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Formed in the crucible of 2023, Finland's RITUALHAMMER emerge as a formidable force, drawing members from the legacies of Riivaus, Sacrificium Carmen, Mörbid Vomit, Licht Des Urteils, Coraxul, and Wömit Angel among others. While the majority of these members' background centers around black metal, their sound here in RITUALHAMMER is squarely within the most barbaric, violent expressions of death metal. In fact, their self-applied handle is APOCALYPTIC EVIL METAL.

And such is exactly what you'll be confronted with on RITUALHAMMER's debut album, Grand Pestilential Flame, now finding physical release courtesy of WEREWOLF. Reminding of many and no one, this nine-song / 28-minute statement of ripping, south-of-Heaven death metal begins its assault with no warning nor with no quarter given. Both frantic and finessed, RITUALHAMMER here tempt the corners of chaos with their churning angularity, but their just-tight-enough execution exudes all-too-tangible physicality that's a fist in the face of over-processed / punched-in "death metal." Likewise, their songwriting retains just enough linearity to latch onto and then many a diabolical construct is rubbed raw and rudely spat out, altogether making Grand Pestilential Flame a throwback to the ancient underground. As such, this band and record are highly recommended for maniacs of Order From Chaos, VOMITOR, Peru's Mortem, Germany's Desaster, and even earliest Deicide.

After more than 20 years, Werewolf Records is proud to unearth a long-buried treasure from its vault: the previously unreleased and once-harshly rejected original recording of GOATMOON’s debut album.

This version, abandoned at the time, now finally sees the light of day on jewelcase CD with a black tray and rare, unseen photos from the era. Pure Finnish Black Metal in its rawest and most uncompromising form.

The material, preserved on the original master cassette, has aged like the finest of wines, the original versions of the songs ripened during the decades. What was once shelved is now damned for release.

During this early period, GOATMOON wielded a savage, punk-driven strain of Finnish black metal, already laced with flashes of triumph and tragedy that would later define the band in more refined forms.

This recording captures a moment when Finnish black metal was rising to dominate the underground, a time of raw violence, reckless spirit, and uncompromising vision. Hear where the infamy truly began, or turn away in fear.

This new edition of ‘Gothic’, marking the album’s 35th anniversary, is presented on double CD, with remastered audio courtesy of Jaime Gomez Arellano at Orgone Studios. The bonus disc features the band Live in Ludwigsburg, 1991, performing tracks from Gothic and their debut album. The release also includes a four page booklet containing recollections from the band on the period and the shaping of the album,  as originally featured in 2021’s ‘The Lost and the Painless’.

MOONSPELL return via Napalm Records with Far From God, a record born out of five years of creative searching, doubt and ultimate rediscovery. Far from playing it safe, the Portuguese pioneers deliver a work that feels like a rebirth: darker, sharper and emotionally unfiltered. Rather than bending to modern trends, MOONSPELL double down on identity and substance. Far From God is a bold and beautiful statement of Gothic Metal in its purest form: dark, romantic, dramatic and unapologetically heavy.
The first single and album title track, “Far From God”, sets the album’s tone with burning intensity. A hymn to tragic vampiric love, the song revives the mystique and romantic darkness that once defined the genre, while layered keyboards subtly expand the atmosphere without softening its heaviness. Dense guitars, deep resonant vocals and dramatic dynamic shifts evoke a timeless gothic aesthetic, restoring danger and elegance to the narrative of the vampire.
Songs such as “Cross Your Heart” reveal a more affirmative side of the album, built on brooding melodic motifs and grounded, deliberate riff work that balances restraint and impact. Echoing the spirit of the band’s past while embracing a modern, shadowed edge, the song reflects on roadside shrines and lives lost too soon; the steady forward drive of the rhythm section mirrors the endless motion of the road itself. Fernando Ribeiro’s unmistakable and singular vocal presence, moving between low gravitas and restrained intensity, reinforces the song’s emotional weight without excess.
With “The Great Wolf in the Sky” feat. Alicia Nuhro (strings), MOONSPELL deliver one of the album’s most epic moments, structured around expansive keyboard themes, harmonized guitar lines and a chorus built for collective resonance. Melancholic yet powerful, the track stands as a tribute to wolves who once walked alongside the band and to a fan and friend who passed before hearing the album, bridging MOONSPELL’s past, present and future in one sweeping, dignified anthem.
Thematically, Far From God moves through Baudelairian love, existential guilt and redemption, Christlike resurrections and the quiet nobility of creatures of the night. Vampires, werewolves and sacred symbolism are not escapism here, but vehicles for genuine dark emotion: solemn, romantic and unfiltered. The album rejects artificial gloss in favour of fantasy grounded in sincerity, rediscovering the heart of Gothic Metal in its most authentic form.
MOONSPELL’s forthcoming magnum opus – produced with Jaime Gomez Arellano (Paradise Lost, Sólstafir, Ghost among many others) – shines like a black diamond, luminous yet shadowed in texture and colour, both musically and sonically. It reconnects with the darker spirit of MOONSPELL’s classic era while sounding powerful and contemporary. Far From God is not nostalgia; it is a statement. A Gothic Metal hallelujah. MOONSPELL’s Irreligious of the 21st century. It’s not only a powerful reminder that MOONSPELL remain a defining force in the genre they helped shape, but an album that will truly save Gothic Metal from boredom and predictability!

Conceived in solitude and wrought by Solace alone, "An Oath Undone" marks the latest invocation of Forlorn Citadel as a hermetic monument to decay, memory, and the deliberate erosion of purpose. Eschewing collaboration and concession, the album unfolds as a single consciousness fracturing inward, its compositions shaped by medieval ruin, funereal restraint, and a reverence for absence as much as sound. Rather than offering resolution, "An Oath Undone" lingers in suspension, tracing the slow unbinding of sworn ideals and the hollow resonance they leave behind, like vows whispered into collapsed stone. In this work, Solace does not document loss so much as ritualize it, sealing Forlorn Citadel further from the present world and into a timeless, inward-facing realm where honor survives only as echo and ash.

Norwegian titan, Mork, was created by Thomas Eriksen in 2004, with the debut album ‘Isebakke’ eventually surfacing in 2013. Since then, Mork has been ceaselessly rising through the echelons of Black Metal, and on the heels of 2024’s intense and groundbreaking ‘Syv’ opus - which has resulted in the band branching out with tours in the Far East & Australia - Eriksen continues on this evolutionary path with the new album, and what is undoubtedly set to be a new benchmark, ‘Monolitt’.

“A stark monument to the unrelenting brutality of reality, the monolith looms above us, immovable, indifferent, eternal. Its crushing presence bears down on the spirit, suffocating hope and testing the limits of endurance. It is an experience carved in stone, unyielding”.

‘Monolitt’ is an album that further expands the sonic and atmospheric depth of existing Mork releases; unafraid to challenge the listener, while steadfastly rooted in the cold traditions of the genre. With this uncompromising vision and direction for ‘Monolitt’, Mork delivers a sound which is brutal yet expansive, whilst also heavy and epic, for a relentless journey through the shadows of Norwegian Black Metal, while forging new paths within that ancient and revered framework.

Across these songs, themes of collapse, transformation, isolation, and destruction form the central pillars. From the crushing burden of existence to spectral wanderings through forgotten landscapes, ‘Monolitt’ explores the human condition through bleak introspection and grand imagery. Nature rages, giants awaken, faith crumbles, all in pursuit of experience beyond the limits of flesh and mind.

A whole decade after their last album, Portuguese gothic/dark metal pioneers HEAVENWOOD announce the release of their highly-anticipated new record, “The Tarot Of The Bohemians – Part II”, set for worldwide release via Mighty Music on LP, CD and digital formats. Marking the second and final chapter of the conceptual work inspired by the hermetic writings of Gérard Encausse (Papus), the album was recorded at Lucky Cat Studio (Portugal) and mixed and mastered at Vamacara Studios (France) by acclaimed producer Niko HK Krauss (Loudblast, Sirenia), elevating the band’s sound to new levels of sophistication and intensity.

“Every work has its own story, and this new album goes far beyond being merely a concept and a continuation of the first part released in 2016”, composer, founder, guitarist and singer Ricardo Dias dos Santos comments. “Against all odds that arose in 2022 - after a near-fatal accident and imperative changes that led to a number of irreversible decisions - the conclusion of “The Tarot Of The Bohemians” finally sees the light of day, continuing a legacy that has endured for more than 30 years”.

The album is further enhanced by impeccable and symbolic visual artwork created by renowned artist Naya Kotko, whose evocative imagery perfectly reflects the esoteric depth and spiritual duality that define this new chapter.

With this “Part II” of the concept started with “The Tarot Of The Bohemians” (Massacre Records) in 2016, Heavenwood dive even deeper into the esoteric and emotional dimensions of the Tarot. This album represents both continuity and transformation - it carries Heavenwood melancholic DNA, but it also pushes the band into a more cinematic, intense and contemporary sonic realm.

Double full-length album out now on Double CD in jewel case.