CD

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!

The essential debut full-length from funeral Doom/Death legends Evoken remastered and available again! A majestic sight of everlasting reign!

Evoken are an essential Funeral Doom Metal band. Give “Embrace the Emptiness” a listen and end up being immensely impressed...

Six panels digipak CD, one-off edition in 300 copies

Avantgarde Music is pleased to present the third installment in the complete reissue of Nest discography. The Finnish neofolk band Released Trail Of The Unwary in 2007 on CD only, and the album has long since been out of print. Nineteen years later, in addition to a brand new CD edition, Trail Of The Unwary will be available on double vinyl for the very first time.

Included in both versions of the album will also be “Last Vestige Of Old Joy” was Nest’s contribution to the cult 2004 collaboration EP with Agalloch. “Haunted Birds”, the reinterpretation of Agalloch’s classic, will find its place on the vinyl version only. Trail Of The Unwary will be out in March via Avantgarde Music, and here follows a foreword by Nest mastermind, Aslak Tolonen himself.
 

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.

Limited edition on Digipak 

Russian blackgaze duo Olhava is back with their sixth studio album. Memorial continues the path opened by Sacrifice. After the burning, there is stillness. Time spent among what remains. Ashes settle, memory lingers, and the question is no longer how to begin again, but what can finally be released.

Memorial moves through remembrance toward letting go and acceptance — a quiet reconciliation with what cannot be carried further. It speaks from a single, unpersonified voice: a shared human state shaped by loss, exhaustion, love, and the fragile will to endure. At its center stands a forest hut: not a physical place, but a retreat of the mind. A solitary structure in the woods, an escape from the collapsing outer world, where everything decays, familiar bonds loosen, and people drift apart and return changed. The hut becomes a memorial itself — an obelisk in the forest, a burial site for former lives, a place one returns to alone to contemplate what remains.

“Art Bleeds” Art Bleeds is the first full-length album by Gory Blister, released originally in 1999 (and re-issued in 2003 by Sekhmet Records). Even with its complicated publication history, it established Gory Blister as a significant and distinctive force in the Italian death metal scene. "Art Bleeds" can be compared to the later, more progressive work of Death, with similarities in the progressive death metal style, single-string note progressions, and even the vocal style. It is also noted for its high-precision, surgical playing and chaotic tempo changes, breaks, and harmonic dissonance. It balances intense aggression (often with a thrash metal feel) with a strong sense of melody, which is woven into the complex and fast riffs without losing intensity. This two cd version contains the album, a remastered version of the "Cognitive Sinergy" mini, the two demos and some live bonus tracks from the period.

Psychedelic sludge heaviness never stops. SATOR are back once again with their new record “The Dying Light”. Born out of the creativity and the heaviness of the first four records and of the experimental vibe of the splits with Evil Cosby and celebrated dutch experimentators Gnaw Their Tongues, this chapter goes even more back to basics after a crucial step such as 2022’s “The Cleansing Ritual”.
The Dying Light is a dark album but a bit different from what Sator has offered us so far. This time hardcore blends with psychedelic melodies and powerful sludge/metal riffs, with frenetic accelerations and abrupt stops, creating an album that embraces and explores new sounds, taking you into a dark new dimension of volume, anger, and desperation.
The trio has recently welcomed a new drummer, Gelso from experimental post-doom act Ainu and after the release of “The Dying Light” the band, stronger than ever, is ready to play live again throughout Italy and Europe bringing their heaviness on every possible stage.