CD

Anthropic Bias (2022) explores themes of cosmic significance and existential philosophy, echoing the idea of humanity’s tendency to see the universe as centered around itself. The music itself is a fusion of icy, tremolo-picked guitar riffs, blast beats, and haunting, atmospheric synth layers. It carries an otherworldly mood, drifting between aggression and contemplation. The song also incorporates electronic elements and ambient interludes, which provide a vast, ethereal soundscape. This single is both relentless and meditative, capturing Mesarthim’s ability to craft immersive, spacey atmospheres while retaining black metal’s raw intensity.

Departure (2024) leans heavily into the band’s cosmic themes, evoking feelings of journeying through space or leaving behind something familiar. The track opens with a somber and almost melancholic tone, gradually building into a massive, swirling blend of distorted guitars and atmospheric keys. The song shifts through dynamic phases, from soaring melodies to intense, fast-paced sections. Like much of Mesarthim’s work, Departure utilizes synth layers to create a celestial, almost dreamlike atmosphere, suggesting both the awe and isolation of venturing into the unknown. The track serves as a contemplative journey, fitting with the title’s theme of departure and escape.

CD album repress

Todestrieb is a Polish black metal duo formed in 2023 in Cracow by blein (guitars and bass) and Res (vocals and lyrics). After several months of hard work, the duo completed their debut studio record, Corona Tenebra, which will be released in December by Avantgarde Music.
Drawing their inspiration from bands such as Watain, Odraza, Drastus, Kriegsmaschine, Tortorum, Funeral Mist and many more, Todestrieb managed to find their own way in the crowded black metal underground, specifying that “those bands influenced rather the essence of our music than the form”.
Corona Tenebra consists of five tracks and an outro, and its lyrics, all written in Polish but translated into English in the album booklet, circle around themes like spirituality, gnostic satanism, blasphemy, theology and philosophy.

Featuring Mgła, Hauntologist and Owls Woods Graves’ Michał “The Fall” Stępień on drums, Todestrieb debut is a very diverse, fascinating take on black metal. Corona Tenebra was recorded in No Solace studio and mixed and mastered at Impressive Art Studio. With an artwork by Izabela Grabda, Corona Tenebra will be released via Avantgarde Music on CD, LP and digital on December 13th, 2024.

Members of Chaos Inception and Malignancy join forces to unleash a new crushing ensamble! Black Hole Deity are purveyors of old school mastery yet sounding modern and tight. This is Death Metal, period.

ukrainian black metal, featuring members of Silvern and White Ward

For years one of Finnish black metal's best-kept secrets, in recent times have FORGJORD sprung to prominence among the adventurous as practitioners of a strangely alluring sort of obsidian. Although existing since the mid '90s and patiently parceling out their recordings in an almost-clandestine manner, the upswing in activity began with FORGJORD's third album (and first with WEREWOLF), Uhripuu, in 2017 and was followed by the equally challenging Ilmestykset in 2019, the comparatively more rockin' Laulu kuolemasta a year later, and the draw-everything together Ruumissaarna Pt. 1 in 2022. Among those four full-lengths, the Finnish trio solidified and strengthened their strident aesthetic - malodorous melodicism, hypnotically rendered through a ripped-raw soundfield, making their strangely hummable ruminations on triumph & tragedy sound all the more alien, each album unified yet unique within that aesthetic - and made it all seem effortless. Finally, it seemed that the name FORGJORD was no longer a "secret."

RUTTOKOSMOS were one of the great "what if?"s of Finnish black metal. The band formed sometime in 2003 and released the five-song Ja minä näin kuoleman demo in 2006 and then the six-song Kärsimys demo a year later. Afterward, nothing was heard from RUTTOKOSMOS ever again. Only one member concurrently played in Divina Inferis, and the other two members either disappeared or played pseudonymously in other bands. In 2021, WEREWOLF compiled both demos onto one massive compilation, (re)introducing RUTTOKOSMOS to a newer generation starved for authentic mysticism in black metal, with the cryptic suggestion that a debut album may someday or decade arrive.