Draugnim – Verum Malum

Artist: Draugnim Country: Finland Label: Naturmacht Productions Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2024 It was a long wait. Draugnim needed no less than eight years to come up with this fourth full-length album and follow-up of the…

Dødsferd – Wrath

Artist: Dødsferd Country: Greece Label: Fucking Your Creation Records / Hypnotic Dirge Records Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2024 In the almost quarter of a century of existence the Greek Black Metal band Dødsferd has spawned nothing…

Nights Horn – Divina Obscura

Artist: Nights Horn Country: France Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Year: 2024 Nights Horn is the brainchild of Thomas Lhairaud, a French multi-instrumentalist and ‘Divina Obscura’ is the work that follows up on the ‘Blood Soul’-demo tape that was released last…

Xulux / Kurjuus – Split

Artist: Xulux / Kurjuus Country: Finland Label: Self-Released Formats: Split Cassette Tape / Split CD Year: 2024 Not only do both bands on this split hail from the same Finnish town of Jyväskylä, they are also both one-man bands venturing…

Baphorator – I.B.L.I.S.

Artist: Baphorator Country: USA Label: Nuclear War Now! Productions Formats: LP Year: 2024 After a self-released demo tape in 2023 this American duo returns with a half-hour debut LP through none other than Nuclear War Now! Productions. The label ever…

Regere Sinister – Inside The Eye Of Horned Winds

Artist: Regere Sinister Country: Finland Label: Nuclear War Now! Productions Formats: LP Year: 2024 Regere Sinister, a band comprised of a duo who are also together in Ride For Revenge and Horse Latitudes and further have experience in such bands…

Bythos – Chthonic Gates Unveiled

Artist: BythosCountry: FinlandLabel: Terratur PossessionsFormats: LP / CDYear: 2024 The debut album of Bythos stood out for several reasons. For one, the seasoned veterans from the Finnish Black Metal scene that comprise the act had chosen a sound far away…

Hekseblad – Kaer Morhen

Artist: Hekseblad Country: USA Label: Hypnotic Dirge Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2024 After a considerable amount of demo’s and EP’s that were released in the last couple of years, the American duo that together form Hekseblad thought it…

Kratti – Matka Kohti Kosmista

Artist: KrattiCountry: FinlandLabel: Signal RexFormats: LP / Cassette tape / CDYear: 2024 After releasing one of the best demos of 2023, the Finns in Kratti will return with their first full-length of the band’s carreer. To be released by Signal…

Attic – Return of the Witchfinder

Artist: AtticCountry: GermanyLabel: Ván RecordsFormats: LP / CDYear: 2024 Attic wasn’t exactly the first band to follow the path of of King Diamond and Mercyful Fate. With the Danes spawning copcycats of varying degrees of quality ever since their pioneering…

Aberration – Refracture

Artist: Aberration Country: USA Label: Sentient Ruin Laboratories Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2024 Aberration debuted in 2021 with a self-titled EP after which it remained quiet for a long time, not counting the Beherit cover that…

Ondfødt – Oldfodt [EP]

Artist: Ondfødt Country: Finland Label: Black Lion Records Formats: Cassette EP / CD EP Year: 2024 With all due respect to both band and label, sometimes the logic eludes me a bit of what gets thrown on the market. One…

Candelabrum – Transmutations

Artist: Candelabrum Country: Portugal Label: Altare Productions Formats: LP Year: 2024 Two years after the release of ‘Nocturnal Trance’ through Hells Headbangers, the Portuguese flagship of Lo-Fi Black Metal returns with their fourth full-length album. Before we dive into a deeper analysis of the…

Necrophobic – In The Twilight Grey

Artist: Necrophobic Country: Sweden Label: Century Media Formats: LP / CD Year: 2024 After the release of the ‘Death To All’-album in 2009 the future for Necrophobic never seemed brighter: a killer new record, a flawless back catalogue and a…

Arzhaabat – The Glory Of Wogastisburg [EP]

Artist: Arzhaabat Country: Czechia Label: Cosmic Cause Productions Formats: Digital EP Year: 2024 After a demo tape, a single released on cassette and a full-length album, the prolific MBN returns with another Arzhaabat recording. This time an almost 24-minute EP that fits, at…

Order Of Nosferat – The Absence Of Grace

Artist: Order Of Nosferat Country: Finland / Germany Label: Purity Through Fire Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2024 As enchanting and confusing the shapeshifting entity of a vampire can be, the same can be said about this…

Diabolic Oath – Oracular Hexations

Artist: Diabolic Oath Country: USA Label: Sentient Ruin Laboratories Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2024 The trio that together makes up Diabolic Oath has just delivered us something new to chew on, not all too long after…

Kalmankantaja / Somber Winds – Split CD

Artist: Kalmankantaja / Somber WindsCountry: FinlandLabel: Misantropia RecordsFormats: Split CDYear: 2024 Shortly after the release of reimagined tracks from the 2014-2016 period, Kalmankantaja returns to the release front with the first new material of 2024 (although technically it was already…

Korpituli – Pohjola

Artist: Korpituli Country: Finland Label: Korpituli Productions Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2024 ‘Pohjola’ is the third full-length album for the Finnish Black Metal band Korpituli, but honestly, if you have heard the bands previously released material,…

Conifère – L’Imp​ô​t Du Sang

Artist: Conifère Country: Canada Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Year: 2024 After having released a demo and a split in 2020, Conifère went silent for a good couple of years. While many bands do release one album or EP after another,…

Therianthropophagus – Damnatio Ad Bestias [EP]

Artist: Therianthropophagus Country: Canada Label: Serpents Head Reprisal Formats: Cassette EP Year: 2024 This new Black/Death Metal band from Canada debuts with an EP that clocks just under 20 minutes, but musically leaves very little to the imagination. In the right Canadian…

Adversaire – Adversaire [EP]

Artist: Adversaire Country: Canada Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital EP Year: 2024 This new 20-minute EP follows quickly after the release of this Canadian’s previous ‘Froid’-EP. With less than two weeks between them, I assume that all tracks on both releases were written and recorded…

Daedric Chamber – Nekromantik [EP]

Artist: Daedric Chamber Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital EP Year: 2024 Daedric Chamber’s ‘Black Marsh Eternal’, the band’s fourth full-length album, felt like a prime example of the ‘new generation’ of contemporary (American) Black Metal. It portrayed the band,…

Kalmankantaja – Varjosielu

Artist: KalmankantajaCountry: FinlandLabel: Wolfspell RecordsFormats: CDYear: 2024 It has taken a couple of months, but with the release of ‘Varjosielu’ the first recording of Kalmankantaja of 2024 is finally here. This time around we aren’t presented with a new album,…

Vuosisata – Kuilu [Demo]

Artist: Vuosista Country: Finland Label: Self-Released Formats: Demo tape Year: 2024 ‘Kuilu’ might seem the first ever release for this Finnish Atmospheric Black Metal band, it is actually its second outing. Before switching to the name of ‘Vuosisasta’ the band…

Immortal Hammer – Kráľovstvo Zimných Démonov

Artist: Immortal Hammer Country: Slovakia Label: Hexencave Productions / Murderous Music Production / Purity Through Fire / Werewolf Promotion Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2023 / 2024 Somewhere around the early to mid-00’s I developed a bit…

Khold – Du Dømmes Til Død

Artist: Khold Country: Norway Label: Soulseller Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2024 While I concluded my review for ‘Svartsyn’, Khold’s previous record, as being fodder for those who enjoy some non-adventurous Black Metal, it was also one of the…

Granitader – Der Wald Zwischen Den Welten

Artist: Granitader Country: Germany Label: Purity Through Fire Formats: CD Year: 2024 As an analyst and close follower of the Black Metal scene in the past quarter of a century or so, it pleases me that, in recent years, I…

Amorphous Dominion – A Blaze In The Eastern Sky [EP]

Artist: Amorphous Dominion Country: Thailand Label: Self-released Formats: CD EP Year: 2024 After having released a debut demo tape in 2022, the Thai Black Metal band Amorphous Dominion returns with its follow-up in the form of this self-released EP. That…

Adversaire – Froid [Demo]

Artist: Adversaire Country: Canada Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2024 This mysterious Canadian Black Metal band crossed my path first with the two Cosmic Cause Productions-released reissues of the band’s first demo and their split with Sensorial Numbness somewhere…

Drakorathos – Ode To The Majesty Of The Nightside [EP]

Artist: Drakorathos Country: Romania Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital EP Year: 2024 The number of Romanian Black Metal bands is rather sparse, although most people don’t get much further than the (magnificent!) Negură Bunget we haven’t had a whole lot more…

Oppressive Descent – Sulfuric Wrath

Artist: Oppressive Descent Country: USA Label: Inferna Profundus Records Formats: LP Year: 2024 Although Oppressive Descent was already founded back in 2008, the one-man project my workaholic Matt “Grond Nefarious” Schulte only really got wings during the years around the…

Drape – The Choir Above And The Symphony Below [EP]

Artist: Drape Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2024 Only a couple of days after Drape’s debut demo ‘Under The Majestic Black Mist’ the American one-man act returns with its follow-up; the twenty minute clocking and the evocatively…

Trijumf – Trijumf ili Smrt – Trijumf

Artist: TrijumfCountry: Bosnia and HerzegovinaLabel: Death Prayer RecordsFormats: LPYear: 2024 The latest release to emerge from the Black Metal scene in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the debut album of Trijumf. Whether it is in any way related to the members of the…

Runespell – Wells Of Slidhr [Demo]

Artist: Runespell Country: Australia Label: Iron Bonehead Productions Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2023 While Runespell started out as a solo band of Nightwolf (mostly known for his work in Eternum), it was expanded to a full-fledged band in 2022. This…

Front Beast – Passage To The Centuries Of Old [EP]

Artist: Front Beast Country: Germany Label: Narbentage Produktionen Formats: 7″ EP Year: 2024 Anyone who has been following the underground Black Metal scene in the last quarter of a century must at least once have stumbled upon Germany’s Front Beast,…

Iron Firmament – Empyrean Blood [EP]

Artist: Iron Firmament Country: USA Label: Wergild Formats: Cassette EP Year: 2023 ‘Empyrean Blood’ is Iron Firmament’s second offering, after last July’s debut EP ‘Keepeater’. That EP already introduced us to an interesting piece of Raw Black Metal that sounded…

Uhripuu – J​ä​ä​stä Revitty Maa [Demo]

Artist; UhripuuCountry: FinlandLabel: Self-releasedFormats: Digital demoYear: 2024 For the ancient inhabitants of Western and Eastern Finland, the Uhripuu was a sacrificial tree where they made sacrifices to either their ancestors or the earth elves and gods who maintain the vitality of…

Drape – Under The Majestic Black Mist [Demo]

Artist: Drape Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2024 Drape is a new Black Metal band without any other information than it is apparently coming from the USA. But, since we are here for the music and not…

Black Hurst – Blinding Pitch Of Victory [EP]

Artist: Black Hurst Country: USA Label: Ixiol Productions Formats: 7″ EP Year: 2024 In my review of the band’s 2023 demo tape I compared Black Hurst mainly with the occult sort of Black Metal of the likes of Varathron and…

Grave Alter – Demo II [Demo]

Artist: Grave Alter Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2024 Last year I stumbled upon Grave Alter’s self-titled first demo, a 3-tracker that showed a certain appreciation of Mortician-styled gore-drenched Death Metal. Now, exactly one year later, also…