Back in stock

Released in January 2013 as a 7", this split ep is now being reissued ten years later as a 10" with some changes on the MonumentuM side:
PJ Harvey's classic "The River" is here featured in a different version from the one on the original ep, plus, to bless the two bands sodality, we are adding the song "In Misery Front Row", which originally appeared in 1998 as an instrumental track called "The Colour Of Compassion" on Misanthopy Records label's compilation Presumed Guilty, but hereby featuring Shining's mastermind Niklas Kvarforth on vocals.

LP in galaxy effect, oxblood with green. Printed innersleeve

Info: se sei un sottoscrittore del "Circle of Wax" di Avantgarde Music, questo album sarà incluso nel bundle #3 (Febbraio)

Five long years after their fascinating debut, Milan-based duo A Pale December deliver their sophomore album, Death Panacea. Compared to The Shrine Of Primal Fire, Death Panacea steers towards more aggressive, warring sounds. The “atmospheric black metal” label which so aptly described their debut album, is now just one of the many, partial definitions which could be used to define the band’s music.

When asked about their new opus, multi-instrumentalists Riccardo Di Bella and Ernesto Ciotola provided the following, strong statement: “While many metal albums seem to appeal to a feeling of fierceness, a call to war, an urge to fight something, we wanted to express the opposite. Death Panacea is an album about defeat and hopelessness, about the inherent futility of human strife and all our laughable attempts at masking this unescapable nature.

We wanted to praise failing and giving up, as opposed to perseverance, pride and the grinding mentality. We wanted to praise the rejects above the leaders, who naively think they can escape this race towards oblivion, and the coward above the fighting man, whose only fault was believing in the frail concept of nation and a false sense of belonging.

While distancing ourselves from these delusional sentiments, we also didn't want to fall into optimistic nihilism; the idea that the awareness of an impending void can grant any peace is simply preposterous. 

Ultimately, this is the meaning that lies behind the title of the album: death is what keeps us in check and yet is the one and only panacea to all our anguishes. In all this, one could almost find a cold comfort, knowing that the top step of the podium is eventually just a springboard to the abyss”.

ISON new album! Gatefold sleeve, double LP in Black vinyl 

Australian experimental metal band Bolt Gun return with their 3rd full length album The Tower. Since their first release in 2014, Bolt Gun have continued to push the boundaries of heavy music, adopting a semi-improvised style that combines elements of black metal, post-metal, noise and dark ambient. 

The Tower is inspired by the literary works of Brian Evenson, Franz Kafka and Shirley Jackson and explores themes of isolation, extinction, absurdity and nihilism. Written throughout 2020 to 2022, the album expands on Bolt Gun’s interest in the dynamic possibilities of using ambient music within extreme metal.

The expansive tracks pull listeners into tornadoes of drone, noise and saxophone which then explode into more post-metal/black metal sounds. The music on The Tower is heavily influenced by 2nd wave black metal, experimental heavy bands such as Locrian and Swans in addition to the work of Colin Stetson and Bohren & der Club of Gore.

Artwork by Tomasz Winiarski.

BANDCAMP DOWNLOAD CODE INCLUDED 

Ikarie is a newborn band formed by experienced musicians from the Mediterranean coast of Spain. They describe themselves as a band developing “the concept we call cosmic existentialism, which is about our freedom and responsibility as a rational species, aware of its insignificant, terrifying and astonishing existence in the universe”.

Cuerpos En Sombra is the first album by Ikarie, a post-metal opus in the vein of Cult Of Luna and Year Of No Light, “a legend of ghosts, of those who emerge from the deepest wounds of the soul. Installed in their universe of silent and silenced scars, inspired by the desert and sea landscapes of the Spanish Levant where we grew up, it delves into the theme of the human being from its limits, where it almost ceases to be, in a world where perhaps it is not allowed to be”.

The album deals with “what happens and doesn't happen when we become an unproductive and annoying absence, showing a series of desolate places and characters as if they had come out of the collective imaginary of the uncomfortable, painful and demented”.

Cuerpos En Sombra is the first chapter of a trilogy in which Ikarie intend to denounce the stigma of being different, the lack of resources in everything related to mental illness and the pathologization of people with problems which are mainly structural.

This sophomore album by Urkraft celebrates darkness and the lights that shine in it, be they campfires, streetlights or the stars. Through seven tracks, the listener is taken on a journey through forests rife with wondrous complexities, where the blackest of nights are illuminated by the cold glow of the moon.

Urkraft's music is a relentless assault of savage riffs and haunting melodies, driven by thundering drums and punctuated by anguished screams that echo across the barren wastelands.

With "Lyset skinner best i mørket", Urkraft delivers an uncompromising ode to the beauty of darkness and the power of black metal to channel its primal energy. Prepare to be embraced by the shadows that lurk within. The darkness awaits...

2014 EDITION WITH BONUS DVD (LIVE BUDAPEST 2007)

Over the course of its seventeen-year career, Deströyer 666 has managed to release a mere four full-length albums. However, the band has released EPs with somewhat more regularity. Unfortunately, the bulk of these recordings were issued only on vinyl and in limited quantities. As is often the case, these releases quickly became unavailable to anyone not willing to get ass-raped on eBay. In 2010, Deströyer 666 threw fans a bone and released a compilation of the following EPs: 1998’s Satanic Speed Metal, 2000’s King of Kings/Lord of the Wild, 2002’s Of Wolves Women and War and 2010’s See You in Hell, entitled To the Devil His Due… on limited edition vinyl. Thanks for nothing.

Ah, but despair not, gentle reader: As you have probably guessed, I am not reviewing a release from 2010. The Hell's Headbangers label will, in a few weeks from the time of this writing, release To the Devil His Due on glorious, hiss-free, car-stereo-compatible compact disc. Now let’s be honest: If you are a die-hard Deströyer 666 fan like me, one that has no taste for either vinyl or ass-rape, you probably downloaded most of these songs long ago. This release gives you the chance to throw K.K. and the boys a few bucks and enjoy these songs guilt-free and with better sound quality. If, by chance, you have not heard any of these songs before, To the Devil His Due will serve as a sort of long-lost Deströyer 666 album.

The nine songs that make up To the Devil his Due span a great swath of Deströyer 666’s career and as such reflect the changes to and development of the band’s sound during that time. “Satanic Speed Metal” is a simplistic, bare-knuckled anthem in much the same spirit as “Australian and Antichrist” from Unchain the Wolves. The level of sophistication gradually increases through the chronologically ordered disc, culminating with the two tracks that comprised See You in Hell. These final two songs feature the Deströyer 666’s signature melodic maelstrom combined with some uncharacteristically crunchy riffing, resulting in some the band’s finest work in recent years. The production follows a similar path, with the earlier tracks sounding somewhat raw, and the latest featuring a clear powerful sound that easily eclipses the sonic cluster-fuck that was Defiance.

To put it simply: For any Deströyer 666 fan who doesn’t already own this material, To the Devil His Due is a must. For those unfamiliar with the band, this compilation will definitely give you a good idea of what Deströyer 666 is all about.
(metalreview.com)