CD

2-CD hardcover book (18 x 18cm, 60 pages) with excl. bonus CD with 8 bonus tracks

DYMNA LOTVA are taking a quantum leap in their rapid musical evolution with their fourth album "Vyraj". The rebellious Belarus dissidents are powerfully demonstrating that they are far more than a 'one-trick pony' in every conceivable artistic aspect. Although "Vyraj" is still based on a solid foundation of black and post-black metal, DYMNA LOTVA move far beyond any easy labelling by also drawing inspiration from doom, heavy, and progressive metal, while venturing even deeper by incorporating elements from electronic music, goth, and folklore. The album is a cornucopia of great songs that are atmospherically dense and invite the listener onto an emotional roller-coaster ride from the darkest depths of depression and fear, via raw anger and defiance, to heights of ecstatic exhilaration. "Vyraj" is a musical kaleidoscope with ever changing patterns and sonic colours of remarkable beauty – that often dissolves into captivating melodies that at times even achieve a pop-like appeal. DYMNA LOTVA continue to carry the torch of rebellion, which is only natural as the founding members had to flee their native Belarus due to political persecution and continued attempts by the Lukashenka regime to censor and suppress their art. Yet on "Vyraj", they put their lyrical focus elsewhere. The album's main concept could be described as 'Belarusian ethno-astronomy.' In Slavonic legends, the starry sky is associated both with the afterlife and with journeys, which becomes closely intertwined with the musicians' personal experience of forced emigration. This idea is captured in the album title "Vyraj", which is a mythical realm to where birds migrate for the winter, and where the souls of the departed find their final rest. DYMNA LOTVA take another big step with "Vyraj" in their breathtakingly rapid artistic evolution. It is easy to predict that this unique and highly original band will soon appear on even bigger festival billings and European stages.

DYMNA LOTVA are taking a quantum leap in their rapid musical evolution with their fourth album "Vyraj". The rebellious Belarus dissidents are powerfully demonstrating that they are far more than a 'one-trick pony' in every conceivable artistic aspect. Although "Vyraj" is still based on a solid foundation of black and post-black metal, DYMNA LOTVA move far beyond any easy labelling by also drawing inspiration from doom, heavy, and progressive metal, while venturing even deeper by incorporating elements from electronic music, goth, and folklore. The album is a cornucopia of great songs that are atmospherically dense and invite the listener onto an emotional roller-coaster ride from the darkest depths of depression and fear, via raw anger and defiance, to heights of ecstatic exhilaration. "Vyraj" is a musical kaleidoscope with ever changing patterns and sonic colours of remarkable beauty – that often dissolves into captivating melodies that at times even achieve a pop-like appeal. DYMNA LOTVA continue to carry the torch of rebellion, which is only natural as the founding members had to flee their native Belarus due to political persecution and continued attempts by the Lukashenka regime to censor and suppress their art. Yet on "Vyraj", they put their lyrical focus elsewhere. The album's main concept could be described as 'Belarusian ethno-astronomy.' In Slavonic legends, the starry sky is associated both with the afterlife and with journeys, which becomes closely intertwined with the musicians' personal experience of forced emigration. This idea is captured in the album title "Vyraj", which is a mythical realm to where birds migrate for the winter, and where the souls of the departed find their final rest. DYMNA LOTVA take another big step with "Vyraj" in their breathtakingly rapid artistic evolution. It is easy to predict that this unique and highly original band will soon appear on even bigger festival billings and European stages.

What one could describe as resolutely nihilistic Black Metal, fueled by the layered experiences of its contributors, is based on the cold pronouncement of an undeniable truth: all is vanity; all that exists is doomed to fade into naught.

Thy Killing Hand, a faceless Polish duo, wields Black Metal stripped to bone and rust. Their debut full-length, "Infernal Commands", follows two tape-borne warnings - "Scarlet Ceremonies" (2023) and "Ixaxar" (2024) - and distils those impulses into a heavier, more oppressive form.

After a first trilogy that left a searing mark on the death / black metal scene and seven years of silence, Mylingar rises again from the abyss with the first volume of a new trilogy, Út.

Despite what certain archives may say, Mylingar are an anonymous band from an anonymous location. And thankfully, after that silence, the quartet have lost none of their bad manners: their death metal remains putrid and vicious, giving pride of place to dissonance. The inhuman vocals, one of the band's defining strengths, dominate this suffocating, morbid whole and herald a new trilogy that reeks more than ever of sulfur, chaos, and death.

Út is clearly not an album for everyone; it is an outlet for sonic violence, where morality, common sense, and order are trampled underfoot by four diseased minds whose hibernation has had no calming effect. Beware.

Handnumbered

Amazing album of German black metal with hysterical voices. Lots of tracks on this album that grew out to become classics for the band.