A new band has erupted from the Land of Ice, offering an unnerving, psychedelic atmosphere with captivating, experimental melodies and agony-stricken vocals. Altari’s Kröflueldar dabbles in gothic, doomy, post-, and black metal styles, meshing these influences together into a unique and highly enjoyable approach. Demonically vicious vocals—palpable with feelings of desperation and sadness—are juxtaposed with the mesmerizing amalgamation of guitar styles that range from crunchy, stoner-like grooves and atmospheric tremolo-picking to eerie, contemplative melodies. All of these facets work together to entrance the listener with enthralling soundscapes and soothing ambience.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album playlist)

›› Full review...

Despite "Belarus" meaning "White Russia", this Belarusian band go by the name for "darkness" in their language: Ciemra. Their debut album, The Tread Of Darkness, demonstrates a mixed assortment of black metal styles, using catchy melodies, dramatic atmsophere, and foreboding tremolo-picking—all fueled with an underlying aggression that materializes in the sharpness of their riffs. Calling upon the grand and ancient concepts of darkness, death, and war, the overall oppressive and grim tone of the album is mirrored by the cover artwork depicting five skeletal warriors riding ferocious dragons. In sum, Ciemra offer one of the most entertaining concoctions of black metal this year, combining the intensity of their Polish neighbors with the melody of the old Swedish masters.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album stream)

›› Full review...

2023 has seen a fair amount of exceptional debuts from strong newly established acts coming through the ranks, but very few have been as impressive as the latest exciting Polish post-black prospect Cursebinder, who have Drifted their way onto the scene with this stunning debut. Cursebinder may indeed sound like a marvelous band name, but Drifting is a debut equally as impressive as the band name; featuring an exceptional production and outstanding performances, Cursebinder have mastered the sound and style like few others and created a debut to rival the work of fellow post-black metal bands such as ROSK, Olhava, and Panzerfaust.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album stream)

›› Full review...

Yearning: Promethean Fates Sealed is as abstract a mélange of musical elements as the cover art is of limbs and landscapes: it is obsessive and mathematical, languid and jazzy, inhospitable and cacophonous, ebullient and proggy. The multitude of instruments at Fleshvessel's disposal facilitates their magpie-like acquisition of genre after genre: what is in one minute a clanky honky-tonk piano is in the next an effortlessly cool bank of '70s prog synths; a furious death metal onslaught careens into a quiet interlude of noodly fretless bass; an angsty mish-mash of woodwinds, strings, and harsh vocals of all shapes and sizes collide in an unpredictable of weird sounds that approximate the sensation of King Crimson beating you to death with trumpets made out of barbed wire. Fleshvessel already hit this category with their first EP (their very first song, in fact, which took up the entire thing), and everybody knew then that their first full-length album was going to be something special. So it is.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album playlist)

›› Full review...

There are probably many reasons why Scandinavians have for so long had such a central place in folk metal production, but one surefire connection is that Scandinavian folk can be quite bleak, foreboding, and unsettling on its own: of course it would go hand-in-hand with another form of music so shrouded in darkness. The vast, grand, and imposing frame of doom metal elevates Fredlös's laments, delivered by Liv Hope's stirring solo or by massive choirs, giving force to the painful dirges wrought in a modern-Arkona-like manner of murky grimness. Fredlös's debut is also a more authentic experience than you often find masquerading under the "folk metal" label, frequently handing the lead melodies to an aching violin that actually bears some traditional know-how and ditching the standard comic-book Vikings for sorrowful tales from medieval Swedish history. This album is lengthy, punishing, unforgiving, and dark, but hey... that's history for you.

YouTube (full album playlist)

›› Full review...

One of the finest releases to ever grace Clandestine Cuts has been expanded into one of the strongest debuts on 2023. Meridian Sun took their time in turning The Curse, the 22-minute single-song EP, into The Curse, the album; however, the stellar title track, a unique odyssey of progressive stoner doom, has been given two worthy companions on the tracklist. Bands that offer some point of reference for Meridian Sun include Elder and OHHMS, but the grit of the band at their heaviest, and the grandeur of them at their most epic, are just some of the ways in which Meridian Sun announce themselves as firmly having their own distinctive identity on The Curse.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album playlist)

›› Full review...

“Opus” is such a modest title; we could probably slip a “Magnum” in front of that already. Listening to Nospūn’s jaw-dropping debut is like waking up at 6:00 on a Christmas morning to find that Haken is climbing back up The Mountain. Opus is just about a fundamentally perfect prog metal according to the old rules: the instrumentation is mind-boggling in its precision and cleanness, but always rich and flavorful, never mechanical, striking a balance between the hearty resonance of a good heavy riff, the moody echoes of an introspective flashback, and the ambitious-but-accessible spirit of even more classic classic prog. Metropolis 2.5: Son Of Metropolis studies the theatricality of Leprous, the earnestness of Evergrey, and the literate energy of Rush to build a massive concept album that’s fresh-feeling and fun, bold and yet balanced. If you thought that progressive metal had forever turned its back on these images and words, now’s your chance to watch it reawaken.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album stream)

Erech Leleth seems to embrace contradictions. Whichever of his projects (e.g. Ancient Mastery, Narzissus, Carathis) you scrutinize, it's rarely just pure black metal; rather, it's typically a conglomerate of various influences that shouldn't fit together. The union of the aggressive and dark atmosphere of black metal with the dreamy, atmospheric soundscapes of shoegaze thrives on the dynamic of opposites, that's why it comes as no surprise that Erech eventually ventured into blackgaze. However, blackgaze is just the broad musical framework within which Erech operates on Summer Haze '99's debut album. The foundation of raw black metal and post-rock is regularly and vigorously punctuated by such atypical elements that it's actually a miracle that the combination of dream pop, melodic hardcore, indie rock, and black metal does not irreversibly collapse. So why does Inevitable sound not like immeasurable chaos, but quite the opposite? That's a good question, but one that can easily be answered by the artist's outstanding songwriting skills in reconciling the incompatible. And at the latest when guest singer Anouk Madrid's truly beautiful, jazz lounge-like voice emerges for the first time, Inevitable becomes so captivating that this question fades into such a distant sphere as if it were never posed.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album playlist)

›› Full review...

The Greek duo Venus are the newest and most promising addition to the Vektor-inspired wave of progressive, technical, sci-fi thrash metal. The two musicians offer two distinct vocal styles, evoking a miasma of sensations associated with the cosmos: dread, fear, but also beauty and awe-inspiring majesty. But, on the instrumental front, they are just as mesmerizing with their fast-paced yet brilliantly melodic riffs. On a journey beyond time and space, Venus’s debut full-length album offers one of the most enjoyable thrash records of the year, delivering intelligent, complex, and entertaining musicianship that's bound to ensnare any modern thrash fan.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album stream)

›› Full review...

If you are wondering how heavy metal can sound interesting in this day and age, check out Wings Of Steel. Laced with melodic U.S. power metal and even some bluesy hard rock, Gates Of Twilight is a heavy metal album made by a guitar god and an unbelievably gifted vocalist. This is an album that could easily have been released around 1986, and it would have been treated as a classic today. Still, it sounds amazing in the present with its modern production, and it is one of these very few releases where you can throw a dart and choose any track as a sample and you won’t be anything less than dazzled.

Bandcamp / YouTube (full album playlist)

›› Full review...