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 two albums to date stand as proud pillars of shimmering, classics-based obsidian.

As momentous as those two full-lengths have been, VARGRAV arguably eclipse both with their third album, The Nighthold. With a lineup that now includes 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 has never been more potent; their attack is both sharper and dreamier, crystal-clear and opaque simultaneously. That added clarity creates more immediacy as The Nighthold kicks in, for the aggression of old is kicked into overdrive here and the synths take on a truly orchestral aspect. It’s not for nothing that the album is a full hour in length: everything here sounds (and feels) HUGE, one massive velvety purple landscape of stained-glass visions as far as the third eye can see. And all 12 tracks are threaded together in a plausibly cinematic manner; while each is mighty in its own respective right, VARGRAV sequence every song with artistic flair and high drama, concluding the immersive experience with a daresay-soulful guitar solo during the coda of “Creator of the True Realm” that then segues into the nearly-10-minute big-screen instrumental “Ghostlands.” What film or filmic realm one enters into (or leaves) is entirely up to the listener…The Nighthold is boundless!

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 two albums to date stand as proud pillars of shimmering, classics-based obsidian.

As momentous as those two full-lengths have been, VARGRAV arguably eclipse both with their third album, The Nighthold. With a lineup that now includes 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 has never been more potent; their attack is both sharper and dreamier, crystal-clear and opaque simultaneously. That added clarity creates more immediacy as The Nighthold kicks in, for the aggression of old is kicked into overdrive here and the synths take on a truly orchestral aspect. It’s not for nothing that the album is a full hour in length: everything here sounds (and feels) HUGE, one massive velvety purple landscape of stained-glass visions as far as the third eye can see. And all 12 tracks are threaded together in a plausibly cinematic manner; while each is mighty in its own respective right, VARGRAV sequence every song with artistic flair and high drama, concluding the immersive experience with a daresay-soulful guitar solo during the coda of “Creator of the True Realm” that then segues into the nearly-10-minute big-screen instrumental “Ghostlands.” What film or filmic realm one enters into (or leaves) is entirely up to the listener…The Nighthold is boundless!

Black Metal

The last Veles album available on LP.

180gr WHITE vinyl limited to 100 copies

Black Metal

VEMOD are by no means an average band. The Norwegians exist in the liminal spaces and the crossroads of places. The trio has chiselled their sophomore full-length “The Deepening” from the same sonic granite that its predecessor “Venter på stormene” came from over a decade ago. This bedrock is found in Namsos, where VEMOD were conceived as a lifelong passion project at the turn of the century by then 12-year old Jan Even Åsli. The nearest big city is Trondheim where the fiercely individual local Nidrosian black metal scene, which refers to the city’s original name, provided VEMOD with its first point of musical reference as embodied by the first demo “Kringom fjell og skog” (2004).

Black Metal

“Venter på stormene” was recorded on eight analogue tracks in Red Cave between 2008 and 2011.

“Å stige blant stjerner” is dedicated to our brother in spirit, Steingrim Torson.
You never fell! We sing for eternity.

Includes a printed inner sleeve, a 16-page booklet and a poster.

RAC/Oi!

Vengeance was a RAC band, an anti-communist Oi/punk band from Norwich, founded in 1985. With Daz on vocals, Tim on guitar, Rach on bass and Tom on drums, the band expressed their political views in raw sounds. Before their debut LP “Forward into War” in 1988, two demo tapes with different line-ups were released in 1986 and 1987.

Side A of the disc contains the two street rock’n’roll singles SRR 003 and SRR 004 with alternative versions of the songs “Fight for your Life”, “Working Class Hero”, “I don’t wanna know” and “Vengeance”, and the sampler track “Pride and Pain” is also included. The B-side contains the album recordings “Fight for your Life”, “Working Class Hero” and “I don’t wanna know” for direct comparison.

Black Metal

“Betrothing Spirits at Nightfall” is Vengeance Sorcery’s debut full length of morbid black metal. This slab of occult metal has been conjured by the mind of Deathwalker (Nihil Invocation, USA) and derives its influence from bass-driven, black metal cults such as Barathrum, Ride for Revenge, Perverted Ceremony, Demoncy, etc. Originally a 1 piece project, Deathwalker has welcomed help from his homelands & Russian tundra along the path.