Death /Black Metal

Formed in Michigan during the late 80s, Lucifer’s Hammer was a prominent fixture in the Midwest underground, playing numerous regional gigs and routinely featured in the lineup of at Michigan Death-fest. The earliest incarnation of the band was more thrash-oriented, but as the band evolved, it gravitated toward a darker black/death metal sound. By the mid 1990s, Lucifer’s Hammer was part of a circle that included such bands as Summon, Masochist, and Wind of the Black Mountains, all of which at some point shared members with Lucifer’s Hammer. It proved to be among the most fertile scenes of early USBM around that time. Although Lucifer’s Hammer released two earlier demos, it was with their 1994 self-released tape, “The Burning Church,” that the band left its most enduring mark. Lucifer’s Hammer was among the first American bands to play death metal suffused with the atmospheric darkness and savage ferocity associated with the then-emerging black metal movement. On “The Burning Church,” the band plays relentless blackened death steeped in a miasma of blasphemy. Indeed, this demo is among the darkest death metal recordings of its time. Lucifer’s Hammer should be mentioned alongside bands like Profanatica, Demoncy, and Absu.

Black Metal

Formed in 2019, LUNAR CHALICE comprise prolific veterans of the German metal underground. Under the alluring moniker LUNAR CHALICE, the band quickly set upon a slew of releases, first with the Walpurgis Dance demo in 2019 and the Night Poetry EP right after, exhibiting a subtly refreshing approach to classics-minded black metal. The next year came the even-stronger Medieval Cults of Heresy EP, thus setting the stage for the band’s debut full-length.

Taking a relatively longer time given their feverish creativity, LUNAR CHALICE now deliver the grand statement of their so-far-undiscovered powers, Transcendentia: The Shadow Pilgrimage. With one steel-toed boot planted under a funeral moon and the other in a world without end, LUNAR CHALICE give a masterclass in stripped-down
songwriting rich in nuance and dynamics. Their black metal is like a boulder gathering momentum down a mountain and rumbling across valleys; the movement is inexorable, and portends doom, and simply cannot be stopped. LUNAR CHALICE, in effect, extend a spectrum of black metal sonics that’s feral and unhinged on one hand and mercilessly martial on the other; that their almost-overwhelmingly physical onslaught is deliberately (and eerily) clipped betrays both a depth of vision and a rare grace in a landscape usually laden with filth. Which isn’t to say that Transcendentia doesn’t sound “dirty” (it does), but rather that that’s not the overarching thematic – that there’s a sense of ceremony or even regality at play here. Credit due to the absolutely madman vocals of bassist E.I.-M., who more often than not channels a clean tenor that’s more disturbing than most “black metal” vocals.

Black Metal

Lunar Spells is a Greek Black Metal band formed in Athens in 2020, by Cryptic (guitar, vocals, synths), K.C.H (bass) and V.T (drums). Both musically and lyrically, Lunar Spells stays close to the roots of Scandinavian “old school” black metal. Lyrical subjects thus often deal with darkness, depression, misanthropy and hate. After their first EP recording Medieval Shadows from an Ancient Netherworld (2020), the line-up was augmented by Atxak on vocals, and the group recorded their debut full length album Where Silence Whispers. Here is presented the new full-length album!