Tales From The Underground
Tales From The Underground
Artist: Merciless Country: Sweden Label: Darkness Shall Rise Productions Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2025 Obviously, Merciless is mainly known for their downright cult debut album. Not only for the musical content and its wide influence on…
Artist: Old Wainds Country: Russia Label: Darkness Shall Rise Productions Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2024 With ten years in the making, the unannounced release of ‘Stormheart’ is quite a bit of a surprise. Over the past…
Artist: Gorgon Country: France Label: Osmose Productions Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD Year: 2024 Despite this being the seventh album in total, with the appearance of ‘For Those Who Stay’, it is fair to speak of the “third…
Artist: Ungfell Country: Switzerland Label: Eisenwald Formats: LP / CD Year: 2024 In recent years the phenomenon of Ungfell has been all over the place if you are into folky and creative Black Metal. With their splendid sense for dramatique…
Artist: Tyrannic Country: Australia Label: Iron Bonehead Productions Formats: LP / CD Year: 2024 One of the most musically interesting bands from the celebrated Iron Bonehead Productions stables must definitely be Australia’s Tyrannic. Over the past decade the band has…
Artist: Dakini Country: India Label: Final Agony Formats: 7″ EP Year: 2025 Nope. Black/Noise (or Blacknoise) has never been a genre that attracted many people, for quite obvious reasons. Even today where everybody all of a sudden is jumping on…
Artist: Misantropical Painforest / W.A.I.L. Country: Finland Label: Nuclear War Now! Productions Formats: Split LP Year: 2025 Under the title ‘Dare To Venture Down To Earth, Father! Perish Into Nothingness’ Nuclear War Now! Productions releases a very special split LP.…
Artist: Angelcorpse Country: USA Label: Osmose Productions Formats: 10″ EP Year: 2024 Angelcorpse’s ‘Goats to Azazael’ is a nothing short of a milestone in the wild and furious brand of Black/Death Metal. Not only did this mark the beginning of…
Artist: Canis Dirus Country: USA Label: Bindrune Formats: LP / CD Year: 2024 In this wretched world, life can still sometimes surprise you in a positive way. When I was asked to dive into this latest record of Canis Dirus,…
Artist: Tormentador / Sex Messiah Country: Brazil / Japan Label: Sex Desire Records Formats: Split 7″ EP Year: 2024 This release may be a bit older, but as a fan of the 7” EP format and the underground qualities of…
Artist: Svrm Country: Ukraine Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital EP Year: 2025 The prolific Ukrainian one-man Black Metal operation that is Svrm seems to prefer shorter releases over full-lengths. Although S. has delivered three full-length albums, ‘Скорбота’ is the band’s 11th…
Artist: Nocuous Lust Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 Sometimes very little words are needed, or they can even take some of the magic away. That must have been the way of thinking of this newly found…
Artist: Grief Country: Chile Label: Self-Released Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 Over the past few years, Chilean Black Metal is something that we have learned to reckon with. Yet, it certainly is not only Lord Valtgryftåke that is dictating the…
Artist: Red Right Hand Of Plague Country: USA Label: Elf Eggs Formats: 7″ EP Year: 2025 After an interesting demo tape in Spring 2024, which unfortunately was too limited and hard to get for a European like me, this American…
Artist: Hasswald Country: Estonia Label: Warhorn Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 With their great debut demo, ‘Und So Begann…’ the Estonian Hasswald came as a bit of a surprise. Not only for the somewhat obvious fact that there’s not many…
Artist: Wolves Of Desor Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 At the last days of December 2023 I stumbled upon the debut demo by Wolves Of Desor, a then new one-man project by M. who had otherwise…
Artist: Irae Country: Portugal Label: Signal Rex Formats: Cassette EP / CD EP Year: 2025 Just a few years ago, we might have started a review of a Portuguese Black Metal band by saying that this sunny country by exception…
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: 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: 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…
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: Diabolical 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: WiatykCountry: PolandLabel: Diabolical Vitriol / Pro MorteFormats: Demo TapeYear: 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 Diabolical Vitriol and Pro Morte). In my defense, the two…
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.…
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: 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: 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…