CD

Limited collectors edition in 8 panels digipak, eventual further pressing will be released on jewelcase

French one-man melodic black metal band Inherits The Void is back with the third studio album in four years. Fifteen months after the acclaimed The Impending Fall Of The Stars, multi-instrumentalist A is back with a brand-new studio record.
As introduced by Inherits The Void mastermind A. himself, “Scars Of Yesteryears is a melodic black metal album which embodies the artistic choices initiated with its predecessor. However, Scars Of Yesteryears is more diverse in its musical influences, while wanting to be more direct and incisive in its musical approach. In this, the album draws its inspiration from both the Swedish and French Black Metal scenes with the aim of combining the stylistic visions specific to each universe.
The eight songs that follow one another in the album reflect a now more enterprising crossover between Atmospheric/Melodic Black Metal and early Melodic Death Metal, combining also more epic and doomy parts than in the past.
The theme of the album deals with the legacy left by past and present societies, whether through struggles, revolutions or even through the traces that we ourselves leave and which, themselves, lead to the destruction of our environment”.
Doubtlessly Inherits The Void’s most diverse and mature work to date, Scars Of Yesteryears succeeds in paying homage to the godfathers of the Swedish death and black metal scene, yet keeping a personal, present sound and never giving in to mere nostalgia. 

Remastered and joined together in a single release, the first two Nest EPs see the light again! Fabled Lore and Hidden Stream, originally released in 2000 and 2003, will finally be available on vinyl as part of a comprehensive reissue work via Avantgarde Music!

Nest is an atmospheric folk / acoustic group from Finland, formed in the summer of 1999, mainly focusing on the use of the Kantele, a traditional Finnish instrument. The project, led by multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Aslak Tolonen (also member of Syven and several others), has always kept a shy behaviour, releasing three studio albums along the quarter of a century and playing selected live gigs.

Fabled Lore / Hidden Stream is the first instalment in Nest's vinyl and cd reissue schedule on Avantgarde Music and will be followed by the releases of Woodsmoke, Trail of the Unwary (with bonus) and Mietteita - this last one for the first time ever receiving a physical release.

For something to be “ecstatic,” the feelings and emotions it evokes must transcend what one tends to experience most regularly in their lives. Ecstatic joy isn’t just happiness; it’s a feeling of jubilation which impacts one emotionally and in a metaphysical, arguably spiritual sense too. Although it has long been associated with connotations of the dark and macabre, extreme music has the ability to be a powerful mode of expression for these feelings of absolute bliss, overwhelming love, and awe-inspiring sublimity. Extreme emotions no less and those which black metal quartet Agriculture evokes with its ecstatic subversion of the subgenre’s tropes.

What was initially a meeting and subsequent series of jam sessions between Kern Haug and Daniel Meyer, two musicians in the Los Angeles underground noise scene, would eventually manifest as a shared vision to portray the sublimity of the human experience through the vehicle of heavy music. Following the additions of veteran guitarist Richard Chowenhill and bassist / vocalist Leah Levinson to the band’s lineup, this idea would crystalize into the “ecstatic black metal” backbone of Agriculture’s music, first heard on the band’s 2022 debut EP, The Circle Chant.

With Agriculture’s self-titled record and first full-length LP, it’s abundantly clear that the band’s use of heavy music to showcase the most resplendent emotions and moments of the human experience has a far deeper meaning. Woven between the flurries of soaring tremolo picking, crescendoing guitar harmonies, celebratory screamed vocals, thoughtful improvisation, and meditative atmospheric passages is the record’s mission statement to experience the wonders and joys of both the esoteric and physical world.

PARFAXITAS - Weaver of the Black Moon

Venturing into the world of Nightbringer, Abigor and Sinmara, with hints of Emperor-esque grandeur, Parfaxitas is a new project by familiar faces;. K.R of Whoredom Rife, B.Einarsson of Sinmara/Slidhr, Azlum of Merihem/Oculus/Manetheren, and YhA from Suffering Hour. It’s a grand declaration of war, a monumental feat of organized chaos, an album filled to the brim of intricate Black Metal. This is an album in full, where every song works as a fundament to make it stand tall amongst giants, an album that demands your attention for nearly 50 minutes.

Submerge yourself in Parfaxitas’ debut album and let the power of Satan compel you.

On the ninth full-length with the tell-tale title of "Subject to Change", XASTHUR took a musical leap of faith: Mastermind, multi-instrumentalist, and singer Scott Conner abandoned black metal as a form of musical expression for the time being, and turned to something stylistically rather comparable to acid folk and neofolk instead. Keeping the minimalistic approach of his previous albums, but embarking on a long journey through the dark underbelly of the American dream, Conner created his own brand of dark Americana. XASTHUR were originally conceived by Scott Conner in California, USA in the year 1995. The project started out in the vein of bleak black metal in the tradition of the Nordic second wave. Over the course of nine albums and a host of split-singles, EPs, and occasional demos, XASTHUR's individual, particularly depressive style became highly regarded within the extreme genre. In 2010, Scott announced the end of XASTHUR and returned with an acoustic dark folk project under the banner of NOCTURNAL POISONING. In 2015, the American artist returned to the name XASTHUR, but insisted that his black metal days were over. On his so far latest album, "Inevitably Dark", XASTHUR have partly lifted the self-imposed ban on black metal, simply because Conner simply did like he felt.

Genre-defying Dutch death metal legends PESTILENCE have singled-out and re-recorded twelve emblematic anthems from across their 38-year career into "Levels of Perception".

Patrick Mameli - whose signature vocal, guitar and songwriting skills constitute the hallmark of PESTILENCE - finds "Levels of Perception" to be a testament to the band's role in death metal's progression. "I've always wanted to do a best-of album, because it would mean that I've achieved something in the past; something that still has its value today," Mameli reflects. "To be able to choose from songs that I composed in the distant past, transporting them into the now, with the line-up of the recordings that consisted of Michiel van der Plicht (drums), Rutger van Noordenburg (guitar) and Joost van der Graaf (bass) - I found this to be of great value and sheer awesomeness."

Re-recording of the tracks has not only managed to breathe new life into them - half thanks to new line-up, and other half by implementing subtle changes which reflect Mameli's matured vision and refined with years of experience aesthetic - but also sets them apart from cheap, unimaginative compilations, by unifying the album's sound as befits a full-length release. "The album's title is Levels of Perception. Why? Because this is what has happened with the songs," Mameli explains. "Performed by different musicians, with their own views, musical abilities and interpretations, shining a new light on them. So here we are with new Levels of Perception."

Jewelcase

"Devotion" is the ninth studio album from Italy's brutal tech-death masters HOUR OF PENANCE.

"It has been almost five years since Misotheism [last studio album], but we are finally ready to unveil our new opus," comments the band. "Devotion is our anthem to the futility of war, with no light at the end of the tunnel. The main theme of the album is the misguided devotion which we, the people, give to our leaders, who mercilessly send us to our deaths under the pretense of democracy; while being guided only by imperialist ambitions and greed. The faceless crowd of the artwork stands in worship of these deformed statues of false deities. Musically, the album builds on the 20-year-old, fast-paced trademark style of Hour of Penance, and enhances it with more technicality and catchiness, interspersed with epic landscapes."

A festering entity (de)composed of dwellers from the Viennese underworld.
Let their ri -laden, rotten death metal lead you on a pilgrimage into the furthest corridors of morbidity.

Metalstorm‘s Review (metalstorm.net) about Prigrims of Morbidity:
´This release is irresistibly repugnant; it is dripping all sorts of revolting liquids, and you can bet your ass that they all smell disgustingly awful.
If you ever feel like lurking in a suffocating, dark, and bat-filled cave, or if you get an urge to open up a coffin at your local cemetery and desecrate its content, Pilgrims of Morbidity should be on your headphones.
The band has a knack for groove, and the fact that Brenton Weir from MOLTEN CHAINS is behind FESSUS explains a lot.
The cavernous riffs are paired with sickening growls and some blazing drumming, and this demo is pure delight for fans of old-school, rotten death metal, who get satisfaction when the riffs make them pick up their jaw from the floor´.

Digipack

To understand the defining traits of Greek Black Metal, one need only to listen to “The Tressrising of Nyarthotep” by the mighty Varathron. This track, first appearing on the “genesis of Apocryphal Desire” demo, possesses all of the victorious grandeur and tragic melancholia that are the essence of the early 1990’s Greek Black Metal sound. Along with contemporary releases by Rotting Christ and Necromantia, Varathron’s demo material firmly established a style that is thoroughly Grecian in character. Thick with a damp and heavy Hellenistic darkness, Varathron explored a sound that was infused with the epic and the ancient. As with so much of the most evocative and potent Black Metal, the ancient currents are revealed through the expression of the modern. Varathron’s music is as mystical as it is visceral. The recordings on this compilation comprise the earliest seeds of what would become one of the greatest bands in the history of the genre. This collection contains all of Varathron’s work leading the band toward the creation of their monumental debut LP, “His Majesty at the Swamp.” The two demos, “Procreation of the Unaltered Evil” and “Genesis of Apocryphal Desire” reveal the steps that Varathron took that would later come to fruition on their first album. This collection also contains the more refined tracks that were utilized on their first vinyl releases – the “One Step Beyond Dreams“ EP and “The Everlasting Sins” tracks from the split LP with Necromantia – and three additional bonus tracks recorded during the early years. As with the forthcoming Rotting Christ demo collection that NWN! will soon release, the songs on this compilation of Varathron’s early recordings reveal the painstaking emergence of a band’s identity. Absorbed in the context of early works by Varathron’s Greek contemporaries, one also witnesses the development of a sound uniquely specific to a geographic region, so specific, in fact, that it is impossible to imagine such a multidimensional approach to Black Metal originating anywhere else. Both the Regular and Die Hard editions of this release will feature gatefold jackets with artwork by Manuel Tinnemans and layout by Tilmann Benninghaus as well as a 48 page zine booklet. The Die Hard edition will also come with a separate LP (with jacket) featuring the “Live at the Swamp” demo material. Originally released on tape in 2004, “Live at the Swamp” features a live recording and rehearsal recording from 1991. These recordings have been remastered and cleaned up by James Plotkin and the sound quality on this LP, although still quite raw, is markedly better than the original tape version.