CD

Released in that fateful year of 1996 on Wrong Again Records - the precursor label to REGAIN, who released pivotal early works by In Flames, Arch Enemy, Naglfar, and Eucharist among others - CARDINAL SIN's Spiteful Intents was a short but all-too-sweet display of lethally melodic, seared-black death metal. Which is not all that surprising given that the band was formed by former Dissection founder/guitarist John Zwetsloot - so naturally, black tentacles of majesty fully enwrap Spiteful Intents, CARDINAL SIN's lone recording after a promo in 1995. Fully embracing (and leading, albeit shortly) the sound of the day, Spiteful Intents is also considerable for numbering two early/classic Marduk members: Jocke Göthberg on vocals & drums, and Devo Andersson on guitars/bass. As a special bonus, three tracks – including a cover of Death’s “Infernal Death” – from the same studio session, once lost to time, have now been added, altogether making for nearly a half-hour of nostalgic black / death. A simpler time, but an undeniably classic time forever etched into legendary...the past is alive!

Begun in 2004, BARDITUS is a studio & live project of Uwe Nolte, from the cult Orplid. In 2021, after nearly two decades since the first two initial EPs, Nolte revived the project together with Anti-Christian from Stern des Bundes. While Orplid's sound is somewhere between neofolk and neoclassical, with themes ranging from Germanic paganism and Greek mythology to the Christian symbolism of the early Middle Ages and natural romanticism, here with BARDITUS do the duo explore a sound somewhere between paradigmatic neofolk and black metal - or even "acoustic black metal," if you will. And while in Orplid the occidental bastion was defended with the quill, BARDITUS take up the sword and unconditionally profess heroism and love. Now BARDITUS raise that sword highest with their long-awaited debut album, Nibelungentreue. Comprising 14 songs in nearly an hour, Nibelungentreue is everything - and much more - adherents could've hoped for in a BARDITUS full-length. Presaged by 2023's Dein Schwert mini-album, BARDITUS' debut album exudes a parallel passion and power that will be readily recognizable to fans of Orplid, with the pastoral-on-the-surface acoustics joined in their soon-to-be-bubbling-over frenzy by sharp shards of rowdy pagan black metal. And while the latter isn't as prevalent here as on its short-length predecessor, Nibelungentreue's more Spartan soundfield is imbued with even-greater depth: in addition to verses written by Nolte himself, a text of the contemporary poet Rolf Schilling is set to music, and guest performances include Ian Read of the esteemed Fire & Ice and Freya Aswynn, who is a Dutch-born writer and practitioner whose influential works on runes, magic, and a women-centered form of Germanic neopaganism have significantly shaped the modern pagan community worldwide. BARDITUS thus collide bathos and pathos, and harness their most power when the intensity dips - solitude and repose reverberating within the soul of the ancients. Erwache!

Six panels digipak CD

'Masks of the Magi' Trilogy, opus II

THE OUTSIDER 

The dreams die and the firmament drowns. Amidst the ashes of a dead forest rises a solitary kingdom. These towers breathe the blackest of magic…

Old Sorcery is a dungeon synth / black metal project from Lahti, Finland, born in 2017 from the ever-creative mind of Juuso “Vrajitor” Peltola (Warmoon Lord, Argenthorns, Vrajitor’s Tenebrarium and many more), which is now in the middle of a trilogy of releases shared between labels Out Of Season and Avantgarde Music.

The Outsider is the second part of this fantasy concept, which here blends dungeon synth with the more atmospheric and escapist part of black metal.
Over 70 minutes long, The Outsider is a real journey through fabled lands and mysteries unknown.