Tales From The Underground
Tales From The Underground
Artist: Drowning The Light / Forbidden Citadel Of Spirits Country: Australia Label: Winterreich Productions Formats: Split LP Year: 2024 Just before the release of the five new Drowning The Light albums, this split LP was released, right at the end of…
Artist: Drowning The Light Country: Australia Label: Dark Adversary Productions Formats: CD Year: 2025 With ‘Conquer Or Serve V: Setapophian Black Magick’, the fifth album in the cycle of new releases of the prolific Australian Black Metal act, Drowning The Light closes the ride…
Artist: Drowning The Light Country: Australia Label: Dark Adversary Productions Formats: CD Year: 2025 After having been involved in a few more humanly or earth-bound spirited albums in the ‘Conquer Or Serve’-series, this fourth chapter is a somewhat more otherworldly. In an almost literal…
Artist: Drowning The Light Country: Australia Label: Dark Adversary Productions Formats: CD Year: 2025 As the third chapter of the cycle of five new albums of Drowning The Light Azgorh is taking another trip through the mind and the conquer or serve contradiction. Where…
Artist: Drowning The Light Country: Australia Label: Dark Adversary Productions Formats: CD Year: 2025 Second album in this cycle of five new albums by the maestro of Australian Black Metal, not only known for his insane pace of releasing, but definitely also for the…
Artist: Drowning The Light Country: Australia Label: Dark Adversary Productions Formats: CD Year: 2025 Although you can’t possibly be surprised by Drowning The Light’s Azgorh’s working ethos, he still amazed me when he told me he was working on a set of no less…
Artist: Masacre Country: Colombia Label: Osmose Productions Formats: 12″ EP / Cassette EP / CD EP Year: 2025 In many ways the term “cult” applies to the early work of Masacre, and basically the band still very much fit to…
Artist: Fides InversaCountry: ItalyLabel: Self-releasedFormats: Cassette EPYear: 2024 It’s been rather quiet around Fides Inversa, but in late November 2024 the band made their return to the stages, performing at the Unholy Congregation festival in Belgium. To mark that resurfacing,…
Artist: Naked Whipper Country: Germany Label: Iron Bonehead Productions Formats: LP / CD Year: 2025 With the reissue of Naked Whipper’s cult back catalogue and its (unexpected) return on stage, appearing on the Never Surrender festival, it should come as…
Artist: IzrodCountry: Bosnia and HerzegovinaLabel: Signal RexFormats: 12” EP / CD EPYear: 2025 In 2023 Izrod, the latest assembly of gifted Black Metal musicians from the Bosnian Black Plague Circle, presented their debut album ‘Sarajevski Odisej’. In reality, that first recording was born from…
Artist: Hell Militia Country: France Label: Darkness Shall Rise Productions Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2025 In recent years basically every record has been reissued, at least once. But there is still a bunch of albums that…
Artist: Nunslaughter Country: USA Label: Discos MeCagoEnDios Formats: LP Year: 2024 Within the ranks of Death Metal the early Nunslaughter demos are regarded as real cult items, maybe not as revolutionary or as influential as some of the other demos…
Artist: Vider Country: Sweden Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Year: 2025 On a miserable, rainy, grey and stormy January day, nothing really fits better than an all-consuming darkness in musical form. For that joyous occasion today, I threw in the debut…
Artist: Mörkvind & Tårfödd Country: Italy & Germany / Sweden Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Year: 2025 Despite Tårfödd’s impressive output, having released three albums and two EP’s in 2024 alone, the band never crossed my path before. Mörkvind, on the…
Artist: Nubivagant / Häxenzijrkell Country: Italy / Germany Label: Amor Fati Productions Formats: Split 7″ EP Year: 2024 After having embarked on a tour together, this split 7” EP is meant to further strengthen the musical bond between both Nubivagant…
Artist: Hesperia Country: Italy Label: Hammerheart Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2025 Hesperia’s history goes back all the way to the mid 90’s, when this one-man band arose out of the ashes of an underground Black Metal act from the middle…
Artist: BehexenCountry: FinlandLabel: Werewolf RecordsFormats: CDYear: 2025 2016. It’s nearly nine years ago that Behexen released the sledgehammer called ‘The Poisonous Path’, the last release of the band. Never the most productive band, it is by far the longest period…
Artist: Urn Country: Finland Label: Osmose Productions Formats: LP / CD Year: 2025 A release that you knew it would come, sooner or later. A compilation of all non-album tracks by one of the most underrated Finnish Extreme Metal bands,…
Artist: Mercenario Country: USA Label: Atolinga Records / Hell’s Headbangers Records Formats: Cassette EP / CD EP Year: 2024 In a conversation about the recent split up of Morbosidad, my interlocutor reported that Tomas Stench of that band had already got…
In the late summer of last year, there suddenly was Wrahha, the musical successor to Lihhamon (Nuclear War Now! Productions/Ván Records), that was put to rest in 2023. In the wake of compatriots like Prehistoric Warcult and Dungeon Keeper, Wrahha…
Artist: Xulux Country: Finland Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital EP Year: 2024 A few months after the split with Kurjuus, Xulux returns with a new EP and further develops its brand of Finnish Black Metal. The band’s first EP was released…
Artist: BloodthornCountry: NorwayLabel: GoatowaRexFormats: 12” DemoYear: 2024 While the current Black Metal scene from Trondheim is still drawing firm attention, the Norwegian city has an equally interesting and to some extent influential past. To commemorate that contribution to second wave…
Artist: Sex Blasphemy Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Cassette Tape Year: 2025 You don’t necessarily need to be a seasoned metal veteran or completed your metal studies at the Miskatonic University to make an educated guess of where this is going, musically…
Artist: Armoured Angel Country: Australia Label: Hell’s Headbangers Records Formats: LP Year: 2024 Before the band would go on and gain some cult status as one of Australia’s first Extreme Metal bands with quite some demos that influenced the first generation of…
Artist: Rotting Country: Canada Label: Hell’s Headbangers Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2025 While Hell’s Headbangers is primarily known for its released out of the Black/Death/Thrash Metal pond (preferably a mixture of all that), the people behind the label do have…
A year ago I was blown away by the first demo of the then totally unknown to me Haan Valar. Not because of its brutality, heaviness or speed, but because of the authenticity that ‘Devotion To Xemzara’ exhibited. Much closer…
Artist: Wiatyk Country: Poland Label: Diabolic Vitriol / Pro Morte Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2024 This second demo tape from Wiatyk, originally released in 1996, was simultaneously reissued with the band’s first effort. And while ‘Mysticism’, from 1995, showed a band in a blueprint…
Artist: Wiatyk Country: Poland Label: Diabolic Vitriol / Pro Morte Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2024 I won’t pretend I knew Wiatyk before I laid eyes on the recent reissues of the band’s only two demo tapes (by Diabolic Vitriol and Pro Morte). In…
Artist: Mortem Agmen Country: Germany Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital EP Year: 2025 From the band’s very first step, the ‘Where Life Ends Forever’-demo from April 2023 the German Black Metal band Mortem Agmen has been able to capture my attention.…
Over 20 years ago I spoke with Acheron’s Vincent Crowley for Vampire-Magazine. Back then it was mainly in connection with the then just released ‘Tribute To The Devil’s Music’-album consisting solely of covers of bands like Kiss, Iron Maiden, Mercyful…
Artist: Cultus / Pest Country: The Netherlands / Germany Label: Heidens Hart Records / Nuclear War Now! Productions Formats: Split LP Year: 2024 With strong ties between bands and labels, with multi-instrumentalist Arjan being found in Cultus as well as Pest and…
Artist: Sanctvs / Sotherion Country: Canada / France Label: Sepulchral Productions Formats: Split CD Year: 2025 Not all too long after Sotherion’s debut full-length, released last year by W.T.C. Productions, the French one-man band seemed to have started working on new material…
Artist: Kiloton Country: Canada Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Year: 2024 Almost simultaneously with the ‘Swine Slice’-EP Kiloton also assumed we, poor humans, were ready for even a full-length release of this rotten and totally degenerated Black Noise. Even if ‘Ruine…
Artist: Kiloton Country: Canada Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital EP Year: 2024 Before briefly calling it a day, the enigmatic Kiloton released this 20-minute EP, quickly followed by the project’s first and so far only full-length album. While Kiloton has proved…
Artist: Degraved Country: USA Label: Grip Of Darkness Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 Admittedly, I wasn’t overly impressed with Degraved’s first two outings, the ‘Exhumed Remnants’-demo from 2020 and the ‘Whispered Morbidity’ EP from 2023. Although both saw releases through…
Artist: Veitsi Country: Finland Label: River Valley Cult Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2024 Veitsi, one of the bands from the River Valley Cult collective, is going through a development quite contrary to what is commonly seen within metal’s confinements. If…
Artist: Unblessing Country: USA Label: Hooded Demon Records Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 With three demos under its belt from 2017, 2020 and 2022, of which all three saw a reissue via Poland’s Unpure Records, it took Unblessing a few…
Artist: Vampyreign Country: USA Label: Red River Family Records Formats: Cassette EP Year: 2024 Although ‘Throne Of Sanguine Eclipse’ is said to be already recorded back in 2019, it only saw the dark of night in the dying days of…
Artist: Shadowdances Country: Lithuania Label: Inferna Profundus Records Formats: LP Year: 2025 Life can hit you right in the face in the most wonderful ways at unexpected moments. For me, in these times of war and general polarization, or just…
It may not be the most accessible Black Metal niche genre, nor is much of it really worthwhile, but occasionally something pops up that sparks my fascination with the more electronically-inclined Black Metal. Although Blackstream was formed back in 2005,…
Artist: Crucifixation Country: USA Label: Down With The Most High Formats: LP / Cassette Tape Year: 2024 The mind of the ever-prolific Tom, who goes under various pseudonyms, spawned this old style Black/Death Metal project called Crucifixation that debuted with…
Artist: Falsum Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 If I am well informed, this new one-man band is helmed by the drummer of Black Hurst, a band that I have been following because of their original and…
Artist: Atavistic Passage Country: United Kingdom Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2024 Introducing a new band with zero info is not the easiest task. Other than that this anonymous entity hails from somewhere in the North West of England…
Obviously, it is no longer the case that for good Black Metal you necessarily have to go to Norway. Over the past few years, Chile, for example, has claimed an increasingly prominent place in the international Black Metal scene. One…
Artist: Nocturnal Deviancy Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2024 Just before the band’s split with Drowning The Light, Nocturnal Deviancy released this little demo, made available as a digital stream only (at least so far). With the…
Artist: Annihilation Cult Country: USA Label: Profaner Records / Unpure Records Formats: Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2025 At the end of 2023 Annihilation Cult came up with a digital demo of just over 15 minutes of merciless Black/Death Metal…
Artist: Gnipahålan Country: Sweden Label: Purity Through Fire Formats: CD Year: 2024 At the very frayed ends of 2024 the overly-prolific Swartadauþuz comes with yet another record. I haven’t really counted his work this year, but at the beginning of…
Artist: Ancient Torment Country: USA Label: Old Pain Records Formats: Cassette EP Year: 2025 Although this freshly released new EP was preceded by an EP, a demo, a split cassette and a compilation tape, the band never really caught enough attention…
Artist: Dryas Country: Portugal Label: Altare Productions Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2024 Although Dryad could have several meanings, based on the song titles and mainly the wintry music, it seems to be derived from the term that divides the last…
Some things are worth waiting for. You can use some clichés here about cheese and wine that get better if you leave them for a while, but we are talking about Australian Black/Death Metal with a touch of Thrash: Destruktor.…