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Promo Tape 1994 finally on vinyl. Deep underground Polish Black Metal, featuring Nergal (Behemoth) on drums. Includes 4 pages booklet with pics and interviews printed on glossy 150g paper. Remastered for vinyl by Carlo at Toxic Basement studios. Limited edition of only 200 copies.

On their sophomore full-length "La Masquerade Infernale" (1997), ARCTURUS took their musical experimenting three ambitious steps further. The Norwegians succeeded in wedding a devilish concept loosely based on the characters of Faust and Mephistopheles with an eclectic range of surreal sound elements into an album that is rightfully considered a prime example of what later came to be known as avant-garde metal. From quoting Edgar Allan Poe in operatic paraphrases by frontman Garm (ULVER) or the additional high notes from the unmistakable I.C.S. Vortex (BORKNAGAR) via the spaced-out electronic samples, classical instrumentation, and an even increased use of psychedelic guitar riffage alongside more "traditional" black and death metal elements. Brilliant guitarist Knut Magne Valle replaced Carl August Tideman, which brought stability to this position of the band's line-up. ARCTURUS aimed dangerously high with "La Masquerade Infernale" – but remarkably pulled off the extremely difficult feat of forging such widely differing elements into a wildly fascinating, over the top listening experience that has stood the test of time and surely deserves to be labelled a "masterpiece".

2022 REPRESS in co-production Avantgarde Music / Eisenwald

Comes in milky-clear 180 gr. vinyl

For the past five years, Australia’s Faceless Burial have been flying the flag of classicist ’90s death metal, first across a demo in 2015 and then the subsequent (and acclaimed) Grotesque Miscreation debut album in 2017, along with the follow-up Multiversal Abattoir 12-inch a year later. Those latter two recordings, in particular, portrayed the potency of this power-trio, displaying an unremittingly dark and dexterous sound which draws in a variety of death metal traditions. Going from strength to strength, the band play their strongest hand yet with the full-length Speciation. Altogether sharper and more finessed than all previous, this release spreads unimaginable death metal might with malignant ease. This band exudes a charm that’s all their own, which largely comes down to the songwriting itself. Preceding records maintained a murky ’n’ malodorous aspect, predominantly in the sound; here it’s been parlayed into tense ’n’ treacherous textures. Otherwise, no great changes have been made, nor should there be: forever twisting and never stagnating, each of these six songs reveals new corridors through which to spelunk, and efficiently so across the album’s deceptively epic 36-minute runtime.

Although initially going under the moniker Goretexx, since the latter part of 2007, Finland’s Gorephilia have been crafting a classically minded canon of death metal might. Two demos under this more-fitting moniker followed in 2008 and 2011, but it was 2011’s Ascend To Chaos mini-album where the Gorephilia legend truly took flight. Surely, their country of origin signaled some of their aesthetic—names such as Demigod, Convulse, and Adramalech rang true—but even this early on, subtle twists of their own identity crept in. Those would fully blossom the next year with their debut album, Embodiment Of Death. Aptly titled, this first full-length ranged beyond Finland to the rich history of ’90s death metal on both side of the Atlantic, again with an even more pronounced identity: swampy yet clear-headed, exceptionally tight but never sterile, and above all, mind-mangling songwriting that somehow sticks in the head.

Turkey may seem an unlikely land for Death Metal of supreme quality to hail from (at least for those who are not yet aware of its brooding underground scene), yet it is home to many of the finest acts of the genre historically and currently.

One of these heavyweights are DIABOLIZER whom have returned from the depths to follow their 2016 EP with a debut full length. Blisteringly heavy from the very onset with a ruthless set of tight guitar work, technical yet old school atop a mountainous array of blasting drum work with such ferocity that all temples will shake in the sonic fury of DIABOLIZER.

The rupturing vitriol of the vocals is equally daunting with the full band delivering such a precise and extreme example of Turkish Death Metal that happily lives up to the legacies of the scene, unsurprisingly as the whole band features in a plethora of other superb bands too.

This cavernous and punishing album punches in with a full 47 minutes of superior Death Metal artistry that conjures Lovecraftian visions with tormenting brutality and uncompromising quality that will severely injure all whom do not approach this monolith of creatively diverse and utterly obliterating music carefully.