Black Metal

The second album by the pioneers of post-black metal

Three years after their genre-defining record “Souvenirs D’un Autre Monde”, Alcest return to the sound of black metal on their sophomore “Écailles De Lune”, but without forgetting any of their trademarks: calm passages, massive slabs of guitars, catchy melodies, and hook-lines going straight to the heart. “This time I was especially inspired by the seaside, the energy and the exaltation you can feel when you sit in front of the sea at night,” Neige tries to describe the album’s atmosphere. “It appears terribly fascinating, full of secrets and scary at the same time.”

Black Metal

Released in 2007, Alcest’s debut album, “Souvenirs d’un autre monde”, marks the starting point of the band’s extraordinary career.

With the release of “Souvenirs d’un autre monde”, Alcest mastermind Neige forged a luminous new sound that floats on the fringes of metal, yet incorporates emotions of euphoria, bliss and nostalgia. The singer and multi-instrumentalist dedicated the album to his childhood memories of experiences in a spiritual otherworld; personal themes that would become conceptual cornerstones of subsequent Alcest albums.

“Souvenirs…” became known as one of the fundamental releases of the Blackgaze / Post-Black Metal genre, a record that continually influences countless other bands in its wake, and was selected by Pitchfork as one of its “50 Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time”.

Black Metal

Having grown out of the Norwegian Death Metal band MORTEM, ARCTURUS emerged under the irresistible influence of Oslo’s creatively bursting and fast rising underground black metal scene officially with the two-track 7″ “My Angel” (1991). With then-guitarist and formidable keyboard player Sverd and MAYHEM drum-beast Hellhammer at its core, vocals were first contributed by Marius Vold, who also sang on the legendary THORNS demo “The Thule Tape”. While still very much influenced by death metal, the addition of doom-laden slowness and eerie keyboards already pointed into a far blacker cosmos. On the four tracks of the original 1994 “Constellation” EP, ULVER’s Garm had taken over the vocal duties and Samoth from EMPEROR had joined the band on guitar. Yet, ARCTURUS already went off the (in reality quite wide-ranged) black metal norms mainly due to Sverd’s keyboard arrangements that were pre-shadowing the trademark theatrical or circus-like style the Norwegians adopted on their following albums.

LP (black vinyl) incl. poster, insert, padded inner sleeve and protection sleeve.

Black Metal

On their sophomore full-length “La Masquerade Infernale” (1997), ARCTURUS took their musical experimenting three ambitious steps further. The Norwegians succeeded in wedding a devilish concept loosely based on the characters of Faust and Mephistopheles with an eclectic range of surreal sound elements into an album that is rightfully considered a prime example of what later came to be known as avant-garde metal. From quoting Edgar Allan Poe in operatic paraphrases by frontman Garm (ULVER) or the additional high notes from the unmistakable I.C.S. Vortex (BORKNAGAR) via the spaced-out electronic samples, classical instrumentation, and an even increased use of psychedelic guitar riffage alongside more “traditional” black and death metal elements. Brilliant guitarist Knut Magne Valle replaced Carl August Tideman, which brought stability to this position of the band’s line-up. ARCTURUS aimed dangerously high with “La Masquerade Infernale” – but remarkably pulled off the extremely difficult feat of forging such widely differing elements into a wildly fascinating, over the top listening experience that has stood the test of time and surely deserves to be labelled a “masterpiece”.

Gatefold LP (black vinyl) incl. poster, padded inner sleeve and protection sleeve.

Black Metal

Re-issue of the groundbreaking debut album

With their groundbreaking debut album, Bethlehem gave name to an entire genre: “Dark Metal”.

Gatefold LP (black vinyl) incl. padded inner sleeve and protection sleeve

Black Metal

DORNENREICH offer a veritable cornucopia of wonderful surprises on their ninth full-length “Du wilde Liebe sei”. The Tyrolean trio has used the more than seven years that have passed since the release of their latest masterpiece “Freiheit” (2014) well to create a new dimension of sound. Although “Du wilde Liebe sei” remains faithful within the Austrians’ musical canon of combining heightened emotional dynamics with expressive momentum, DORNENREICH evolved their trademark sound further into a new dimension: a pulsating earth-rooted web build from percussion, bass, and electric guitars enables their unique vocals, acoustic guitars, and violins to grow wings and freely soar skywards. As the translation of the album title “You Wild Love Be” implies, this record revolves around the mystery of “love” and many of the powerful effects, painful misunderstandings, and complex entanglements that are forever associated with this human idea. Originally audibly inspired by melodic black metal (on their debut album “Nicht um zu sterben”, 1997), DORNENREICH developed a far wider musical horizon on the following seven albums with the progressing inclusion of acoustic instruments and elements derived from folklore and classical music as major contributing factors. Now, “Du wilde Liebe sei” marks the next major step in the band’s never predictable evolution to a unique style, which they have dubbed “black arcane rock”. With “Du wilde Liebe sei”, DORNENREICH enter a new sonic dimension that shines brighter than ever before and witnesses the Austrians climbing onto their highest artistic peak yet – time to get packed and to join their wondrous journey on the trail of love!

Black Metal

With their third album “Her von welken Nächten”, Dornenreich succeed in increasing the passion of their first two albums in a substantial way: “Her von welken Nächten”, that is one hour of authentic dark and dynamic intensity in nine waves. Thanks to their will to individuality that expresses itself in unique arrangements, multi-layered structures, many surprises, and extremely varied vocals, Dornenreich do justice to their main ambition – raising the intensity without stagnating in the realisation of that aim.

Gatefold 2LP (heavy 180g vinyl, black) with 2 bonus tracks, printed inner sleeves and protection sleeve.