!
There's been so many good albums this year it's easy for some to slip through the cracks, even ones that you've already listened to. When I first heard The Chemical Mind's Beneath the Shadow It Casts, admitted... Read More...
Fen – Stone & Sea
In tomorrow's Editors' Picks column (spoiler), I muse about the values of retrospectives and here I am, afforded again with the opportunity to discuss a posture or perspective that seems to inherently contradi... Read More...
Sinmara – Hvísl Stjarnanna
Sinmara’s previous release, the 2017 EP Within the Weaves of Infinity, was a notable turning point for the Icelandic black metal group: it contained a much greater focus on clearly defined threads of melody, co... Read More...
Saor – Forgotten Paths
When you throw off what black metal might like to think of itself, or the image certain members of it would like to present rather, the essence of the genre seems to be rooted in love rather than hate. Perhaps... Read More...
Acathexis – Acathexis
Considering the lineage of Acathexis (including members of Mare Cognitum and Yhdarl), the expansive atmospheric black metal of Acathexis should come as no surprise. As with Mare Cognitum, there’s a certa... Read More...
Karg – Dornenvögel
I've written before about black metal's love affair with the idea of the auteur, most at length in one of my favorite pieces, my longform essay on black metal and Romanticism, where I discussed the idea of the... Read More...
Súl ad Astral – Oasis
Even the most extreme forms of music gather around a common sound or genre; that's something that I've said before on the blog. I find it to be one of most fascinating norms of human behavior out there. Even th... Read More...
Cantique Lépreux – Paysages Polaires
Paysages polaires, at heart, is unabashedly Romantic — its choice of artistic references (early 20th-century Québécois poetry, a late 19th-century French painting) and untempered spirit are earnest tributes to ... Read More...
Unreqvited – Mosaic I: L’amour et l’ardeur
It’s so odd how we all have this one vision of what black metal is. We all kind of have an image of corpse paint, dissonant guitars, and nearly unintelligible vocals culminating in the sound of what most descri... Read More...