Black Metal

Now, as summer’s heat inevitably fades away amid soon-to-be-falling leaves, Wooden Throne returns with an equally mighty successor: Eternal Wanderer of the Night Sky. Almost too perfectly titled, Eternal Wanderer of the Night Sky highlights the nostalgia hinted at by its full-length predecessor while also expanding Lehto’s gaze as high as that night sky AND down to the mossy depths of the forest floor. Much of what made Wooden Throne‘s first album such a classic is still intact – acute sense of space (often literally), impassioned performance, kaleidoscopic production – but Eternal Wanderer of the Night Sky is every inch a counterpart / counterpoint. The real development is the prominent usage of piano: never busy but always front and center, sublimely bittersweet notes lead the onward-and-skyward charge, pulling heartstrings as handily as they send chills down the spine. In this sense, and when coupled with Lehto’s more overtly lead-oriented guitar work here, Wooden Throne‘s second album is not so much a strictly “black metal” record as it is an atmospheric metal one – and, once again, paradoxically uplifting no matter what appellation you apply to it.

Black Metal

Finally available again with revised artwork and remastered audio.

Black Metal

The UKBM split for the ages. These two powerhouse acts come together with 6 new tracks of atmospheric, ice cold black metal.

Black Metal

The bats having flown the belfry, YMIR continue their pillage of the present with the second album Aeons of Sorrow. Driving deeper into the past, Vrasjarn unfurls a comparatively more melodic and nuanced record that’s icier and, daresay, more beautiful. Here, he’s joined by the always-commanding presence of Corvus on vocals and prolific veteran drummer VnoM, with bass by True Black Dawn’s Syphon and additional synths by Tyranny’s Agathul – a crucial component of the mesmerizing tapestry of Aeons of Sorrow. To step into the album’s landscape is to imbue the spiritual essence, the psychic sensations, the all-enveloping ATMOSPHERE of 1995. Quiet castles, ice-capped mountains, beastly blizzards, infinite darkness, capes and swords and chainmail: while seemingly innocuous “triggers” for those who don’t breathe that essence – or worse, mere items of mockery – they serve as the textural touchstones for bands like YMIR and records like Aeons of Sorrow, both in increasingly short supply no matter what the internet might tell you. And yet, with the skillfully unselfconscious songwriting on display here, the album adds to that noble tradition rather than listlessly pecking at its remains.

Black Metal

YMIR’s history stretches back to the late ’90s. The band originally existed as a trio of vocalist/guitarist Vrasjarn, later of funeral doomlords Profetus; drummer Lord Sargofagian, who concurrently founded the prolific Baptism; and lead guitarist Toni Pšlkki. With this lineup, YMIR released the Trollsword demo in 1999, mystical black metal firmly (and favorably) of its time. Seven more years would follow before another recording came from YMIR, as the brothers Vrasjarn and Lord Sargofagian were busy with the aforementioned bands (and many others), but the Silvery Howling demo at last arrived in 2006, courtesy of WEREWOLF, and saw the band scaled back to a duo and evincing a rawer, nastier sound whilst retaining the sweet stench of the ’90s. Naturally, once again, more silence ensued…

Black Metal

A new act emerging from the Finnish extreme music underground, YRR (former members of Kadotus) plays cold and melodic Scandinavian Black Metal with a furious grip in the classic 1990’s old school style.
Compilation of the first two releases of YRR´s arts, “Sokeiden Valtakunta” EP and “Vanhat Haavat Ovat Auenneet” Demo.