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Deep within the Hyperborean mists there lies a pale blue light. It is the light of a flame whose embers have been smoldering long and low, awaiting the day when it will engulf the sky in brilliant and terrible cerulean Aurora. That day has come. Formed in 2006 as the singular musical vision of Vaedis, Vimur is a black metal band from the American South. Despite its hot, humid origins, Vimur's sound has a layer of icy frost seemingly shipped from beyond space and time.

Along the years, Vimur evolved into a full live-performing band, releasing three studio full-length albums, one EP and one live record. 2024 marks the collaboration between the Georgia-based band with long-standing Italian label Avantgarde Music to release the band’s fourth album, The Timeless Everpresent.

We asked the band to introduce the album in their own words. This is what seeped through the cracks of Vimur lair. “Forms change but ideas are eternal. Vimur is black metal totality and a conduit to the truth that lies hidden beyond the stars. The Timeless Everpresent is a revelation of vital energy and power. It is a soundtrack to the grand cosmic war that has existed since the beginning of time. No stone is left unturned. The vanguard knows that the war is fought on the physical, mental, and spiritual planes. This is reflected in the multi-dimensional sound achieved on The Timeless Everpresent. There are passages that reflect the blood, steel, and sweat of physical battle and others that are undeniably ascendent, making the listener aware of truths beyond material existence. The Timeless Everpresent is a collection of war hymns to destroy all illusion. Vimur reclaims the fire to light the mysteries. Flaming spears and swords in hand aimed at the heavens, nothing will stop Vimur from reaching the Sun behind the Sun whether the enemy be man or divine."

American Death Metal classic remastered!

With PERCHTA's sophomore full-length entitled "D'Muata", which translates from her Alpine Austrian dialect to English as "The Mother", mastermind and vocalist Frau Percht and her band have created a feminist manifesto within a folklore influenced black metal context. Femininity in all its facets is a rather niche topic in this genre although it is an inseparable part of everything human and the natural world around us. Taking their name from an alleged pagan goddess, PERCHTA were conceived in Tyrol, Austria in 2017 with an aim to preserve and rejuvenate regional traditions. Three years later, PERCHTA released their debut album "Ufång" (2020), which established the band's reputation as a highly individualistic and unique act. All lyrics of the entire album are intoned in the Tyrolean vernacular. The words are shrouded in a tempest of tremolo guitars and ritualistic folk with bone-piercing extreme vocals on top. Once touring activities resumed after the global break, PERCHTA also began to earn attention for their outstanding live performances, which strengthened the bonds within the band. Now the black witch of the Tyrolean mountains and her pack return with a magical new album that PERCHTA will also bring to the stage!

Reissue 2024 on T.S.I. label

WINDSWEPT is yet another creative vehicle for the esteemed Roman Saenko, known worldwide for his pioneering work in Drudkh, Precambrian and Hate Forest among others. While most of his musical creations stem from black metal, thankfully, WINDSWEPT is consistent in this regard and unapologetically restrictive, retaining Saenko's characteristically hypnotic riffing coasting atop a wintry atmosphere.

Now, after a couple albums with Season of Mist, WINDSWEPT join forces with PRIMITIVE REACTION, who released the debut album of his PRECAMBRIAN project in 2020, with the brand-new mini-album Der eine, wahre König.
Uniquely, this four-song / 28-minute recording features two equally esteemed vocalists - Winterherr of Paysage D' Hiver, and Meilenwald of Ruins of Beverast - with both men splitting duties evenly. Indeed, with such a structure, Der eine, wahre König is a portrait of evenness: unwavering, unflinching, immovable, engrossing.
Movement manifests in subtlety, as is Saenko's stock in trade; further and deeper listens reveal a wealth of nuance even if it's not always apparent.

All four tracks comprising the record feature all-German lyrics, evoking a different-yet-related sense of austerity from the mainman's proudly Ukrainian ruminations, and both vocalists rise to the challenge of pushing their respective throats to the limit whilst remaining rooted to WINDSWEPT's core consistency.
That Der eine, wahre König attacks from the very first second and successively expands, concluding with the near-11-minute "Jedes Todes Lohn," and retains its astute balance of urgency and epicness speaks to Saenko's never-faltering mastery.

CD in deluxe gloss 6-panel digipak incl. album artwork, plus a designed album download card.

"Manifestaties van de Ontworteling" (Manifestations of the Uprooting) boldly ventures into experimental soundscapes while preserving its eerie ambiance.

Captured live, utilizing vintage analog audio equipment, the album delivers a raw and genuine sonic journey. The band's objective was not merely to produce music but to forge an experience that surpasses conventional limits, pushing the boundaries of creativity

This sophomore album by Urkraft celebrates darkness and the lights that shine in it, be they campfires, streetlights or the stars. Through seven tracks, the listener is taken on a journey through forests rife with wondrous complexities, where the blackest of nights are illuminated by the cold glow of the moon.

Urkraft's music is a relentless assault of savage riffs and haunting melodies, driven by thundering drums and punctuated by anguished screams that echo across the barren wastelands.

With "Lyset skinner best i mørket", Urkraft delivers an uncompromising ode to the beauty of darkness and the power of black metal to channel its primal energy. Prepare to be embraced by the shadows that lurk within. The darkness awaits...

Much as its title forecasts, I Skyggen mellom liv og død
brings together two Norwegian black metal entities: SOLUS GRIEF, with whom PURITY THROUGH FIRE followers should know from their two albums in as many years, and ALTERTUM; both bands' respective mainmen shared a split album, Ulf's Keptr, shared a split year with their other respective bands UNHOLY CRAFT and VORGFANG. Here, SOLUS GRIEF continue their ascent / descent with two 10-minute tracks (and joining instrumental) that see mainman Peregrinus returning to a more anguished, almost-DSBM sound that nevertheless evinces unique traits - among them, a guitar tone alternately rippling / clanging, an attention to ever-so-tense dynamics, and a superbly "live" feel for an otherwise-one-man band. It's unsurprising, then, that these three throwback-to-1995 tracks were written & recorded during this past winter. For his part, ALTERTUM mainman Lord G also wrote & recorded his four tracks here during that same winter, and it shows: a cryogenic blast of ancient northern darkness, violent and spectral in equal measure. It's not so much that these four ALTERTUM songs evoke deja vu - one can hear symphonic shades of very earliest Limbonic Art, Obtained Enslavement, and Norway's Troll as well as the rawest pulse of Hat-era Gorgoroth, the cult Kvist, and even Ulver's Nattens Madrigal - but these blizzard-blown coordinates are rearranged in such a manner that they become a new destination in itself, nostalgic and without time simultaneously. I Skyggen mellom liv og død is against the modern world!

An aptly titled record no matter the language, Naturmystik brings together two modern stalwarts of mystical black metal. HÄXANU - whose acclaimed second album, Totenpass, was released last year by AMOR FATI - is the duo of multi-instrumentalist Alex Poole (Chaos Moon, Krieg, Skáphe, Ringarė, etc) and vocalist/lyricist L.C. of Lichmagick. Much as that album had equal footing in Nordic snow and Hellenic melody, so, too, do their four exclusive songs here. Stargazing as ever but perhaps bringing back some of the violent hysteria of their early work, HÄXANU hammer their point home with a triumphant fury. Sweden's GREVE, of course, is yet another work of ever-restless Ancient Records linchpin Swartadauþuz (BEKËTH NEXËHMÜ, GNIPAHÅLAN. Trolldom, Musmahhu, Azelisassath, Digerdöden, Mystik, Summum, Daudadagr, Daudadagr). To date, GREVE have released two equally massive full-lengths through PURITY THROUGH FIRE, 2019's Nordarikets Strid and 2022's Föllo af Svavel, Lifvets Dimridå. Naturmystik features the first music from the trio since, and their four songs here carry that same torch: shimmering 1996-vintage obsidian, emitting that racing-yet-floating sensation which made GREVE's two albums such modern classics. Together on Naturmystik, both HÄXANU and GREVE once again prove that black metal classicism can be a boundless wellspring of brilliance.

ringing together two of Finnish black metal hottest / coldest newcomers, Kaksi liekkiä Saatanalle is pure nastiness distilled into 20 tundra-deep minutes; with two songs a piece here, both AESTHUS and SIELUHAASKA delivered debut albums under the banner of PURITY THROUGH FIRE in 2022 and 2023, respectively. AESTHUS are up first, and whip forth the freezing filth which made their Hänen temppelinsä varjoissa so celebrated in the underground. No more but definitely no less, the quintet stick to classic Finnish black metal in the turn-of-the-millennium tradition, here arguably sounding both more melodic and frantic than said debut album. SIELUHAASKA, for their part, put a more measured twist on Finnish black metal - pensive, anguished, and strangely anthemic - with their Kun aurinkoni kuoli debut, and here continue their hypnotic ways with even more anguish and arguably more mesmerizing gait. Almost honorarily Teutonic by design, their folkish fire might remind of Finnish dark horses like Noenum or Mortualia. Kaksi liekkiä Saatanalle proves, once again, it's always darkest up north...