black metal

Featured, Reviews, Reviews - Audio January 24, 2014

Alcest – Shelter

The Prophecy Productions write-up for Alcest’s fourth full-length album, Shelter, states that the record is “about the concept of shelter as a safe place that allows everybody to escape reality for an instant, to reunite with what we really are, deep down.” For myself, Shelter is like a vacation. At first it’s exciting and enthralling to be in a carefully curated hotel in a new place, but the longer you’re away, the more you’re reminded that a vacation is really just a temporary, transitional state towards a return to some other place.

Featured, Reviews, Reviews - Audio December 9, 2013

Castevet – Obsian

From the black metal roar of “The Tower” to the melancholic beauty of “The Seat of Severence”, Obsian is a complex and flowing work. As elaborate as it can be, it’s simple in how it forces the basest of human emotion to rise to the surface and dominate the experience. It’s a masterwork that continues to reveal the layers of its bleakness with warmth rather than cold.

Featured, Reviews, Reviews - Audio September 26, 2013

Grave Miasma – Odori Sepulcrorum

Hellbound Metal: ” Odori Sepulcrorum is a sprawling and magnificent brew of the crushing might of death metal, the downtrodden scope of doom and the atmosphere of black metal. It presses in on the consciousness, making its victims uncomfortable in the least, and rendered mad at its best.”

Featured, Reviews, Reviews - Audio September 10, 2013

Satyricon – Satyricon

Hellbound Metal: “Satyricon took a chance when they first ventured into black’n’roll territory on Volcano, and many of us were ecstatic. Nothing made more sense than the ceilingless fury of black metal put to driving, Motörhead pace. It made instant converts of many. Now Satyricon seek to further push that envelope, a phoenix once again reborn from its own ashes.”

Featured, Reviews, Reviews - Vinyl August 7, 2013

Fell Voices – Regum Saturni

With Regnum Saturni, Fell Voices play darkness against light, cold against warmth, chaos against order. While it would work well as background music, it deserves more respect than that. This album is meant to be experienced with undivided attention.

Featured, Reviews, Reviews - Audio July 4, 2013

The Night Watch – s/t

Hellbound Metal: “The Night Watch have released a challenging debut, one which initially did not work for me. Though not all the tracks stand out, it’s with repeated listens that it becomes apparent to me that the album is an exciting piece of avant-garde metal/post-rock/insert label here.”

Featured, Reviews, Reviews - Vinyl May 20, 2013

Lychgate – s/t

Hellbound Metal: “Lychgate is a harrowing experience not for the faint of heart guaranteed to shrivel your soul into a black mass with its dense sonics and disorienting vocal ministrations.”