Paysage d’Hiver (CH) – Kristall & Isa LP

Black Metal

By now, IRAE should require little introduction. Since the dawn of this cursed millennium, mainman Vulturius has prolifically pursued a singular vision of RAW BLACK METAL that includes four full-lengths and countless split releases with likeminded comrades. As such, IRAE have almost singlehandedly invigorated Portugal’s black metal scene, particularly the rawer iteration of it, and more recently find themselves aligned with the elite Black Circle, alongside MONS VENERIS, VETALA, Decrepitude, and Rainha Cólera. Fans since the beginning, SIGNAL REX are honored to be aligned with Vulturius for IRAE’s long-awaited fifth album.

Black Metal

Limited 200 copies.

Black Metal

The first full-length black metal onslaught of Chilean Black Metal project Aarkanne, Mysterii, which followed the release of the debut Aarkanne demo entitled ‘De Profundis’ which was unveiled in November, 2020. Mysterii is a testament to the agonizing punishment of raw black metal with deathlike structures that enforce a flurry of distorted chaos. Six tracks of this thunderous South-American raw black metal carnage that are consistently punishing, Aarkanne delivers these strong waves of melodic plague in this LP. Pure hatred and disgust captured into six tracks of destructive raw black metal that stands for ultimate torment to the depraved.

Black Metal

RUTTOKOSMOS are one of the great “what if?”s of Finnish black metal. The band formed sometime in 2003 and released the five-song Ja minä näin kuoleman demo in 2006 and then the six-song Kärsimys demo a year later. Afterward, nothing was heard from RUTTOKOSMOS ever again. Only one member concurrently played in Divina Inferis, and the other two members either disappeared and played pseudonymously in other bands.

Black Metal

After 2019’s well-received Endless Trails demo via SIGNAL REX, HOLLOW WOODS strike with a full-length debut fittingly titled Cold Winds Cleave the Earth. While hailing from Finland, this mysterious entity largely eschew their homeland’s reigning black metal idiom, instead taking influence from Ukraine (Roman Saenko’s projects), Norway (early Ulver, equally early Gorgoroth), and especially Russia (the Blazebirth Hall collective). In other words, pure & proud BLACK METAL, nevertheless done with personality and charisma.

Black Metal

Building upon that grand fortress is a four-song/22-minute mini-album likewise truly titled: The Oath of the Black Wolf. Here, ORGREL have gone a-hunting, their ’90s black metal classicism stalking and striking with a hunger only hinted at previously. Still, fueled by this fire they may be, the Italians across this mini manage to maximize their epic side, with the predecessor’s flat-yet-full soundfield now becoming slightly more chromatic in the process. Lead lines portend dark truths, ever building in tension and then grandeur, but the record’s swift-yet-satisfying runtime reveals the darkest, most intrinsic truth: black metal doesn’t need to “become” anything when it already IS. Hail The Oath of the Black Wolf!