Black Metal

Stellar Black Metal split release.

Black Metal

Moon Incarnate are a new band of old souls, forged with single-minded focus. The band features the duo of Christian Kolf (Valborg) and Matin Vasari (Beyondition), who together wrote, recorded, and produced their debut album over the course of two years in their hometown of Bonn, Germany, with Peter Scartabello (Sky Shadow Obelisk) recording his drum tracks in Providence, Rhode Island, home of H.P. Lovecraft.

Black Metal

Moonblood’s Reh/Demo 10, now entitled “Angelwings in the darkness”, recorded from January to April 1997, professionally restored from the original tape.

Black Metal

Moonblood’s unofficial 3rd Rehearsal, recorded March and April 1995, professionally restored from the master tape and specially mastered for LP.

Black Metal

Moonblood’s Reh/Demo 4, recorded from July-August 1995, plus 2 extra tracks (tracks 9 and 10) taken from a yet unknown Reh/tape for the “The Winter Falls Over The Land” Demo, professionally restored from the original tape and specially mastered for LP with a length of almost 70 minutes.

Black Metal

Moonblood’s unofficial 6th Rehearsal, recorded in January 1996, professionally restored from the master tape and specially mastered for LP.

Black Metal

Recorded during September/October 1995 with common cassette recorder.

The recordings are know as Demo 4 “Siegfried – Die Sage Vom Helden”, limited to 50 copies.

Professionally restored from the original tape and specially mastered for LP.

Black Metal

Recorded during December 1994 with a common cassette recorder.

The recording itself remained unreleased and are know as Rehearsal 2, entitled “The evil rules”.

Songs 10-12 are rehearsal recordings, recorded during summer/autumn 1994.

Professionally restored from the original tape and specially mastered for LP with a length of more than 70 minutes

Black Metal

A band literally out of time, ORGREL hail from Italy and, more importantly, hail the ancient days of black metal – the days too often forgotten, in the late ’90s, when labels like Solistitium, Sombre, and Drakkar began releasing obsidian gems during the genre’s post-sensationalism fallout. Rich with righteous fury and triumph alike, the power-trio deliver their first public recording, the full-length Red Dragon’s Invocation. Immediately, mystical splendor and dizzying delirium are felt as ORGREL kick in with an impassioned surge, each and every riff, rhythm, and holler stirring bloodlust and wonder/wander simultaneously. The soundfield is studiously raw yet robust, flat but somehow full, allowing aggression and atmosphere equal reign, and engrossing the listener to the very last: indeed, Red Dragon’s Invocation is summarily titled. Its mysteries are starkly simple but exceedingly sublime, being purely and totally BLACK METAL in word and deed; black metal doesn’t need to “become” anything when it already IS. ORGREL know this intrinsic truth and pursue it to the hilt across their debut album.

Graced with absolutely stunning cover artwork by Luciana Nedelea, ORGREL raise their sword of truth and prepare to strike unbelievers with Red Dragon’s Invocation.

Black Metal

By now, RUNESPELL should require little introduction. Since this Australian entity’s public unveiling in 2017 with the Aeons of Ancient Blood demo – released by IRON BONEHEAD, as well as all successive recordings – RUNESPELL has sharpened its sword and quickly, with three albums arriving like clockwork every year: Unhallowed Blood Oath (2017), Order of Vengeance (2018), and Voice of Opprobrium (2019). Although 2020 didn’t see the release of a full-length, a split album with the reanimated Forest Mysticism tided over the bloodthirsty until the arrival of fourth LP Verses in Regicide in 2021, arguably RUNESPELL’s best-produced and -executed album to date.

Black Metal

Maintaining the same exemplary standards in songwriting and execution, here on Unhallowed Blood Oath, the passion and prowess by which Nightwolf guides RUNESPELL have somehow multiplied tenfold. This is black metal deeply steeped in early ’90s classicism, be it from Scandinavia or France or particularly Poland – again, no sea change there – but to take source material, especially the sort that’s been so widely replicated year after year, and both handily challenge those classics AND resound like an era-relevant relic is no mean feat. In fact, it requires dedication and sacrifice – spiritually, above all, as well as physically – and those are in no short supply across Unhallowed Blood Oath; not for nothing is the album titled that. The seven tracks comprising the record feel strangely far more epic than the compact running-time of 37 minutes suggest, and yet within that mesmerizing maelstrom of alternately grim/gorgeous frequencies lies profound truths, flickering refractions of times distant and as yet lived, of black metal wielded as weapon, totem, and portal simultaneously.

Black Metal

By now, RUNESPELL should require little introduction. Since this Australian entity’s public unveiling in 2017 with the Aeons of Ancient Blood demo – released by IRON BONEHEAD, as well as all successive recordings – RUNESPELL has sharpened its sword and quickly, with three albums arriving like clockwork every year: Unhallowed Blood Oath (2017), Order of Vengeance (2018), and Voice of Opprobrium (2019). That’s not to suggest that mainman Nightwolf is hasty or careless with his creations; rather, the RUNESPELL aesthetic is so etched in iron, so forged in blood, that this mystical & mesmerizing soundworld takes on its own life. A split LP with the reanimated FOREST MYSTICISM arrived last year, tiding the faithful over until the next full-length.

At last, it arrives in the form of Verses in Regicide. Arguably RUNESPELL’s best-produced and -executed album to date, Verses in Regicide is highly familiar in one sense – grandiose melancholy given majestic flight, bloodlusting energy no matter the tempo, widescreen in its vast landscapes yet fiercely focused – but reveals a subtly newer side. Melody has always played a prominent part in the characteristic RUNESPELL riffing – equal parts classic Scandinavia, France, and Poland – but there’s a multi-layered shadow of scintillating scales here that dazzles the senses and pulls even harder at the heartstrings. It’s deceptively straightforward, but boundlessly deep; it likewise feels more urgent than ever while seemingly coming from a cosmos many realities removed. Put another way, Verses in Regicide is second-wave black metal born from the elements, where earth, water, and fire forge a new destiny when wielded by such expert hands as RUNESPELL’s Nightwolf. And of course, those plaintive acoustic tracks, here aptly titled “Into Dust” and “Windswept Burial,” chill to the fucking bone.