The concept of the “release cycle” is one of the most inconsistent aspects of modern music. While we’re still awaiting albums announced early last quarter with fanfare and multiple lead singles, here we have Griefloss dropping their latest self-titled album after just a series of veiled teasers. This isn’t the…
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 describe as pure metallic evil. In recent years, we’ve seen an explosion…
As a music fan, every Friday release is a blessing. It’s the best way to end the week. You’re getting ground down by the monotony of the 9 to 5 and just need something to boost your spirits for the next 8-10 hours to carry you into the weekend. You…
Atmospheric music has such a unique ability to draw in a listener. Nothing else can completely dominate your emotions. It can leave you full of depression or make you soar with triumphant joy. Sometimes it does a lot of these things at once. Deadly Carnage pull all of this off…
Some music doesn’t want you to be happy. It doesn’t care to lift spirits or engender triumphant emotional release in its listeners. Instead, it attempts to drown you. To suffocate and brutalize you. To lay bare torment through audio in order to suck you into the chaos and anguish in…
It’s pretty incredible to reflect on how much Kvlt Kolvmn has grown over the last couple years, especially when it comes to how consequential it’s been for Heavy Blog’s coverage of the vast web of metal subgenres. What began as an outlet for me (Scott) to occasionally ramble about my…
Well, third time’s a charm, I guess—this here is the third consecutive installment of Kvlt Kolvmn Take Two, a monthly round-up of my favorite BM releases from the past 30-ish days. The only reason I’m surprised I could fill the column out this month is because of relatively little time I spent with black metal this month; there was just way too much incredible music coming out from virtually every other genre (seriously, if you haven’t yet, take a read through this month’s Editors’ Picks). Still, the black metal I did listen to was some of the best I’ve heard so far this year, with one album currently in the running for my BM AOTY. So without further ado, let’s dive in:
When I originally launched Kvlt Kolvmn back in 2015, my intention was to create an HLT-style outlet for all of the noteworthy releases I find while digging around for underground black metal. But as you can tell by the singular installment linked above…that didn’t end up happening. I never stopped my constant conquest for new BM, though, and I figured a new year would be a great opportunity to compile all of my findings in one place and jot down why I think they’re absolutely worth our readership’s time and attention. So here we are with Kvlt Kolvmn, Take Two – a monthly round-up of my top 10 favorite BM releases from the past 30 days. There’s a fair amount of variety here in terms of where these bands/one-man projects are from and the music they’re churning out, and my hope is you’ll find at least one of these albums worth your time (and, potentially, support). And while this might be self-explanatory, please comment with any releases I’ve missed out on but are definitely worth a spin.
Depressive Suicidal Black Metal is not a subtle genre of music. Arising as a symptom of the second wave of black metal misery sweeping Europe in the early 1990’s, DSBM has since carved itself a particularly notorious and shocking niche within a genre already notorious for being shocking. Rumors shroud…
If you like your black metal raw, depressive, foreboding, and just a tad wacky, take a look at Moloch. Their 2014 release Verwustung dabbles in ambient music, but fear not!. Although the first and last tracks (besides the oddball inclusion of Chopin’s Funeral March as a hidden track) are ambient snore-fests, the six tracks sandwiched between them are well-executed black metal bangers that more than make up for whomever’s idea it was to sit on a keyboard and call it ambient music.
