January is, historically speaking, not a great month for new music. If anything, the first quarter of the year often feels like the music industry’s expulsion of its unwanted end-of-year leftovers, cleaning the slate for bigger, more profitable spring and summer releases. Though this may be the trend in the…
Last year, Portugal’s Gaerea blew me away with one of the more expansive and adventurous black metal records I’d heard in a good while in Unsettling Whispers. When I heard that members of the band had formed a death-doom project called Oak I low key lost my mind. “Sculptures”, the…
Since its inception, metal has been a genre of music that never lacked a flair for the dramatic. Even Black Sabbath’s earliest records were stuffed with stories intended to shock and disturb, and metal’s trajectory hasn’t changed since. While metal as a whole is as diverse in theme and approach…
Welcome once more to Kvlt Kolvmn. It’s that time again. The year has shed its final layer, curling itself into a corner and awaiting its imminent demise. Though, thankfully, not without plenty of bite left. It’s been a doozy of a year for all things metallic, with black metal being…
It’s difficult to have a discussion about underground extreme metal without mentioning Transcending Obscurity Records. Joining the ranks of labels like Dark Descent, Blood Harvest, and I, Voidhanger as one of the most prolific purveyors of underground metal madness on the planet, the label has very quickly become a go-to…
Welcome to Kvlt Kolvmn, where the black metal runneth over! And from all over the world, apparently. This month’s wealth of quality releases come to you from Greece, New York, Italy, Portugal, Seattle and Sweden. Black metal truly knows no borders, as band’s from across the globe share an affinity…
Black metal is formulaic in nature. The tropes of the genre have been recycled and reused on an endless spectrum. Bands have been integrating strange things into the style for a long time, yearning to breathe life into the cold and desolate sound beyond the standard helping of meat and…
