Metal Eclipse Reviews

Ashbringer -Subglacial

Metalcatto

Ashbringer is Minnesota’s answer to Deafheaven. For some time now, the band has been delivering emotional and heartbreaking Post-Metal richly layered with atmospheric touches. While Absolution continues to stand as my personal favorite (and arguably one of the best Post-Metal albums ever made!), We Came Here to Grieve was a fascinating, if decidedly weirder, successor. My expectations for this new album, Subglacial, are therefore absurdly high. The fact the band has stated it was created with minimal financial investment only fuels my excitement further! Let’s begin.

An Elegy in Riffs: Albums to Help You Heal

Metalcatto

Time flies when you’re mourning. It feels like yesterday when Pappa Catto left for Valhalla. This past year, there were albums I would turn to when the emotional mess hit me hardest. You know what I’m talking about: the deep ache of loss and the nagging sense of existential meaninglessness, paired with the paradoxical need for brutal riffs to power through the day. Here are some of those albums that helped me navigate the pain. Maybe they can help you, too.

Mayhem – Liturgy of Death

Metalcatto

There might be no other band in extreme Metal that has inspired more dank, enduring memes than your dark majesty, Mayhem. I even conducted a retro-review of the seminal album back in the day. However, I approached its latest release, Liturgy of Death (wow, how surprising that title is…), with next to no expectations. The central question looms: how can a band with such a famously chaotic and tragic trajectory possibly offer something genuinely compelling and interesting decades after its infamous peak?

Post Luctum – Timor Lucis

Vicky

Being highly passionate about foreign languages and particularly Latin, I have to begin by telling you that Post Luctum comes from “post”, meaning “after”, and “luctum” (from “luctus”), meaning “grief”. At the same time, Timor Lucis also comes from Latin, with “timor” meaning “fear”, and “lucis” (from “lux”) meaning “light”. Ergo, to conclude my complex and meaningful introduction, the band After The Grief will soon release the album Fear of the Light.

Mývalyĭr – The Past Tales

Metalcatto

Mývalyĭr is what happens when you blend the epic, storytelling scope of Blind Guardian with the intense seriousness of a band like Eternal Storm or other deeply committed MeloDeath acts. Consequently, its new album, The Past Tales, sounded on paper like an oddball proposition for me, as it combines elements I deeply love with others I’m almost embarrassed to admit I enjoy. The central question was how the band would balance its grandiose, fantastical aspirations with the musical gravitas such themes demand. Honestly, my initial hopes were buried underground, but there’s always room for dreaming, right?

Stabbing – Eon of Obscenity

Metalcatto

Let’s face it: if you got money every time a Brutal Metal band had a name that implied knife play, you’d be the one invading some defenseless country that has done you no wrong. Either way, Stabbing is supposed to be that Brutal Death Metal band—the one that consistently knocks it out of the park. Its new album, Eon of Obscenity, is precisely engineered to deliver that promise, an auditory experience meant to shake us harder than losing our job on a Friday. But since music this extreme is inherently inhumane, it risks leaving us completely numb. So, what’s the final verdict?

True kvlt: Chainline, Cease To Resist, Lipocalypse, Desu Taem, Denominate

Metalcatto

It’s the day of the bands with long names…

Negative Agent – Terminal Days

Metalcatto

Sometimes, I get to review the weirdest things, and by that, I mean something like Negative Agent’s Terminal Days—an Industrial Metal album steeped in Cyberpunk aesthetics and antifascist politics. This is genuinely underground material, but it arrived with a strong personal recommendation from musicians whom we deeply respect here at MER. Trusting that instinct, I decided to give this electronic assault a fair chance, even though it checks almost none of the boxes on my usual stylistic checklist. There are moments when one simply craves to be surprised, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Karnivool – In Verses

Metalcatto

Karnivool is what happens when a band possesses the intricate, atmospheric ambition of Tool but is fundamentally more willing to wear its heart on its sleeve and openly explore emotional vulnerability, rather than shrouding everything in cryptic metaphor and themes of substance abuse. The band carries both the blessing and the curse of an undeniable landmark album in its past (Sound Awake). Hence, its latest offering, In Verses, arrives with enormous shoes to fill and, frankly, zero of my initial hopes for a triumphant return. But let’s dive in regardless.

No Worth of Man – The Killing Streets

Metalcatto

With a title that makes you think No Worth of Man might be dropping some gangster rap, their new album The Killing Streets arrives with more pent-up anger issues than a hypothetical ten-year-old alcoholic. As is often the case with such intense material, the quality wasn’t immediately apparent; it required a deep, attentive dive to unravel. That’s precisely what we’re here for: to mess around in the sonic chaos and, hopefully, find out what lies beneath the aggression.