Tales From The Underground
Tales From The Underground
Artist: Atavistic Passage Country: United Kingdom Label: Manifest Of Hate Creations Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 About a year ago the first demo of Atavistic Passage appeared and captivated me with its raw and hypnotic power. I absolutely loved the…
Artist: Storming Country: USA Label: Iron Bonehead Productions Formats: LP / CD Year: 2025 Iron Bonehead Productions announced ‘Celestial Clear Moonlit’ as the “highly anticipated” second album of this one-man Black Metal band from the USA. To be honest, I…
Artist: Celestial Call Country: Unknown Label: Mercury Chalice Formats: Cassette EP Year: 2024 Celestial Call is a completely anonymous act with absolutely zero information to work on, not even their origin is known at this point, but it did manage…
Artist: Geheimnisvoll Country: USA Label: Nithstang Productions Formats: LP Year: 2025 Although not overly prolific, Geheimnisvoll has steadily been building a rather impressive reputation for being one of the absolute flagships of the “new wave” of American Raw Black Metal bands.…
Artist: Babylonian War Chant Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital EP Year: 2025 Although the all-knowing algorithms tend to taunt me with their suggestions of bands that I don’t give a dime about, sometimes they bring up something rather interesting. Such as…
Artist: Valac Country: USA Label: Black Gangrene Productions Formats: Demo CD Year: 2025 Although Valac has been around for quite some time now, being formed in 2019, none of its rather extensive back-catalogue has been featured on these pages yet. Time to…
Artist: Black Discharge Country: USA Label: Death’s Radiance Formats: Cassette EP Year: 2025 Under the banner of Death’s Radiance, an obscure label that already brought us such great acts as Firmament and especially Kudlaakh, comes the debut of Black Discharge. Apart…
Artist: Black Cum Country: Finland Label: Unpure Records Formats: Cassette Tape Year: 2025 Usually, when Unpure Records hits the market with a new release, you know you have to fasten your seatbelts. Not necessarily because of the speedy music of their…
Artist: Versteck / Geheimnisvoll Country: Indonesia / USA Label: Ancient Horror Records / Nithstang Productions Formats: Split Tape Year: 2025 Albeit originating from different parts of the world, both Versteck (Indonesia) and Geheimnisvoll (USA) have amassed a considerable following within…
Artist: Insane Apollyon Country: Finland Label: Final Agony Records Formats: LP Year: 2025 Not too long ago I spent a few words on a vinyl compilation from unreleased early tracks from Sacellum Luciferi, a rather obscure Black Metal band from…
Artist: Koreltsak Country: USA Label: Altare Productions Formats: Cassette Tape Year: 2025 Those who tend to keep an eye on today’s Raw Black Metal underground, must at least have stumbled upon the name of Koreltsak, an American entity that spawns…
Artist: Odenwald Country: Germany Label: Altare Productions Formats: Cassette EP Year: 2025 With having exactly zero information to work with, I can’t say anything else then that ‘Felsenmeer’ is the debut EP (or demo, if you prefer) from this German…
Artist: Gvozdena Nychta Country: Serbia Label: Altare Productions Formats: Cassette EP Year: 2025 Gvozdena Nychta (“Iron Night” in English) is the new brainchild of Vinka Mrtvaluć, who recently put his previous project Dreg K to rest. The exact reasons for…
Artist: Silver Country: USA Label: Solitary Night Collective Formats: Digital Year: 2025 After two demos, released in 2022 and 2024 that were both compiled on a cassette tape earlier this year, this American one-man Black Metal project is back with…
Artist: Sacellum Luciferi Country: Finland Label: Satanik Requiem / Vermines Pestifera Formats: LP / Cassette Tape Year: 2025 Finland is home to a great treasure trove of ridiculously obscure Black Metal. The true connoisseur of underground Black Metal is always served…
Artist: Zkywbrezdreb Country: USA Label: Elf Eggs Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 ‘My Dead Pulsing Vigil’ follows shortly after Zkywbrezdreb’s ‘Remnants Of Human Ash’, this project’s debut demo tape from a bit earlier this year. That demo, with such titles as ‘No Friends’, ‘No Trends’,…
Artist: Vortax Country: Portugal Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 Fresh from the ever-fertile Portuguese Black Metal scene comes Vortax. Other than that there is basically nothing to tell about the background or anything else concerning this new band,…
Artist: Empyrean Gaunt Country: USA Label: Altare Productions / Poisonous Sorcery Formats: LP / Cassette Tape Year: 2025 Although the identity of the only person behind Empyrean Gaunt is kept in darkness, I would be very surprised if this would…
Artist: Rôtn Country: Sweden Label: Altare Records Formats: CDr Year: 2025 Although I do like some of Magnus “Wagner Ödegård” Eriksson’s work, I always approach his work with a fair amount of scepticism and general caution. You really never know…
Artist: Altar Of Belial Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 Some time ago I ran into this rather mysterious one-man band. There’s very little information available, other than this is a solo-project that operates out of the…
Artist: Sacrilegious Crown Country: Italy Label: Self-Released Formats: Cassette EP Year: 2025 For me, Sacrilegious Crown was a band, or project rather, that popped up on my radar in the surge of Raw/Lo-Fi Black Metal bands that started popping up…
Artist: Occult Mountain Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 ‘Wolven Dawn’ is the third demo from this American one-man band in only a matter of weeks, in three months, to be exact. With the previous two demos,…
Artist: Grollteufel Country: Germany Label: Narbentage Produktionen Formats: LP Year: 2025 I’m rather sure that the name Grollteufel doesn’t ring a bell with too many people. It was a short-lived band/project that only recorded one single 15-minute demo tape back…
Artist: Chalice Of Eden Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 Only a mere three weeks after the release of ‘The Black Serpents Lament’, Chalice Of Eden already returns with a second demo. Maybe we shouldn’t be that surprised, as the main composed…
Artist: Spectral Torture Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 Together with this new ‘Reflections Under The Stench Of Resentment’, Spectral Torture, one of the many musical endeavours of E.X. (also known for his work in Drape, EJXA…
Artist: Fields Of Agony Country: United Kingdom Label: Hettend Tapes Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 Although I had never heard of Hettend Tapes before recently, this collective/label has a number of interesting bands under its wing. For me, it was…
Artist: Zkywbrezdreb Country: USA Label: Elf Eggs Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 With seemingly little effort, the anonymous figure behind projects such as Red Right Hand Of Plague, Kos, Thirsting Ampoule, Vëřťžîmbrÿġțžûmşțřě and Great Tribulation, as well as the Elf Eggs…
Artist: Serpent Gate Country: Sweden Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 It is true that the things you grow up with always keep a certain charm, no matter your current age. Things tend to make more impact and help…
Artist: Hibernal Abyss Country: United Kingdom Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 ‘Demo MMXXV’ is the first demo of Hibernal Abyss, a new Raw Black Metal band from the United Kingdom that is apparently led by multi-instrumentalist Atavistic Passage,…
Artist: Efermus Country: Portugal Label: Altare Productions Format: CDR EP Year: 2025 With a considerable output over the past four-and-a-bit years, it might not be surprising that Portuguese Efermus was featured on these pages before. In fact, the last year,…
Artist: Wisteria Country: USA Label: Lampshade Tapes Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 Wisteria, a one-man Black Metal band from Cleveland, Ohio, came to life early 2024 with a debut full-length called ‘Nightfall’. With its serene cover art and expressive title,…
Artist: Witchmoon Country: USA Label: Death Hymns / Lampshade Tapes Formats: LP Year: 2025 Personally I ran into Witchmoon with the split LP’s with Lampir and Hand Of Glory from 2018 and 2019 respectively. Basically the peak of the madness surrounding the Raw/Lo-Fi…
Artist:Luminous Transfixion Country: USA Label: Perverse Homage Formats: CDR Year: 2025 Well over four years after the debut album of the somewhat mysterious project of Luminous Transfixion, we are, more or less out of the blue, treated with its successor. Even if you have…
Artist: Mystic Veil Country: USA Label: Sinister Shadow Formats: LP Year: 2025 Although ‘What Misery Thou Art Fallen… Taste Of Death But Once’ is mentioned as a compilation LP, it is not much of compilation in the typical sense. Side…
Artist:Smyrtonos / Vagabond Country: Bulgaria Label: Blasphemous Rumours Promotion Formats: Split Tape Year: 2025 After no less than five new releases in 2024, including the debut album, this year so far was remarkably quiet for Bulgarian Raw Black Metal act Smyrtonos (or Смъртонос), but…
Artist: Chalice Of Eden Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 ‘The Black Serpents Lament’ is the first demo of a new entity roaming the North American Raw Black Metal realms. Within its ranks we find Fallen Warrior, who already left a certain…
Artist: Knüth Country: Russia Label: Unholy Wormhole Formats: Digital demo Year: 2025 Ever since the band’s foundation back in 2018, this duo has been spawning demos, at least one per year. With this latest one they arrived at their tenth…
Artist: Carved Cross / Native Glow Country: Australia Label: Solar Wind Productions Formats: Split Cassette Tape Year: 2025 The otherwise prolific output of Carved Cross suddenly and unexpectedly came to a halt in 2023. Whereas we had previously struggled to…
Artist: Occult Mountain Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 Hot on the heals of this project’s debut demo, Occult Mountain is already back with another. ‘Winter Invocations’ was a particularly charming demo that showcased a great balancing…
Artist: Eerified Catacomb Country: Canada Label: Death Hymns Formats: Cassette Tape Year: 2025 Simultaneously released with the ‘Liquidation Of Souls’-demo tape, Eerified Catacomb treats you on yet another sinister demo recording. While both demos have a similar cover art and…
Artist: Reich Der Geister Country: France Label: Hérésie Nocturne Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 Although this French one-man operation already released two demos and a split tape before this latest offering, it never popped up on my radar. But now…
Artist: Eerified Catacomb Country: Canada Label: Death Hymns Formats: Cassette Tape Year: 2025 After the release of ‘Sordid Realm Of Apparition’ and the split tape with Gnawed Chrisom, Eerified Catacomb returns with two new demo tapes. ‘Liquidation Of Souls’ is…
Artist: Sanguine Relic / Gates Of Dawn Country: USA Label: Death Hymns Formats: Split 7″ EP Year: 2025 This little piece of vinyl brings together two of the USA’s most popular Raw Black Metal bands, with Sanguine Relic being an…
Artist: Nefarious Scorn Country: Canada Label: Narbentage Produktionen Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2024 At the waning moments of last year the German label of all things unpolished, Narbentage Produktionen, released a new demo tape from the Canadian entity called Nefarious Scorn. With only…
Artist: Charogne Country: France Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 ‘Rance Moelle / Accoutumanc’ is the one-track follow-up demo of ‘Bourbe’ and ‘Liturgia Horarum’, two demos that saw the light of day at the end of 2024 and very…
Artist: Occult Mountain Country: USA Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Demo Year: 2025 It could be a very good slogan to sell more copies of your demo: “so good, it’s not allowed on Metal-Archives”. While many of the unfathomable choices of…
Artist: Eerified Catacomb / Gnawed Chrisom Country: Canada / Andorra Label: Under The Dark Soil Formats: Split Tape Year: 2025 Although I’ve seen the name of Gnawed Chrisom before, I never had the opportunity to check this project out musically.…
Artist: Azzagrat Country: Finland Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Year: 2025 Again, completely out of the blue there’s another new Finnish Black Metal band. The duo behind Azzagrat for now remains anonymous, but felt confident enough to go straight for the…
Artist: Hexenshade Country: Argentina Label: Self-Released Formats: Digital Year: 2025 Hexenshade from Argentina, formed in May 2024, is a relatively new one-man band. Yet, with ‘The Revelation Of Doom……’ the project is already delivering its second full-length album, in addition…
Black Metal and a certain form of mysticism and individualism are part of the same thing. The sinister-eyed gritty one-man bands are popping up like mushrooms, but rarely are these core values conveyed as convincingly as by Switzerland’s Aspaarn. Not…