Shop

Cult Black Metal from Poland. Demo’95 on one-sided 12″

One of the metal underground’s best-kept secrets, WARLUST began their assault on the false in 2012. The title of their debut demo, 2014’s Unholy Attack, said everything it needed to: here was blackthrashing METAL, steeped in the spirits of old and with genuinely evil blood coursing through its veins. However, it was 2017’s Morbid Execution debut album where WARLUST first truly took flight – on burning wings of flame! More intense, more epic, more heavy fucking metal, Morbid Execution carried on the noble work started by founding fathers Desaster in their homeland and Deströyer 666, Zemial, and Aura Noir abroad.

But, while that debut LP was still tethered to more traditional-style blackthrash, with Unearthing Shattered Philosophies do WARLUST’s songwriting chops blossom with startling strength and crushing clarity. It’s all immediately WARLUST, for sure, but within the album’s eight-song/45-minute runtime lurks a travelogue of terror and triumph, of melancholy and malevolence. 

Like strokes of inspiration, exquisite guitar melodies weave a fluent plethora of moods and emotions, showcasing a heavy classical influence. Undulant blast beats and biting screams serve as a counterpoint to pristine atmospheres and ethereal choirs, an obstinate reminder of the finite nature of man and his creations.

Here at the onset of a new decade, AARA presents a landmark of thoughtful, unorthodox Black Metal.

(metalitalia.com) "A differenza di altri misteriosi figuri che oggi popolano le tenebre dell’underground black/death, Lalartu continua a conciliare la suddetta immagine incappucciata con un suono che, per quanto complesso, stratificato e ultraterreno, si guarda bene dallo scadere in forme onanistiche di eccentricità e sperimentazione (basti pensare alla recente prova degli Ævangelist). Musica che si è nutrita abbondantemente delle peggiori nefandezze del catalogo Iron Bonehead e Norma Evangelium Diaboli da un lato e di certi titani degli anni Novanta dall’altro, per un risultato complessivo che, sul filo di una gestualità rituale e contraddittoria, sembra volerci traghettare oltre il nostro spazio-tempo.
Così com’era stato per l’esordio “Kadingir”, anche “ITIMA” si configura quindi come un viaggio, un’opera da assimilare nelle giuste condizioni per riuscire a carpirne il linguaggio espressivo e non smarrirsi nel suo reticolo di pieni/vuoti sensoriali, con i primi dati da esplosioni di blasfemia non troppo distanti da quelle di Wrathprayer, Teitanblood o Beyond e i secondi a manifestarsi grazie a parentesi ambient dal sapore etnico e siderale. Un flusso di coscienza (trattasi di un’unica suite della durata di poco superiore ai quarantacinque minuti) che ci mostra il Nostro camminare sull’orlo dell’Abisso per poi descriverne con dovizia di particolari il tuffo in quel maelstrom ribollente e terrificante, con i riff, le ritmiche e le voci a farsi via via sempre più deformi e votati al culto di antiche divinità che creano e distruggono la vita.

Digipack with 16 pages booklet

Mixed and Mastered by Stephen Lockhart at Studio Emissary, Iceland. Band Photos by Void Revelations. Band Art and Calligraphy by Jose Gabriel Alegría Sabogal.

Six panels digipak with booklet 

Drought is an entity spawned to channel its creators’ creative energy in a black metal form. The Tantric concept has been adopted to transform this energy into a tale of upheaval and elevation, using fire as a metaphor to celebrate spiritual transformation through cleansing, drawing purity from impurity. After a promising debut EP Drought fell into several years of silence, from which they will finally rise this spring to unleash their first full-length album, Trimurti.

As a Lotus grows from the swamp, enlightenment comes from improvement and regeneration. In Trimurti this theme is reprised from the previous ep Rudra Bhakti (2016, also on Avantgarde Music) and deepened, generating three suites - each explaining one of the three phases of this spiritual turmoil, as well as the three phases of Pranayama, and overall, the three phases of evolution: awareness - transformation - elevation. Nine tracks divided into three conceptual segments - this new opus develops and brings forth the tantric concept of the previous release, articulating it into a full spiritual blast of extreme music.

When asked to introduce the album, Drought said: “Trimurti represents the tantric chemistry of our creative energies and the ones kept within the sea, the mountains and the woods which surround us, channeled into music to celebrate the eternal life hidden in this world and in the ones behind it”.

Trimurti will be out on cd and lp (regular and limited) on May 15th / 22nd  

By now, Denial of God should need little introduction. Since that fateful year of 1991, the brothers Azter and Ustumallagam have perfected an idiosyncratic style of black metal that's positively drenched in the supernatural and remains firm in their conviction of more classicist-styled songwriting. In fact, "black metal" might even be a misnomer; rather, BLACK HORROR METAL would be more accurate.
Of course, the journey has never been easy, and such is the case with the band's now-classic debut album, The Horrors of Satan, originally released in 2006. Although a debut album is usually a momentous event for most bands, The Horrors of Satan almost never came to be because of lineup problems. Drummer Sorgh left the band in 1999, just after the release of the mini-album Klabautermanden and just when work was about to begin on DENIAL OF GOD's first full-length. After this, the band worked with session drummer R. Salskov for about three years and songwriting progressed well, when also this lineup fell apart and left the band a two-piece of vocalist Ustumallagam and guitarist Azter. Things looked bleak for the future when no new drummer for years was found, but in 2005, finally, Galheim joined the band and helped incarnate what is now considered the band's classic lineup. Work was immediately assumed for the first album, and in 2006, The Horrors of Satan was finally recorded and released, comprising material that was written from the ‘90s to shortly before the actual recording.
Furthering DENIAL OF GOD's by-then already-unique style, The Horrors of Satan retains a very medieval feel with its lyrics about witches, werewolves, vampires and the infamous iron gibbet, which was a body-shaped iron cage used to display the bodies of dead or dying criminals. The album also became the beginning of a new and stronger chapter for DENIAL OF GOD, with many of the songs still appearing in the band's live sets today - a chapter which, so far, has produced several EPs and three albums. It also saw the band moving towards an even-more-epic songwriting, proved by the 13-minute title track, for example, which closes the album.
At long last, The Horrors of Satan is back on vinyl again for the first time in 14 years, with CD and cassette versions also to be widely available. Experience this resounding classic again, or for the first time!

Reprint, 190 x black vinyl 2x12" (180g), 12 page vinyl sized booklet , full-color on 140g offset art paper, gatefold, full-color on 350g, all assembled in a PVC overbag.