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Selling vinyl - Extreme Metal and Dark music
Eight years on from their last album, The Forty Five, Scotland’s Cnoc An Tursa have returned with an evocative tribute to the history, the folklore, the unique magic of their homeland. With their characteristic blend of fierce black metal and traditional melodies they have conjured up a set of songs that bring together mourning and defiance, mystery and fear, pride and passion. It is rare for a band to return from years of silence with an album that represents a new creative peak in their story, but with A Cry For The Slain that is exactly what Cnoc An Tursa have achieved. Speaking about their aims with this album, the band have said,
"With this new album we feel like we are going back to our roots with a more guitar driven style and bringing back some of the folk elements musically and lyrically which was the original inspiration for the band."
And by looking back they have found the way forward, reigniting their fire and forging an album that will resonate through the years to come.
‘Na Fir Ghorma’ with its haunting guitar notes and sense of dignity and sorrow opens the door to A Cry For The Slain, ushering you into the furious opening blast of ‘The Caoineag’. Steeped in bardic tradition and storytelling this majestic track introduces the listener to a highland banshee who foretells death and tragedy and sings her laments beside the deep lochs and chill waterfalls. With the Caoineag’s song atmosphere rises like mountain mists, enshrouding and transporting while the captivating melodies conjured by Cnoc An Tursa lead us into a different world. ‘Cailleach And The Guardians Of The Seven Stones’ is a magnificent, sweeping tribute to the goddess of winter who shapes the landscape with her hammer, the ghost of Thin Lizzy’s ‘Emerald’ dancing in its Gaelic reels. A stunning guitar solo adorns the multifaceted track that captures the power, allure, mystery and terror of the blood thirsty ‘Baobhan Sith’, while the thundering energy of ‘Am Fear Liath Mòr’ takes you to the mountain passes of the Cairngorms, haunted by a giant presence…“I can hear the footsteps behind me, I can see the Big Grey Man”… And nestled amongst all the stories and ‘Address To The Devil’s epic dark poetry, we find first single, ‘Alba In My Heart’ – a pledge of allegiance, a song of devotion to Cnoc An Tursa’s beloved Scotland. There’s a raised fist and a strength of spirit in the blood stirring melodies and the rolling rhythms, in the riffs tumbling down like mountain streams. The authenticity of emotion in this song is undeniable. By the time ‘The Nine Maidens Of Dundee’ leads us down from the peaks once more, with a head full of dreams and a belief that magic may still exist in the less travelled glens of the northlands, the sheer power of Cnoc An Tursa’s return has become abundantly clear. A Cry For The Slain is a breathtaking album, a beacon burning in the night of mundane modernity, calling to those of us who want more than we’ve been sold.
Gatefold, black flood print, with insert!
Marble vinyl
Gatefold, black flood print, with insert!
Black vinyl
Black vinyl edition limited to 100 copies
Limited to 150 copies. Black vinyl with printed jacket and 18x24 poster
Limited to 150 copies. Black vinyl with printed jacket and 18x24 poster
Gatefold black vinyl
Remastered compilation of wampyric lo-fi dungeon demos created by Myst and Celestial Sword. Includes "The Moonlit Branches of Powder" (June 2020) and "The Night's Sorrow" (September 2021).
Synth and Vocals: Nocturnal Effigy (Myst)
Guitars: Celestial Sword
This collection was remastered by Dan Randall at Mammoth Sound Mastering.
New 2023 pressing with full color inside jacket printing on half bone / half salmon roe (300)
Japanese black metal legends Sigh formed in 1989/1990. The genre-classic debut ‘Scorn Defeat’ followed on Euronymous’ Deathlike Silence Productions in 1993, and with each subsequent release, Sigh grew to become one of the country’s greatest and most revered metal exports. With a journey through the strange and the psychedelic, incorporating a whole eclectic mix of genre styles & experimentation throughout their career, Sigh has remained a vital creative force in the avantgarde field whilst maintaining their old school roots, as witnessed with the stellar 2022 album, ‘Shiki’. 2025 also saw Sigh remaking their ‘Hangman’s Hymn’ album for a release on Peaceville as part of the band’s 35th anniversary celebrations, in the shape of ‘I Saw the World’s End: Hangman’s Hymn MMXXV’.
With the ongoing early line-up of Mirai Kawashima, Shinichi Ishikawa, and Satoshi Fujinami, ‘Scenario IV: Dread Dreams’ was the band’s fourth studio album, originally surfacing in 1999. This was also notably the final title in partnership with Sigh’s then-label, Cacophonous Records. Delving evermore into the experimental side of music to conjure an interlinked gallery of twisted soundscapes; ‘Dread Dreams’ became more of a journey into the realm of psychedelia and rock over black metal, with this Zappa-inspired odyssey acting as somewhat of a direct pre-cursor to what was to follow with the celebrated ‘Imaginary Sonicscape’ opus.
‘Dread Dreams’ was once more recorded at Shinjuku On Air Studio with J. Yamada, with a selection of guests including Damian Montgomery of Ritual Carnage lending lyrics plus guest vocals, along with King Fowley (Deceased), and Killjoy (Necrophagia) supplying additional song lyrics. Cover art came courtesy of renowned artist Joe Petagno (Motörhead, Autopsy).
Continuing with Peaceville’s re-issues of Sigh’s classic works, this edition of ‘Dread Dreams’ contains a new master created by Patrick Engel at Temple of Disharmony.
The release also includes a new interview with main-man Mirai Kawashima conducted by Dayal Patterson of Cult Never Dies, with his thoughts, influences and reflections on the album and its challenges.
This edition of ‘Dread Dreams’ is presented on limited marble vinyl.