Black Metal

While largely within the wider umbrella of black metal, RVBBERVVITCH’s unique expression nevertheless evades easy categorization – nor easy consumption. Guitars are harsh and cold, yet seemingly summoned from a post-apocalyptic crater rather than an amp; bass tones are mercilessly overdriven, grinding body and soul into the dirt; cutting out humanity altogether, both blastbeats and doomy stomps pump like pus from a Midi drum-machine; and sinister echoing soundscapes meld with malodorous French vocals, which demonically range heavily distorted screeches to low-pitched grunts. And whereas so many nowadays “black metal” bands play-act, the creator of RVBBERVVITCH matches content with form, life with art: the unconventional, largely taboo visual imagery is a reflection of the artist’s unabashedly hedonistic lifestyle.

Black Metal

And so the battle continues with Aamongandr, SATANIC WARMASTER’s first studio full-length since 2014’s acclaimed Fimbulwinter. Indeed, where that album evinced a diversity of songcraft and, more so, a concertedly polished aspect that majestically made that obsidian gleam, Aamongandr explores that duality with equally compelling results. In fact, with the album wasting no time in kicking into high gear, SATANIC WARMASTER sounds more urgent than ever – and yet, here is where the band’s epic side is also revealed in full. Cryogenic and caressing is its melodicism, in the glare of burning churches, and deftly dusted with subtle synths that heighten the mysticism at the heart of the SW sound, Aamongandr’s six songs charge forth with the grim grandiosity of mighty steeds; not for nothing is one of the album’s highlights titled “Duke’s Ride (Ride of the Spectral Hooves).” All told, this sixth long-form statement of intent is immediately recognizable as SATANIC WARMASTER but irrevocably proves that its creator’s imagination continues to flow as infinitely as the Atlantean depths.

Black Metal

Recorded live at Bushbash, Koiwa, Tokyo Japan, Oct 31st. 2014

Black Metal

For the past 24 years, SATANIC WARMASTER has remained a highly revered name in the black metal underground: seemingly doing no wrong with converts, but forever riling detractors. Helmed by the tyrant Werwolf – whose involved in the black metal scene stretches back 20-some years, as the original vocalist of Horna – SATANIC WARMASTER have released classic album after classic album, from early essentials like Strength and Honour and Opferblut to relatively more recent monuments like Carelian Satanist Madness and Nachzehrer, and always at their own pace.

Black Metal

SHATARGAT compilation of the Crushing The Thrones Of Light (Demo 1996) and Wolfe Der Nacht (Demo 1999) tapes.

Black Metal

Hailing from the rustbelt wasteland of Michigan, SUMMON are one of the very first black metal bands to hail from American soil. Originally formed in 1991 and with ties to the equally cult Masochist, SUMMON were very much the proverbial black sheep in a landscape dominated by death metal. Nevertheless, feeding off the fiery acts overseas in Scandinavia as well as the despair and disgust in their homeland, the band made their official debut with the Fire Turns Everything Black demo in 1995, which would soon form the foundation for their blasphemous ‘n’ belligerent Dark Descent of Fallen Souls in ’97. Grim and primitive but suffused with a sulfurous spirit, SUMMON’s debut album saw the power-trio bash and thrash one mini-anthem after another, strafing against the dominant death metal of the day whilst not sacrificing any of its inherent power. Additionally, subtle and well-placed usage of synths added the requisitely moonlit atmosphere of the time. Altogether, Dark Descent of Fallen Souls is very much a record of its time, and yet, 20 years later, it’s lost none of its hateful magick and, in fact, sounds remarkably fresh. Hail one of the unsung pioneers of American black metal, at long last available again on compact disk!

Black Metal

Formed in 1996, SURRENDER OF DIVINITY are the oldest black metal band to hail from Thailand, and more importantly one of the first bands to put Southeast Asian black metal on the international map. A handful of demo and split tapes followed during the late ’90s and into the new millennium, all before the fateful release of their debut album, Oriental Hell Rhythmics, in 2001. A statement of pride as well as of intent, Oriental Hell Rhythmics soon became a classic work of caustic, cryogenic black metal steeped in the early Norwegian tradition. A seemingly odd proposition on paper, but given SURRENDER OF DIVINITY’s date of origin as well as how much slower life moved during the zine & tape-trading days, their sound then was not all that surprising. Regardless, the freezing fury they whipped forth across the deceptively epic album (six songs in 49 minutes) could not be denied: on cyclonic hypnosis alone, SURRENDER OF DIVINITY were superlative, and served as a fuck-off counterpoint to all their old influences who had wimped out by the end of the ’90s. Idiomatic “Norsecore” delivered with exotic flair. SURRENDER OF DIVINITY are Christ-beheaders eternal!

Black Metal

From the dawn of the classic debut album, Netherstorm, in 2018, Finland’s VARGRAV have almost single-handedly reinvigorated the oft-maligned symphonic black metal subgenre. Forged in fires from the ancients – founder V-Khaoz’s credentials are vast and stretch back decades – and stoking the embers last left by Obtained Enslavement and Norway’s Covenant and Odium, VARGRAV’s first two albums stand as proud pillars of shimmering, classics-based obsidian. However, it was 2023’s literally MASSIVE The Nighthold where VARGRAV eclipsed all prior achievements. With a lineup that included the notorious Graf Werwolf von Armageddon on vocals and Moonsorrow members Trollhorn of the Black Harvest on guitars/bass and Baron M. Tarwonen on drums, VARGRAV’s swirling, cosmic surge hit a fever pitch of potency – and the filmic elements latent to their sound became a movie unto themselves. It was not unjust to liken this third album to Covenant’s classic Nexus Polaris.