CD

Official reissue, digipak with 12 pages booklet

Conceived by MkM (Antaeus, ex-Aosoth), TerrorReign (Necroblood), and Arafel, the band once more calls upon the percussive force of Blastum to give their vision flesh. The result is an album shifting between brachial black/death violence and sickly, psychotic melody – arpeggio-driven passages and unnerving samples forming a fractured narrative. Mid-paced dirges erupt into furious outbursts, solos spiral from the gloom, and a suffocating atmosphere of torment lingers throughout.
 

The Atmospheric Black Metal project Autrest hails from the mountainous region of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Founded as a solo-project in the winter of 2022, the debut album was written, recorded and produced between September 2022 and January 2023.

Autrest draws inspiration from nature, incorporating the sounds of the forests and mountains into its music to create an immersive experience. Influenced by bands such as Cân Bardd, Saor, Caladan Brood, Elderwind and Eldamar, Autrest creates powerful and introspective, nature-themed music that transports listeners to a world of misty forests and icy peaks where each song becomes new a journey.

Belenos, celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2025, returns with the 10th studio recording  "Egor", meaning "space" in Breton. This album is the last part of a trilogy on the 3 elements among the Celts. It started with "Kornog" (2016), the water element, with mainly Breton legends about the sea, followed by "Argoat" (2019), the earth element, bringing together more varied themes linked to life on earth, and finally "Egor", the fire element, but the stellar fire seen on a large scale. It is composed of 12 tracks with 63 minutes playing time, the longest Belenos album recorded to date, still sung in Breton with only one short text in french. Musically, it is similar to Kornog and Chemins de Souffrance (2007), a mix of dark and melodic black metal with doom and death touches in the well-known Belenos style.

In a non-pop cultural, classic sense, the term 'shamanism' refers primarily to spiritual practices of indigenous Siberian peoples. Shamans interact with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness as protectors of their communities. On their album "Songs of the Shaman", NYTT LAND interpret traditional shamanic songs or spells of Siberia's Manchu–Tungus ethno-linguistic groups. These songs use ancient musical techniques such as throat singing and drums and they were recorded in their original language. The latter was done to preserve the power that lies in the sound and the phonetics as well as the rhythm of the texts. This collection of primordial magic in the shape of songs summoning spirits, incantations, and wards has been carefully selected and deliberately excludes spells that are aimed at causing harm. NYTT LAND came into being as a ritualistic Nordic folk band envisioned by the husband and wife duo Natalya and Anatoly Pakhalenko in the Western Siberian town Kalachinsk, on the banks of River Om and crossed by the Trans-Siberian Railway, in August 2013. Following three self-released albums, "Nytt Land" (2013), "Hávamál" (2015), and "Scopun: Songs from the Elder Edda" (2016), their label debut "Fimbulvinter" came out in 2017 and was followed by the 2018 full-length "Oðal". While NYTT LAND also continued to self-release albums, the Siberian elements in their music began to surface stronger than before on their third label full-length "Ritual". With "Songs of the Shaman", NYTT LAND take the ones willing to hear on a journey to a place in time and space where spirits rule and even gods fear to tread. Listen with caution!

One of Australia's longest-running and most respected black metal bands, Pestilential Shadows have been building a towering canon of work since 2003. Whereas many of their native land's extreme metal exports either tend toward the chaotic or too clean, the shadowy collective led by founding vocalist / guitarist Balam consistently create compelling swathes of drama and darkness, all-enveloping emotion and regal-yet-gritty grandeur. Truly, Pestilential Shadows are black metal classicism par excellence.

And while the last handful of their albums the past decade-plus have seen sizable gaps between them, Pestilential Shadows strike while the iron's hot with Wretch. Simply and substantially titled, Wretch follows from last year's Devil's Hammer and continues the band's progression / regression toward uglier, gnarlier expanses. Mind you, it's a lateral development rather than a vertical one - the "form" is still BLACK METAL, and its attendant contents are ruminations on death and the beyond - but the fact that Pestilential Shadows can subtly-to-significantly shift their sonic palette whilst conveying their characteristic melancholy and tragedy speaks to the enduring strength of their songwriting. What's more, the album's production is palpably professional, feeling effervescent and crisp even when running through those uglier, gnarlier expanses. If anything, said recording style of Wretch - mastered by Krvna mainman Krvna Vatra, who played on the aforementioned Devil's Hammer, with mixing done by Balam - gives the record a uniquely ethereal aspect, even when the band have kicked into ultraviolent overdrive. Above all, the eight songs that comprise the 49-minute Wretch prove Pestilential Shadows as masters of pacing, doling out the sublime and the profane with equally windswept aplomb. Of especial note is the solemn procession of "Where Sunlight Goes to Die," which features guest choral vocals from Dis Pater of Midnight Odyssey.

As always, totality is key, and thus has Greallach Art been brought back to provide stark & austere cover artwork for Wretch. On the strength of this album alone, Pestilential Shadows continue to assert their position as a classics-minded black metal vanguard.

Isen’s debut album delivers a powerful blend of melodic black metal, diving deep into the aggressive essence of late Norwegian second wave while weaving in melodic elements reminiscent of classic Swedish black metal, yet with a unique twist. Cutting riffs, bleak atmospheres, and organic production converge to form an album that honours the genre’s golden era, yet forges its own dark and evocative path. Each track unfolds like a puzzle piece in a haunting journey through frozen emotional landscapes, where melancholy and fury coexist in eerie harmony. A must-have for any fan of the genre

Since the unholy reunion between the two MYSTIC CIRCLE founders A. Blackwar and Beelzebub in 2021, the Germanic black metal gods of war are stronger than ever. What began anew in 2022 with the self-titled “Mystic Circle” album and was rewarded with a sensational #78 place in the German album charts, was continued the following year in “Erzdämon” and now completed in “Hexenbrand 1486”. “More serious, more respectful and more authentic” is the definition of this new MYSTIC CIRCLE epic ‘Hexenbrand 1486’ - a statement that also applies to the band's attitude. The band's tenth studio album is largely about the “Malleus Maleficarum”, the witches' hammer, which was written in Speyer in 1486. A pitch-black mix of death, black and traditional heavy metal with a horror soundtrack flair.