Tales From The Underground
Tales From The Underground
Some bands seem to achieve success and widespread acclaim almost effortlessly, while others are less fortunate. To be fair, most successful bands—and how you define success is, of course, open to interpretation—have worked hard to get where they are. However,…
Artist: Monstrosity Country: USA Label: Metal Blade Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2026 Monstrosity’s career got off to a promising start with an excellent 7″ single on Relapse Records in 1991 and, a year later, an even better debut album on Nuclear Blast Records—the…
Artist: Possession Country: Belgium Label: Iron Bonehead Productions Formats: LP / CD Year: 2026 Some ten years ago, Possession was the top focus of the Belgian extreme Metal world. Obviously, the country has produced some fine Black Metal over the…
Artist: Ejecutor Country: Chile Label: Chaos Records Formats: CD Year: 2026 Although Ejecutor was already founded back in 1999 and seen their name pop up every now and then, I honestly never really paid any real attention to them. And…
Artist: Nachtgnawer Country: Finland Label: Purity Through Fire Formats: CD EP Year: 2026 Nachtgnawer managed to heavily impress me so far, both with their ‘Eternal Curse of the Blood’ Demo and ‘Unholy Vampyric Supremacy’ collaboration EP with Wulfseer. There are…
Artist: FesterDecay Country: Japan Label: Relapse Records Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2026 I can’t remember the last time I reviewed two good albums from Relapse Records in such a short space of time as the latest…
Artist: Bloodaxe Holocaust Country: United Kingdom Label: Self-Released Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2026 Bloodaxe Holocaust is the brainchild of Jake Davids and is at the helm all by himself. Whether this means the end of Sorrow’s Maw, that debuted with…
Artist: Fegefeuer Country: Germany Label: Narbentage Produktionen Formats: LP Year: 2026 Narbentage Produktionen, the label behind this vinyl reissue of the only recording Fegefeuer ever made, is based in the village of Ralingen, a town situated right on the Luxembourg…
Artist: Artavoz Country: Georgia Label: Narbentage Produktionen Format: Cassette Tape Year: 2026 Although this Black Metal duo, hailing from unknown origins, made their debut back in 2023 with a digital and instrumental single, you’d be forgiven if it slipped your attention. It did mine,…
Artist: Nathrath Country: Spain Label: Narbentage Produktionen Format: Demo Tape Year: 2026 For an old soul like me, it’s still nice to actually hear a demo on cassette tape, especially a first one. In fact, I have nothing against demos being made available digitally,…
Artist: Wanterkraaft Country: Luxembourg Label: Narbentage Produktionen Formats: LP Year: 2026 Given that Luxembourg has a population of less than 700,000, it is hardly surprising that it is not a major supplier of Extreme Metal. However, when I think of…
Artist: Mortal Dread Country: USA Label: Nuclear War Now! Productions Formats: LP Year: 2026 Of course, there is every reason for a label to provide a release with some words of praise as part of its promotional work. Often, however,…
Artist: Pus Excretor Country: Mexico Label: Extremely Rotten Productions / Me Saco Un Ojo / Templum Obscenum Records Formats: 7″ EP / Cassette EP / CD EP Year: 2025 Pus Excretor is a Mexican one-man Death Metal/Grindcore band that released…
Without wishing to disparage this band or anyone involved with it, I think anyone who has been around for a while knows the feeling of having a certain fondness for a particular CD without really having a good reason for…
Artist: Bloody Vengeance Country: USA Label: Nuclear War Now! Productions Format: 12″ EP Year: 2026 Although the band has been around for about fifteen years, it is only in the last few years that Bloody Vengeance has started to gain traction. Perhaps this is…
Artist: Astral Bewitchment Country: USA Label: Nuclear War Now! Productions Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 Although this demo was already released in digital form in October 2025 through the artist’s Bandcamp page and a few months later also through the…
Artist: Dreadful Relic Country: Greece / USA Label: Frost & Fire Records / Nuclear War Now! Productions Formats: LP / CD Year: 2025 Despite the mild controversy surrounding Dreadful Relic, I have considered this band to be a prime Nuclear…
Artist: Galghe Country: Belgium/The Netherlands Label: Zwaertgevegt Format: LP Year: 2026 On the soon to be released debut full-length ‘Heerscht de Dood nu als Onderkoning?’, Galghe continues on their thematical journey to use their music to tell tales of the…
Artist: Templar Country: Sweden Label: Jawbreaker Records Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2026 After a well-received demo and an EP as well as a good amount of live shows, Templar from Sweden now strike back with their…
Artist: Aerdryk Country: Belgium Label: Amor Fati Productions Formats: LP / CD Year: 2026 When the Aerdryk debut was released in 2022, it was presented with quite some flair. Not only did it form catalog number AFP199 of the renowned…
Artist: Dødmoon Country: Finland Label: Signal Rex Formats: Demo tape / Demo CD Year: 2026 With pulsating pace and rasping vocals Dødmoon kicks off its first release ‘Demø MMXXV’. These Finns mean business with Black Metal in the Scandinavian style.…
Artist: Vargrav Country: Finland Label: Werewolf Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2026 Three years have passed since Vargrav released their third record ‘The Nighthold’. A time in which things have changed. For the band, who went from a fearsome…
Artist: Lokabrenna Country: Iceland Label: Sect Entropy Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2026 After the release of ‘Flesh Cathedral’ in 2012, a real underground hype arose around Svartidauði, which marked the start of the Icelandic Black Metal “boom” and the hipsster…
Artist: Nebelfaust Country: Germany Label: Self-released Formats: Digital Year: 2026 After leaving a strong first impression with the debut album ‘Das kalte Eisen des Mondes’, Nebelfaust returns in early 2026 with ‘Die Krähenfüße des Winters’. Sole member Zinkruwahn offers us…
Artist: Septic Fumes Country: USA Label: Extremely Rotten Productions / Headsplit Records Formats: 7″ EP / Cassette EP Year: 2025 ‘Mucilaginous Sewage’ first saw the light of day almost a year ago, but only in the form of a cassette…
Artist: Black Edifice Country: Norway Label: Ancient Night Productions Formats: 7″ EP Year: 2025 ‘The Miasmic Trance’, Black Edifice’s debut demo tape (or was it an EP?) from 2023, ended up being one of my personal demo highlights of that…
Artist: Verdigris / Crève-Gorge Country: France Label: Starless Industries Formats: Split Tape Year: 2026 Although I am familiar with Veins Like Vines, I had missed the existence of this project by Septembre. About a year ago, he released his debut…
Artist: Chalice Of Eden Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2026 Fallen Warrior is not a musician who likes to take it easy. With his projects Chalice Of Eden and Occult Mountain, he fired a veritable barrage of…
Artist: Exhumed Country: USA Label: Relapse Records Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2026 Although the band also has a few serious misses and some negligible EPs under its belt, Exhumed is still the institution that sets the…
Artist: Venthiax Country: Sweden Label: Dying Victims Productions Formats: 12″ EP / CD EP Year: 2026 When Venthiax sprang from the shared vision of Wendy, Emil, and Leo, they were still in their mid-to-late teens. Yet nothing stopped them from…
Artist: Trance Of The Undead / Chaos Perversion Country: Brazil / Chile Label: Godz Ov War Productions Formats: Split CD Year: 2026 Judging by the recording information, this split must have been in the works for some time. The first…
Artist: Zepter Country: Austria Label: High Roller Records Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2026 After what you can call a very successful first EP in 2024, that saw a reissue on all relevant formats, the Austrian Heavy…
Artist: Zweihander Country: Chile Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital EP Year: 2026 After a demo and two digital singles (both actually more or less the same song in a different version), all released in 2025, Zweihander quickly strikes again with a…
Artist: Moospirscher / Grundhyrde Country: Germany / USA Label: NIthstang Productions Formats: Split Tape Year: 2026 What we have here is a split tape that is quite a bit out of the ordinary. Grundhyrde is one of the many musical…
Artist: Akhoth Country: Australia Label: Sorcery Productions Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2026 ‘Storm Of Pagan Fury’, the latest demo from Australian band Akhoth, sounds as if time has stood still. In fact, everything here exudes nostalgia. Not just the music,…
Artist: Kurjuus Country: Finland Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Year: 2026 This Finnish one-man Black Metal band was founded around 2017, but it took four years before the first demo could be released. After that, however, there was no stopping him.…
Artist: Torpefied Bloodlust Country: USA Label: Perverse Homage Formats: Demo CDr Year: 2026 After recording a bunch of demos around the 2020s, only a small portion of which were actually distributed, things went eerily quiet around Torpefied Bloodlust. It’s therefore…
Artist: Infernal Mantle Country: United Kingdom Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Year: 2026 In the spring of 2025, I pored over the debut demo by Infernal Mantle, a one-man Black Metal band from the United Kingdom. Although my final verdict was…
Artist: Ancient Necromancy Country: USA Label: Perverse Homage Formats: Demo CDr Year: 2026 Eldrinacht, the sole force behind this project, is involved in a number of bands and projects, including Cult of Thaumiel, Gharmelicht, and the formidable Moonlight’s Empathy, and…
Artist: Lysergic Country: Canada Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Year: 2026 In the final moments of 2023, Canadian band Lysergic released a beastly album entitled ‘Dimethyltryptikon’. Even with a playing time of just under half an hour, it was actually an…
Artist: Void Meditation Cult Country: USA Label: Hells Headbangers Records Formats: 12″ EP Year: 2026 When I got my hands on Sperm Of Antichrist’s ‘Blight And Darkness’ demo in 2009, I was truly blown away. Although it was clearly based…
Artist: Incandescence Country: Canada Label: Profound Lore Productions Formats: LP / CD Year: 2026 Although ‘Hors Temps’ is best translated to ‘Timeless’, the music of Incandescence is definitely not of that ilk. At least, in the sense that it has…
Artist: Atavistic Passage Country: United Kingdom Label: Self-Released Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2026 With two solid demo under his belt, Atavistic Passage didn’t quite chose the easiest way to go forward with his third one. I wouldn’t quite classify both…
Artist: Nefarious Scorn Country: Canada Label: Pain Chain Productions Formats: CD Year: 2025 The Canadian Raw Black Metal act Nefarious Scorn is born out of the minds of two musicians who are also active in some other bands and projects, together forming quite an…
Artist: Abysmal Grief Country: Italy Label: Avantgarde Music Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2025 A few years ago, Abysmal Grief, one of the best Italian metal bands ever, signed with the Italian label Avantgarde Music. The first…
Artist: Abysmal Decay Country: United Kingdom Label: Goreture Rex / Old Skull Productions Formats: 7″ / Demo tape Year: 2025 After the solid self-titled demo tape that was issued earlier in 2025, UK Death Metal band Abysmal Decay released a…
Artist: Abysmal Descent Country: Belgium Label: Nuclear Winter Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2025 Although Abysmal Descent is a new band, the four musicians involved have been active in the Belgian underground scene for some time. A quick glance at the lineup…
Artist: Funeral Fire Country: Japan Label: Rat Covenant Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 In the summer of last year, Funeral Fire’s debut demo was reissued through the German label Menscheinfeind Propaganda and in the waning moments of 2025 the same honour befell the band’s last…