Jan 18, 2023
0:25-8:49
PURE WRATH
(Indonesia), album – Hymn to the Woeful Hearts, song – The
Cloak of Disquiet
— A blue flame vocalist glowing his
vivid tormented brilliance. String instruments bringing delicate
beauty in stark contrast with the thickly textural black
metal.
10:07-14:55
KVAEN (Sweden),
album – The Great Below, song – Damnations Jaw
— Galloping evil black thrash packed
with flying calloused fingertips and melodic glory.
15:30-19:58
DET EVIGA LEENDET
(Sweden), album – Reverence, song – Retch
— The singer of Mare Cognitum is one
of the best singers of the year. Darkening skies and the black ash
of fury.
20:23-25:59
CHAOTIAN (Denmark),
album – Effigies Of Obsolecence, song – Gangrene
Dream
— Thick, monstrous, vicious death
driving and demonic and twisting into massive rolling
riffs.
26:25-32:13
BÂ'A (France),
album – Egrégore, song – Domitor
— Tempestuous, theatrical,
contemplative and landing in with an upheaval of
guitars.
32:35-38:46
KATHAROS (Sweden),
album – Of Lineages Long Forgotten, song – I Waged
War
— A blizzard of drumming with pellets
of brutality and swirling majestic wizardry. Metal made for
warriors.
39:13-42:38
NON EST DEUS
(Germany), album – Impious, song – Fuck Your
God
— The vocalist is a slash of
screaming sharp pain, wicked lyrics and the sound its own
meditation.
43:11-50:35
AN ABSTRACT ILLUSION
(Sweden), album – Woe, song – Slaves
— Psychedelic, progressive,
electronic, and beautiful, propelled to death and black within
tight gymnastics of instrumentation.
51:07-1:00:43
ULTHA (Germany),
album – All That Has Never Been True, song – Der Alte Feind
(Jeder Tag Reißt Wunden)
— Black metal that stalks in a
glorious icy landscape, and you fight with a spiked battering ram.
Strength, beauty, breathless building glory.
1:01:11-1:06:48
HATH (NJ), album
– All That Was Promised, song – Kenosis
— Epic, cascading drama with scorched
earth vocals and beautiful, tangled, snarling, vividly thoughtful
compositions.
1:07:17-1:17:36
TÓMARÚM (GA),
album – Ash in Realms of Stone Icons, song – Condemned to a
Life of Grief
— Proggy guitar interludes, the
melodic and wildly technical harmony is a majestic black
melodic.
1:17:54-1:22:49
TORTURIZED
(Germany), album – Aftermath, song – Ecocide
— Angular, beefy, electronic and
strange. Stunning.
1:23:08-1:27:49
INEXORUM (MN),
album – Equinox Vigil, song – Dark Sky
Sanctuary
— Sexy frigid vocals with a clean
heavy metal style in a post-atmospheric black metal with a chugging
death and harmonizing pleading guitars.
1:28:07-1:35:59
AENAON (Greece),
album – Mnemosyne, song – Synastry of Hearbeats
— Modern atmospheric death with
experimental jazz saxophone, and retro spacey electronic creating
true theater.
1:36:21-1:42:19
AETHEREUS (WA),
album – Leiden, song – Son of a Nameless Father
— Tortured duels with haunting, piano
and violin create an intense and lovely noodling melodic
death.
1:42:34-1:49:32
DESICCATION (CA/NV),
album – Cold Dead Earth, song – The Fall
— Futuristic atmospheric black metal
breaking with industrial-style drumming and a blistering
vocalist.
1:49:54-1:52:57
CRYPTAE
(Netherlands), album – Capsule, song – Sessile
— Cryptae releases yet another
surging ocean of hypnotic, raw, strange nightmares.
1:53:20-1:58
DAEVA (Philly),
album – Through Sheer Will and Black Magic, song – Loosen the
Tongue of the Dead
— Black metal and thrash and punk
with a serpent vocalist that is both raw and wintry and incredibly
produced.
1:58:44-END
#2 ALBUM:
GRIMA (Russia),
album – Frostbitten, song – Giant’s Eternal
Sleep
— I listened to so many records, and
this just stood out. A howling beast of a vocalist that devours. A
carnival of instrumentation within a romantic, bleak, screaming
black metal.