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SPECIAL RECORD STORE DAY RELEASE MARKING FORTY YEARS SINCE MAYHEM’S DEBUT LIVE PERFORMANCE IN SKI, NORWAY.

PRESENTED ON LIMITED OXBLOOD RED VINYL WITH SIDE B ETCHING.

Mayhem, the Norwegian pioneers responsible for invigorating a global metal scene alongside originators such as Venom, Celtic Frost & Bathory, formed in 1984 & with a long history of tragedy, intrigue & infamy has become a truly revered legend of black metal over the subsequent four decades. A large part of the band’s lasting legacy was established in the late 80’s & early 90’s, when original members Euronymous (Guitar) & Necrobutcher (Bass) welcomed Hellhammer on drums & Dead on vocals, to help shape a new era of darkness, becoming highly influential leaders of the genre in the process; an accolade which has endured to this day.

Revisiting the very earliest incarnation of the band & marking 40 years since Mayhem’s cult debut performance, this special limited Record Store Day vinyl release features Mayhem’s April 1985 gig in Ski, Norway, where the band carve their way through cover versions of classic Venom & Celtic Frost in this rare delight for fans.

This Record Store Day edition of ‘Live in Ski’ is presented on limited oxblood red vinyl and features an etching on Side B.

Golden Pearl Marble

The creative centers of Obsequiae and Inexorum come together as one in the preeminent new force known as Majesties. To those familiar with the individual pieces that make up Majesties, the sound on debut album ‘Vast Reaches Unclaimed’ will be another striking addition to their respective oeuvres, recalling the glorious days of Wrong Again and No Fashion Records.

Evoking a time when Gothenburg was starting to unseat Stockholm as the unimpeachable city for Swedish Death Metal in the mind of the international metal scene, Majesties have that intrinsic sense of Death Metal’s rabid intensity and the effortlessly satisfying melodic ability that made albums like ‘The Jester Race’ and its immediate forbears instant classics. The mix of major key melodies and twin guitar harmonies snaking through every track ornament the vigorous riff eruptions and anguished vocals in a sheen of gleaming brilliance that proves an exhilarating triumph to behold.

Without a hint of the corruption the style experienced in a post ‘Slaughter of the Soul’ world, ‘Vast Reaches Unclaimed’ exists as a fervent reminder of what was and what again shall be. Majesties are re-animating the corpse of the true Melodic Death Metal style that both divided and invigorated the Death Metal scene of the mid 1990s and bring it into 2023 like it never left, sounding as novel and thrilling as ever

Blue Algae Marble

With their anticipated debut full length Seraphic Punishment in 2022, Fargo’s Maul dropped one of the most memorable death metal earworms of the year. Coupled with the band’s relentless drive for bringing their music to the people live throughout the country, Maul’s reputation rapidly grew and a pact with 20 Buck Spin was scrawled in blood. The initial fruit of that union was delivered late in 2023 with the Desecration And Enchantment promo tape. And now all roads have led to Maul’s second album, In The Jaws Of Bereavement.

While the rotten death metal heart at the core of the band is without question, the band have no shame in their game when it comes to embracing a penchant for the heavier side of hardcore with mosh-ready riffs and crowd-killing breaks. In The Jaws Of Bereavement manages to so skillfully fuse the eerie apparitions and melodic lead work of death metal’s greats with the punishing rhythms of hardcore’s violent power it feels completely organic. It’s all tied together by the unhinged vocal prowess of the human wrecking ball Garrett Alvarado.

At its putrescent core Maul is a live band, and the songs on In The Jaws Of Bereavement are adeptly tailored to the environs of a dank club sweltering from the energy created through this music and a crowd living for nothing but the moment and the swell of bodies on bodies. The production here is clear and in one’s face, and allows the band to expand their unique blend of old and new to become Midwest death incarnate.

B5 fluorescent pink

• For fans of Spectral Voice, Disembowelment, My Dying Bride, Worm, Ceremonium, Tzompantli, Krypts, Rippikoulu

B3 Solid Violet

Lunar Chamber, a hitherto unknown being of mysterious consciousness, now present in the physical realm for the first time with debut manifestation ‘Shambhallic Vibrations’ , a tale of a journey eastward in search of enlightenment and what may lie beyond.

Ensconced in mysticism, the 5 track nearly 30 minute pilgrimage advances unflinchingly through insane crushing riffs, bewildering solos, tranquil acoustics and illuminated ascendent melodies. “Spirit Body and the Seeing Self” details the start of the journey, self analysis, and the attempts at launching oneself into said “beyond,” while “The Bodhi Tree” is a mirroring tale of Gautama Buddha himself, having meditated underneath it in Bodh Gaya approximately 2500 years ago, attaining enlightenment.

“III. Crystalline Blessed Light Flows… from Violet Mountains into Lunar Chambers” is the ultimate pinnacle of the tale. Having reached a spiritual plane, pulses of light and dark; the very fabric of space-time itself churns. Knowledge is abundant here. Eventually, one is brought full circle, right back where everything began in normal life; albeit with a new sense of everything. But there is so much more to learn… a yearning thirst.

Offering a deluge of jarringly brutal metal, overwhelming progressive physicality and instinctively accomplished memorability inspired by Buddhism, the East and esotericism, Lunar Chamber have just begun their quest of ascension and enlightened knowledge.

Electric Blue/Silver+White Splatter

Neon Orange/Black Merge

Kelly Green / Silver Merge

White, Grey, Olive Green Merge

With the release of her Godslastering: Hymns Of A Forlorn Peasantry, Hulder made it known that the pure traditional black metal of earlier releases could be classical, rich in detail and creatively novel once again. A triumphant debut that indicated much more to come. On her new mini-album The Eternal Fanfare, Hulder expands the scope laid out on the debut, taking the production value to new places with more low-end depth and forceful resonance. The songwriting capability continues to sharpen into a dense confluence of her disparate influences such as on the cinematically expansive “Burden Of Flesh And Bone” and “Sylvan Awakening,” to the cold stormblast ferocity of the title track. Opener “Curse From Beyond” is a celestial atmospheric piece akin to Dead Can Dance at their most mysteriously plaintive, while the pensive lament of closer “A Perilous Journey” concludes The Eternal Fanfare with an aura of melancholic finality. The Eternal Fanfare presents a stark interlude between the Godslastering album and the forthcoming second full length. Yet on its own, its a powerful statement of haunting new horizons and evolving mastery, ascendent and bottomless at once.

Evergreen/Black/Mustard Tri-Color Galaxy

 The hauntingly grandiose new Hulder album Verses In Oath, created during the dreariest cold months of the Northwest winter, constitutes the most majestic, untamed manifestation thus far in the band’s journey of conquest, as new territory is put to flame and conquered by sword and shield.

• Majestic black metal from the colds of the Pacific Northwest

Two bands, two unique approaches, a chasmic spectrum of light from radiant impassioned creation to the terminal abyssic darkness of oblivion.

Dream Unending and Worm each present over 20 minutes of new music created specifically with the joint release of 'Starpath' in mind.

- Incredible split release between two of the most massive new names in underground metal.
- Each band offers 20+ minutes of new music created specifically with this release in mind.
- Cover artwork by Mark Riddick who did his first painting in decades for 'Starpath'

- FFO: Anathema, Evoken, Tiamat, Opeth, Trouble / (early) Katatonia, Abigor, Thorns of the Carrion, Christian Death, Limbonic Art, King Diamond, Death, Emperor, Obtained Enslavement