Suffering so you don't have to!
When I read a promo that says “traditional Norwegian Black Metal,” my face is an iceberg that shows no emotion. If there’s one sub-genre more beaten to death than Power Metal, it’s old school Black Metal. However, Svartelder has such a cool name that I thought giving Trenches a chance would be the least I could do after months of hopelessness. This is a band with a respectable catalog, so you can’t blame me for wanting to believe! Let’s dive into the darkness!
Stop the meat grinder at the factory! We have a Polish band today. This can mean a few things: extreme quality mixed with blasphemy or dull heaviness mixed with ideological fanaticism (I’m being so polite here). Disloyal‘s new album, Divine Miasmata, is sending all the right signals: good band name, evil album name, and killer art. So, I’m entitled to have expectations, right? It even comes from Black Lion, one of the most consistent underground labels out there. Everything on paper makes more sense than your fake CV. Hopefully, Disloyal lies less than you.
You know what time it is! It’s that time of the week when we check your submissions and decide whether to be ruthless or merciful, depending on how much nonsense we’ve had to put up with during the rest of the week. As usual, we have a wide range of submissions, from Power Metal to Brutal Death Metal. So, we have something for the whole family. In fact, we’ve signed up your whole family to our socials and blog. We’ll keep them all furious with our poor reviewer judgment, so much so that they’ll leave you in peace for a while. Think about it! Now, to the bands!
It’s time for something more idiosyncratic! At first glance, you might think there’s nothing too strange about Forgotten Tomb, but the more you delve into its work, the more you realize how little MeloBlack has been mixed with Doom Metal. “That’s a killer combo!” you might say, and that’s exactly what Nightfloating is about. But does it work, or does it float over our heads? (I’m so getting fired after that joke.) Forgive my poor comedic timing and stay with us!
Vanhelgd‘s newest album, Atropos Doctrina, has everything a reviewer would expect from a Swedish death metal band: the hard-to-pronounce name, the paganism, the cool art. What’s not to like? If anything, I was just concerned that this album would be another consistent and dirty 40+ minutes of music from the north. I always say before starting these reviews: if I get another Swedish band that wants to sound like Entombed or Dismember, I’m going to score it below 2.5 (and get canceled by the metal world in the process, of course). So, is Vanhelgd going to get me banned from the socials again, or is there hope?
We’re back to our bread and butter—Black Metal from the pits of (oh surprise!) Norway. We also have something of a super band, because Ulvehunger is made up of members from Satyricon, Disgusting, and Cadaver, just to name a few. However, I must say it’s been decades since I’ve fully enjoyed an album from any of these bands. Don’t throw hate at me; taste is like a butt: split. Despite this, I had no negative preconceptions about Retaliation. If anything, I want all bands to do well and be successful (see? It’s not so bad). Let’s find out if we can jump into this.
Welcome back, everyone! I’ve hinted on many occasions that this section will mostly focus on interviewing people in unconventional parts of the Metal scene. However, at MER, we’re also strong advocates for mental health, and if you haven’t listened to A Kindness Dealt in Venom, you should. It’s a harrowing journey through the demons inside most of us. I met Tony in the most ironic way: he texted me to correct an enormous mistake in our Construct of Lethe review. He was understanding, and I could tell he was someone with a great eye for detail. Given the personal nature of this album, I couldn’t help but invite him for an interview.
Join our feline attempt to overthrow our human masters here!
I think it would be an understatement to say that right now, or whenever you’re reading this article, France is going through turbulent times. It’s a nation always in crisis, just like Argentina. Why am I talking about non-Metal matters? Well, because Seth’s new album La France des Maudits is thematically the most French album I’ve reviewed in the short history of this site. Also, it’s nice to talk about a French Black Metal band that won’t get me in trouble with half of the internet (you all know what I’m talking about). Great, so is this fresh work, or is it cursed? Stay with me!
I’d like to tell you one of my romantic stories about how I ran into Liminal Shroud, but that’d be lying more than usual. I was looking for discounts on Bandcamp and saw that Through the False Narrows was cheap, so I bought it after listening to one track. It was solid Black Metal with Prog touches. The same could be said about All Virtues Ablaze. Hence, Visions of Collapse has a difficult task ahead: overcoming solid albums that, without much drama, have solidified the band’s reputation as a respectable act. Hopefully, this won’t ruin it. Let’s go!
Here we go! I know that Akhlys has been involved in controversy in the past and has even been banned from some media outlets. Since I’m a cat, human affairs don’t affect me, and despite my ideological disagreements with, well, a lot of Black Metal bands, I’ll focus on the art this time. Now that that’s out of the way, I’ll admit that I loved The Dreaming I and that it’s one of the best albums of its kind! Though I enjoyed Melinoë, it just wasn’t the same. Hence, I approached House of the Black Geminus with mixed expectations. Let’s just fall into this endless pit, ok?
Metal Eclipse Reviews 