Tales From The Underground
Tales From The Underground
Artist: Exploding Zombies Country: USA Label: Hells Headbangers Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2025 It is not quite the first time I have lauded Hells Headbangers Records for their recent series of Brutal Death Metal re-releases. In recent weeks,…
Artist: Nekromanteion Country: Bolivia Format: 7″ EP Label: Wolfkult Religion Year: 2025 Not to be confused with Necromanteion from South Africa or Nekromantheon from Norway, what we’re dealing with here is Nekromanteion from Bolivia. Their most recent release ‘The Sinister…
Artist: Hate Forest Country: Ukraine Label: Heidens Hart Records Formats: LP Year: 2025 Originally released in 2005 by Supernal Music on CD, ‘Nietzscheism’ has seen no less than seven reissues over the years up till this most recent one on…
Artist: Destruktor Country: Australia Label: Hells Headbangers Records Formats: LP Year: 2025 Like probably everyone else who has been around for a while, my introduction to Destruktor was through their “Brutal Desecration” 7″ EP, released by the sadly defunct Decius…
Artist: Nema Country: Germany Label: Northmoon Zephyr Productions Formats: 7″ EP Year: 2025 Nema was a German Black Metal band that by now has been dead and buried many times longer than it was actually alive. In their short lifespan…
Artist: Regurgitation Country: USA Label: Hells Headbangers Records Formats: LP Year: 2025 We usually focus our reviews on new releases and largely ignore the huge number of reissues that keep coming our way. And, as a whole, I try to…
Artist: Desecration Country: USA Label: Hells Headbangers Records Formats: LP Year: 2025 Honestly, when I first ran into Desecration, I wasn’t all too impressed with the band from Newport, Wales. Perhaps it was my mindset at the time, the setting in which they…
Artist: Burial Country: USA Label: Hells Headbangers Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2025 In its quest for unearthing some unsung genre highlights of late 90’s and early 00’s Brutal Death Metal, Hells Headbangers Records already crossed paths with a few undeniable…
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: 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: Nargothrond Country: Germany Label: Narbentage Produktionen Formats: LP Year: 2025 Although the extensive back catalog of Germany’s Narbentage Produktionen has repeatedly delved into the country’s history to unearth some forgotten gems, the label now seems to have turned it…
Artist: Mystic Circle Country: Germany Label: Rock Of Angels Formats: LP / CD Year: 2025 Over the past few years German Black Metal outlaws Mystic Circle has been on a quest for rehabilitation. Not only with rapidly releasing two new…
Arist: Unholy Archangel Country: Greece Label: Profaner Records / Temple Profanator Format: Cassette Tape Year: 2025 Unholy Archangel has already been around since the mid- to late 90’s and has a decent number of releases in their back catalogue, yet the band has never been…
Artist: Plegaria Maldita Country: Costa Rica Label: Zombi Danz Records Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2024 Although I missed the actual release date of this demo, most sources date it from 2024, but it does not seem to have surfaced until around the spring months…
Artist: Empalamento Country: Portugal Label: Self-released / Haloran Records Formats: Cassette EP / CD EP Year: 2024 / 2025 Even though I consider myself rather well-versed in the underground Extreme Metal scene, I sometimes tend to miss out on rather…
Artist: As Serenity Fades / August Moon Country: Finland Label: Personal Records Formats: CD Year: 2025 Almost fifteen years ago, in 2011 all the collected work of Finnish gloomy Death Metallers As Serenity Fades was already immortalized on one of those glorious reissues that…
Artist: Torturer Country: Chile Label: Nuclear War Now! Productions Formats: LP Year: 2025 Originally released sometime in mid-1992 on a cassette tape, ‘Oppressed By The Force’ garnered quite a following in the Chilean underground. So much that the album was…
Artist: Malignancy Country: USA Label: Hells Headbangers Records Formats: LP Year: 2025 Next chapter of Hells Headbangers Records’ quest to reinstate some of Brutal Death Metal/Grindcore classics is Malignancy’s ‘Intrauterine Cannibalism’. A record that indeed fits just perfectly with more…
Artist: Ablazen Winds Country: USA Label: Medieval Prophecy Records Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2025 Originally self-released in a small run of 15 copies for a local show, ‘Burning Scripture Of War’ now sees a slightly larger release through Belgium’s revered…
Artist: Sectarium Country: Cuba Label: La Caverna Records Formats: CD Year: 2025 Extreme Metal might have been the most popular in some European, North and South American countries, but the long arms of the genre stretched to the most unlikely…
Artist: Crepuscule Country: Italy Label: La Caverna Records Formats: CD Year: 2025 Among the set of demo tapes recently re-released by La Caverna Records is also this single demo from Crepuscule. This Italian band was formed by the duo Raff…
Artist: High Speed Death Country: Italy Label: La Caverna Records Formats: CD Year: 2025 The Bogotá, Colombia based label La Caverna Records decided to take a really deep dive into someone’s old tapes collection. At least, so it seems, as…
Artist: Morbid Moon Country: Germany Label: Narbentage Produktionen Formats: Cassette Tape Year: 2024 By definition, Narbentage Produktionen is a label that leads you into the deepest caverns of underground Black Metal. The label’s vast back catalogue is brimming with bands that…
Artist: Morsun Diaboli Country: Poland Label: Diabolical Vitriol / Pro Morte Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2024 Although ‘Dzień Triumfu’, Morsun Diaboli’s second demo from 1998, had already been reissued once in 2019 and a compilation of all surviving Morsun Diaboli tracks was released in…
Artist: Lugubrious Country: Spain Label: Discos MeCagoEnDios Formats: LP Year: 2024 Out of the deepest pits of the Spanish Extreme Metal underground comes Lugubrious, a four-piece Death Metal band that never got beyond one demo tape in 1993 – besides…
Artist: Goreaphobia Country: USA Label: Hells Headbangers Records Formats: LP Year: 2025 Along with bands like Incantation, Rottrevore, Deceased and Immolation, Goreaphobia is a band that is frequently credited for being one of the most influential bands in USA’s underground…
Artist: Abruptum Country: Sweden Label: Nuclear War Now! Productions Formats: LP Year: 2025 Obviously, Abruptum is mostly known for its early work and their affiliation to Euronymous’ Deathlike Silence Productions. The band’s first two records and specially the ‘Obscuritatem Advoco…
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: 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: Pentacrostic Country: Brazil Label: Nuclear War Now! Productions Formats: LP Year: 2025 While Pentacrostic’s debut album, ‘The Pain Tears’ from 1992, is generally regarded as the band’s finest hour – even a bit of a cult album in the…
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: 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: 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: 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…
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: 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…
Artist: Throne Of Charlemagne Country: USA Label: Diabolical Vitriol Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2024 Charlemagne’s name obviously resonates through history as one of the most powerful rulers of ancient Europe, the grand emperor of the post-Roman Empire-era. When choosing a…
Artist: Cursed Penetrator Country: Finland Label: Unpure Records Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2024 Early this year I reviewed Cursed Penetrator’s first digital demo, a solid and entertaining exercise of primal and rotten First Wave Black Metal, pretty much in the vein of early…
Artist: Jehovah Lashing Country: USA Label: Profaner Records Formats: Cassette Tape Year: 2024 Originally released in 2023, the self-titled debut album by Jehovah Lashing first only had a digital version available, yet since a few days, more or less around…
Artist: Immortal Death Country: Japan Label: Werewolf Records Formats: LP / CD Year: 2024 Just as the name of this Japanese Death Metal band holds some contradiction, this re-release is also not devoid of surprises. Werewolf Records is not exactly…
Artist: Funeral Vomit Country: Colombia Label: Xtreem Music Formats: 12″ EP / CD EP Year: 2024 Before the Xtreem Music-released ‘Monumental Putrescence’ from late December last year, the Colombians of Funeral Vomit released a demo, two splits and a self-titled…
Artist: Sepulchral Conjurator Country: Ecuador Label: Profaner Records Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2024 Sepulchral Conjurator is a relatively new band who deliver their first demo with ‘Ceremony Ritual I’. This already happened late last year with a first self-released on…
Artist: Siegehammer Country: Spain Label: Profaner Records Formats: Demo Tape Year: 2024 You can already tell from the title of this demo that we are dealing with a reissue of these recordings. We are now a year on, but Profaner…
Artist: Rotten Tomb Country: Chile Label: Nuclear Winter Records Formats: 12″ EP / CD EP Year: 2024 Rather shortly after the release of Rotten Tomb’s most recent full-length, the excellent ‘The Relief Of Death’, there is more to enjoy in…
Artist: Infernaculum Country: Spain Label: Profaner Records Formats: Cassette Tape Year: 2024 The one and only demo of the Spanish Infernaculum, ‘Esperma De Satanás’, was actually already released in the very first month of 2023 in a small quantity of…
Artist: Sextrash Country: Brazil Label: I Hate Records Formats: LP Year: 2024 Many a review on early Extreme Metal releases out of the South American scene start with the appreciation for those early works of Sepultura and Sarcófago or the…
Artist: Nebiros Country: Colombia Label: Nuclear War Now! Productions Formats: LP Year: 2024 Earlier this spring Nuclear War Now! Productions reissued Nebiros’ first full-length album from 1996, an album that although it was released much later than other classics from…
Artist: Desekryptor Country: USA Label: Nuclear Winter Records Formats: 7″ EP / CD EP Year: 2024 No, this is not new material from USA’s Desekryptor. Instead this is the vinyl and CD reissue of their Caligari-released EP that surfaced during…