Warhammer – Total Maniac

Artist: Warhammer Country: Germany Label: Ván Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2025 If you would have told me some twenty-five years ago that Warhammer would release their sixth full-length album in 2025 on a label like Ván Records, widely…

A Dead Poem – Abstract Existence

Artist: A Dead PoemCountry: BrazilLabel: Personal RecordsFormats: CDYear: 2024 You can’t accuse the Brazillian band A Dead Poem of hiding their inspirations. And indeed, it was Marlon Combat’s aim all along when he formed the band in 2023 to create…

Rotten Cavern – Profound [Demo]

Artist: Rotten Cavern Country: Spain Label: Profaner Records Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2024 Rotten Cavern is a new band from the Catalonia region of Spain, formed by a duo that is also found in the equally great Siegehammer. However, their…

My Dying Bride – A Mortal Binding

Artist: My Dying BrideCountry: United KingdomLabel: Nuclear BlastFormats: LP / CDYear: 2024 My Dying Bride is a band with a special place in my heart. I remember first learning of the band during high school when a classmate was wearing…

Vincent Crowley – Anthology Of Horror

Artist: Vincent Crowley Country: USA Label: Hammerheart Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2024 It feels rather pointless to write an introduction on the works of Vincent Crowley. Not only has the man a much discussed and rather notorious history…

Abysmal Grief – Narcissistic Necrophiles

Artist: Abysmal Grief Country: Italy Label: Avantgarde Music Formats: LP Year: 2023 In March 2023 Abysmal Grief and Avantgarde Music releases a vinyl-only compilation LP to celebrate the start of their collaboration, it was also meant as a run up…

Sammale – Finno-Ugric

Artist: SammaleCountry: FinlandLabel: Naturmacht ProductionsFormats: Cassette tape / CDYear: 2023 In languages, Finno-Ugric is a grouping of all languages in the Uralic family except the Samoyedic languages. The three most common of these languages are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. A…

Permanent Solution – Permanent Solution

Artist: Permanent SolutionCountry: FinlandLabel: Misantropia RecordsFormats: CDYear: 2023 There’s a few things that drew me to the album of Permanent Solution. For one, their label Misantropia Records generally releases good, often Kalmankantaja related, Finnish Black Metal. The tracklist of ‘Permanent…

On Thorns I Lay – On Thorns I Lay

Artist: On Thorns I Lay Country: Greece Label: Season Of Mist Formats: LP / CD Year: 2023 The career of On Thorns I Lay is typified by the wanderings that led the band past a total of five albums and…

Asphodelus – Sculpting From Time

Artist: Asphodelus Country: Finland Label: Hammerheart Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2023 It were those enchanting mid-90s when so many bands left their extremes to broaden their horizons, push musical boundaries and, to put it simply, shun the beaten…

Voidwind – Clad In Your Misery

Artist: VoidwindCountry: FinlandLabel: Misantropia RecordsFormats: CDYear: 2023 Soothing, longing, sorrowful and intriguing: just some words that describe the music of Voidwind on their album ‘Clad in Your Misery’. Besides that it’s released by the Finnish Misantropia Records, not a whole…

The River – A Hollow Full Of Hope

Artist: The River Country: UK Label: Cavernous Records Formats: CD Year: 2023 While The River may not be a typical band that fits easily within the musical scope of most of the other acts reviewed on our pages, it is…

Nattehimmel – Mourningstar

Artist: Nattehimmel Country: Norway Label: Hammerheart Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2023 From the ever-fertile and imaginative soil of Norway, many bands emerged at the beginning of the 1990s that gave colour and new impetus to the Black Metal…

Wilczyca – Magija

Artist: WilczycaCountry: PolandLabel: Godz Ov War ProductionsFormats: LP / Cassette tape / CDYear: 2023 “When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a pale horse; and…

Autrest – Follow the Cold Path

Artist: AutrestCountry: BrazilLabel: Northern Silence ProductionsFormats: Digital / CDYear: 2023 A view from a snowclad forest, with mountainsides reaching beyond where the eye can see. Hardly a scenery that you associate with the country Brazil, but this is exactly the…

Until Death Overtakes Me – Decay Into Irrelevance

Artist: Until Death Overtakes MeCountry: BelgiumLabel: Self-releasedFormats: CDYear: 2023 Although Until Death Overtakes Me’s spiritual father, Stijn van Cauter is slowly creeping up the mindblowing amount of no less than 100 solo albums, I have kind of lost contact with…

Vitriolic Gloom – Transcending The Suffocative Light [Demo]

Artist: Vitriolic GloomCountry: UkraineLabel: Deepswarming BloodmagikFormats: Digital demoYear: 2023 The aptly titled ‘Transcending The Suffocative Light’-demo is the first offering from this one-man act from Kremenchuk, Ukraine. On this (so far) digital only demo Yehor “Gnom” Mutylin serves us with…

Desolate Grave – Det Sista Steget

Artist: Desolate GraveCountry: SwedenLabel: Grind To Death RecordsFormats: Digital EPYear: 2022 Desolate Grave is the name of this solo-project by David “Pos” Mauritzon, who has also been in a few other bands, of which the oddly named Belarus Beaver, despite…

Kalmankantaja – Second Death

Artist: KalmankantajaCountry: FinlandLabel: Misantropia RecordsFormats: CDYear: 2023 About four months have passed since the most recent Kalmankantaja album ‘Waiennut’ was released, and the Finnish band revolving around the creative mastermind Grim666 is back with another full-length. Despite numerous releases every…

Scáth Na Déithe – Virulent Providence

Artist: Scáth Na DéitheCountry: IrelandLabel: Vendetta RecordsFormats: LP / Cassette tape / CDYear: 2023 Shadow of the Gods. That is a rough translation of the Irish text Scáth Na Déithe, which is also a band hailing from Rush (or An…

Sammale – Sammale

Artist: SammaleCountry: FinlandLabel: Naturmacht ProductionsFormats: Cassette tape / CDYear: 2022 The artist behind Paisaunt and main composer and guitar player of Marrasmieli, an individual called Zannibal, sought a vessel for the atmospheric soundtrack fitting with a path through forest and…

Solothus – Summoned From The Void [Re-Release]

Artist: Solothus Country: Finland Label: Doomentia Records Formats: LP Year: 2023 The first time I heard the Finnish Death/Doom Metal band Solothus was with the 2013 Nihilistic Holocaust released reissue of the band’s sole demo, ‘Ritual Of The Horned Skull’,…

Vonülfsrëich – Ragnarök Rising

Artist: VonülfsrëichCountry: FinlandLabel: Fallen TempleFormats: CDYear: 2022 After its inception in 2012, the Finnish band Vonülfsrëich have released numerous releases, of which most were EPs. And on these EPs, the musical direction wasn’t always the same as the releases that…

Roots Of The Old Oak – Blot [Demo]

Artist: Roots Of The Old Oak Country: United Kingdom Label: Hammerheart Records Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2022 Roots Of The Old Oak is a Doom/Death Metal trio from the UK, that released their first four-track demo tape last summer through…

Khazad-Dûm – Hymns From The Deep [Re-Release]

Artist: Khazad-Dûm Country: United Kingdom Label: Avantgarde Music Formats: LP Year: 2022 Deep down under the Misty Mountains lies an ancient kingdom of the dwarfs of Durin’s Folk, that kingdom is also known as Moria or Khazad-Dûm. That hidden and…

Assumption – Hadean Tides

Artist: AssumptionCountry: ItalyLabel: Everlasting Spew RecordsFormats: LP, CDYear: 2022 The 2018 released album ‘Absconditus’ from the Italian Doom/Death Metal band Assumption was described by a VM-Underground colleague as Doom/Death effort that has a lot to offer and compared it to bands like diSEMBOWELMENT, Winter and…

Skepticism – Companion

Artist: Skepticism Country: Finland Label: Svart Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2021 One of the longest running extreme Doom Metal bands definitely is Skepticism. Together with their Finnish compatriots and peers of Thergothon, Skepticism singlehandedly helped shape the Funeral…

Gurthang – Hearts Of The Hollow

Artist: Gurthang Country: Poland Label: Immortal Frost Productions Formats: LP / CD Year: 2021 When I got this album to spend a few words on, I assumed the Belgium Gurthang had arisen from its grave. Which was not a strange…

Phlebotomized – Devoted To God [Demo / Re-Release]

Artist: Phlebotomized Country: The Netherlands Label: Hammerheart Records Formats: LP / Cassette Tape Year: 2022 One of the most original bands that helped shape the ‘famous’ Dutch Death/Doom Metal scene was certainly Phlebotomized. With their 1992 ‘Devoted To God’-demo tape…

Vengeance Sorcery – Betrothing Spirits At Nightfall

Artist: Vengeance SorceryCountry: USALabel: Nuclear War Now! ProductionsFormats: LPYear: 2022 Recently I dived into the four demo tapes of the illustrious duo of Vengeance Sorcery, going through many minutes of their quirky and captivating blend of Black Metal and Doom…

Vengeance Sorcery – Witchdance Rising [Demo / Re-Release]

Artist: Vengeance SorceryCountry: USALabel: Nuclear War Now! ProductionsFormats: Demo tapeYear: 2022 At the very beginning of this year Nuclear War Now! Productions reissued the first demo of American duo Vengeance Sorcery, that originally saw the dark of night in 2019…

Phlebotomized – Pain, Resistance, Suffering [EP]

Artist: Phlebotomized Country: The Netherlands Label: Hammerheart Records / Petrichor Formats: 12″ EP / Cassette EP Year: 2021 Being one of the bands that helped shape the Dutch underground metal scene, many eyes were on Phlebotomized after it was announced…

Godsend – As The Shadows Fall [Re-Release]

Artist: Godsend Country: Norway / Sweden Label: Petrichor Formats: LP / CD Year: 2020 Though officially formed in Norway, Godsend is definitely best known to feature multi-instrumentalist and jack of all trades Dan Swanö. The band released demo tapes before…

Nyrak – Malvs

Artist: NyrakCountry: BelgiumLabel: Self-releasedFormats: CDYear: 2022 Featuring members that are involved in bands such as Gotmoor, Serpent’s Oath, Wound Collector and Scarificator, the Belgian band Nyrak formed in 2021. Within a year they were ready to release their first release,…

Der Trauerschwan – Sanguinare Vampiris

Artist: Der TrauerschwanCountry: SwedenLabel: Soulseller RecordsFormats: LP / CDYear: 2022 When the Chilean band Hetroertzen relocated to the Swedish town of Västerås, they quickly recruited members from the local scene to complement their live line-up. One of the members that…

Stabat Mater – Treason By The Son Of Man

Artist: Stabat Mater Country: Finland Label: Northern Heritage Productions Formats: LP / CD Year: 2021 One of the leading and most prolific figures of the Finnish underground extreme metal scene is definitely Mikko Aspa. With his anti-Semitic views and expressions,…

Darkthrone – Astral Fortress

Artist: DarkthroneCountry: NorwayLabel: Peaceville RecordsFormats: LP / CDYear: 2022 Obviously Darkthrone needs no introduction. An absolutely legendary band from the Norwegian Black Metal scene, the duo of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto have been spreading their music for well over three…

Strigoi – Viscera

Artist: Strigoi Country: United Kingdom Label: Season Of Mist Formats: LP / CD Year: 2022 If I am sufficiently informed, Vallenfyre was founded by Greg Mackintosh, best known as Paradise Lost guitarist, as a vehicle to help him cope with…

Isengard – Vårjevndøgn

Artist: Isengard Country: Norway Label: Peaceville Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2020 That Fenriz is a slightly odd duck is, of course, an understatement. And, anno 2022, we also know that musically he is basically all over the place.…

Angmodnes – The Weight of Eternity

Artist: AngmodnesCountry: The NetherlandsLabel: Black Lion RecordsFormats: CD EPYear: 2022 Sometimes there’s just too much Doom Metal in you. This is the case for Y.S and M.V, two members of the Dutch Doom Metal band Apotelesma, who needed a vessel…

Anathema – A Vision Of A Dying Embrace [Reissue]

Artist: AnathemaCountry: UKLabel: Peaceville RecordsFormats: LP / CDYear: 2022 When Anathema embarked on their 1996 tour supporting their then new ‘The Silent Enigma’ record they were captured live in Krakow, Poland. That footage ended up at the VHS which was…

Exhumation – Twilight Of The Funebre Night [Demo]

Artist: ExhumationCountry: SpainLabel: Pesta Negra RecordsFormats: Demo tapeYear: 2022 For many listening to a Funeral Doom Metal record is, and fair enough, a gruelling ride; it may even seem a form of self-flagellation. To fully grasp the painfully slow music,…