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Back in 2021, Blodtår caused quite a stir with their self-titled EP. The Swedish folk-black metal duo showcased an uncanny ability to tap into a musical current that is rarely captured these days – all the while infusing the formula with fresh and innovative ideas. Ever since, label and fans alike have been anxiously anticipating to see where they go next. The answer has now arrived, in the form of Blodtår’s debut album, “Det förtegna förflutna” (‘The secretive and quiet past’), and it does not fall short of expectations.

The pulsating core of “Det förtegna förflutna” is Carl’s masterful use of intricate riffing heavily inspired by Swedish folk melodies – played lightning-fast but without sounding upbeat. Blodtår forges the lo-fi black metal malice of Embassy-era Gorgoroth with the folkish grandeur of Windir and Dissection’s icy, melancholic melodies.

Drawing frequent comparisons to mind-altering progressive death metal acts, Artificial Brain have distinguished themselves from their peers through an emphasis on rich, melancholic melodic figures, contextualizing the harmonic and emotive qualities of black metal within a more aggressive death metal framework. Dissonance is threaded through elegiac, otherworldly chordal structures; saturnine tremolo melodies float along in the high registers of the instruments; guitars and bass traverse distinct paths before locking into harmonic orbit. These elements, anchored by blast beats and bellowing guttural vocals, create a sense of contrast that has come to characterize the band’s sound over the past decade. 
Artificial Brain, the group’s final recording with original vocalist Will Smith (Afterbirth), is the terminal instalment in a trilogy that includes 2014’s Labyrinth Constellation and 2017’s Infrared Horizon. Smith’s lyrics on this eponymous album take a retrospective look at the sci-fi mythology developed on the previous records, using these ideas to explore themes of isolation, madness, and the inexorability of nature. Rounding out the recording is an impressive roster of guest performers, including death metal legends Mike Browning (Nocturnus A.D.) and Luc Lemay (Gorguts) as well as long time collaborators Paulo Paguntalan (Miasmatic Necrosis) and Colin Marston (Krallice).

Argentinian license on Del Imaginario

Double LP, orange vinyl, gatefold

Endless classic now reissued again on cd by NWN records and the band themselves under monicker Ross Bay Cult
 

Originally hailing from New Zealand but later relocating to Scotland, BARSHASKETH have been patiently perfecting their bewitching craft these past five years, away from prying eyes but with sights set on diabolical fullmoon mysticism. Theirs is a sound that resonates with the stripped-bare, nightsky purity of second-wave black metal, from the ancient days when black metal was truly a cult for criminals and diehards. Ophidian Henosis is BARSHASKETH's grandest distillation of these eldritch energies yet. At once familiar and foreign, Ophidian Henosis explodes forth with cryogenic violence and fog-drenched atmosphere, arcing about with subtle shifts in texture and twists in composition, maintaining a headspace of otherworldly splendour whilst never lingering too long in a monochromatic mire. For however committed to purist black metal BARSHASKETH may be, their journey across Ophidian Henosis is a multi-hued one, recalling the early days of Sacramentum, Kvist, Setherial, and Isvind among others - in other words, the spectral darkness of the mid-1990s - and brimming with a passion and poignancy that can only come from the most obsidian of souls.

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Wardruna are finally ready to present their next album entitled "Runaljod – Ragnarok". It is the third instalment in a trilogy of albums that began with "Runaljod – gap var Ginnunga" (2009) and continued with "Runaljod – Yggdrasil" (2013)