Preordine

After over a decade of silence, one of the best-kept secrets in the Italian underground scene is rising from the ashes. JANVS, the Roman god of beginnings, passages and endings, is a black metal entity formed in Genoa over two decades ago, which may have fallen through the tides of time for many, but never really forgotten.

In the mid ‘00s JANVS released two of the most personal and interesting black metal records ever to come out of Italy, Fulgures (2007) and Vega (2008), mixing excellent songwriting to a profound latin cultural heritage. A few years later the band re-recorded and officially released their early songs in Nigredo (2014) before disappearing into the waves of the Mediterranean sea. We were incredibly excited when composer and multi-instrumentalist Matteo “Vinctor” Barelli told us the band was working on new music once again. JANVS lineup is once again completed by Massimo "m:A Fog" Altomare on drums and Claudio "Malphas" Fogliato on bass, and the trio is ready to release the new EP Fatum Est.

In their own word, in Fatum Est, each song draws on a myth, a figure, or an episode from the Hellenic tradition, reshaping and deconstructing its narrative into an existential vision that is both intimate and universal.

This work is dedicated to those who defy the gaze of the gods, burning without oxygen in infinitesimal and eternal moments of beauty and death, drowned in the void of a cosmos eternally identical to itself, devoid of any purpose. Moving forward from the softer atmospheres of Vega, expect intensity and desperate cosmic ferocity.

Avantgarde Music is proud to announce their collaboration with Saidan, an Eastern horror-themed band from Nashville, TN.

Born in 2020, Saidan released three studio albums so far, mixing the weird, over-the-top aesthetic of visual kei with fast, melodic riffing in the vein of labelmates Moonlight Sorcery.

Fangdriller: Scars Beneath Memories Wrist is the fourth studio album born from the minds of multi-instrumentalist Splatterpvnk and drummer Hundosai, a new chapter in the narrative concept that links together all Saidan releases. In the band’s own words, Fangdriller follows the story of a student named Junko, depressed and miles away from the people she loves. In the depths of her isolation, she finds comfort in a mysterious cult called Ethereal Blood. But unbeknownst to Junko, her anguished seclusion has made her the perfect victim.

Avantgarde Music is proud to announce their collaboration with Saidan, an Eastern horror-themed band from Nashville, TN.

Born in 2020, Saidan released three studio albums so far, mixing the weird, over-the-top aesthetic of visual kei with fast, melodic riffing in the vein of labelmates Moonlight Sorcery.

Fangdriller: Scars Beneath Memories Wrist is the fourth studio album born from the minds of multi-instrumentalist Splatterpvnk and drummer Hundosai, a new chapter in the narrative concept that links together all Saidan releases. In the band’s own words, Fangdriller follows the story of a student named Junko, depressed and miles away from the people she loves. In the depths of her isolation, she finds comfort in a mysterious cult called Ethereal Blood. But unbeknownst to Junko, her anguished seclusion has made her the perfect victim.

Limited edition gatefold black vinyl & LP booklet

Heretics of the Black Metal genre and the Kings of USBM, WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM have returned with sharpened teeth. Their new album “Estuary” carries the hallmark of their unyielding dedication to the physical craft and analog production techniques, executed with zero cut corners. After more than twenty years, the pioneers of Cascadian Black Metal have neither withered, rested, nor resorted to recycling past glories. They continue to rise with unparalleled strength, and “Estuary” is their most ferocious and genre-bending record to date.
WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM embody nature as active participants of the current, bypassing the confines of a musical landscape which trends towards homogenization. Massive percussion and seething gothic guitars wipe the listener’s psyche clear of all stagnation, transforming it into a conduit for evolution and renewal. Rich with alchemical and archetypal imagery, the record operates like eagles and wolves descending upon desolation and entropy, activating the dormant domain with magic and the lethal essence of virility.
The bulk of the album was produced and recorded at the band’s own Owl Lodge studio in Olympia, Washington, with drums tracked by Nicholas Wilbur at The Unknown (a converted former church in Anacortes, Washington).

Mithotyn’s Viking Metal classic for first time on vinyl! Remastered and with new artwork by Kris Verwimp.
 

“Music for me, is rarely complete,” says GODFLESH mastermind Justin Broadrick, “but it has to reach a point where enough is enough. Creatively, there has to be self-discipline. One has to end it.”

Broadrick is primarily referring to the nebulous process of writing and arranging songs into their various potential shapes, but he could just as easily be describing GODFLESH’s imminent conclusion. Just three years after the hypnotic crunch of Purge, 25 years after an uncertain hiatus that nearly scuttled the band, and 38 years since GODFLESH’s inception, Broadrick and bassist-at-arms Ben Green set out to mercilessly crush this cold world with their tenth and penultimate album, this year’s Decay.

“Decay was born from the same sessions as Purge,” Broadrick declares of the new record’s six tracks. “It was one huge pool of songs. I picked what I felt was appropriate for what I wanted to achieve with Purge, with the intention of releasing the songs that didn't fit as a new album within a year of Purge being released. Unfortunately, two years passed whilst considering external labels, so that I didn't have to self-release GODFLESH anymore, but it took an awful lot of time to establish a comfortable home for me. The recordings were done, but as usual for me, I did change a lot of stuff once I came back to it.”

Now, GODFLESH is ready to unleash an even bolder, bleaker series of sounds in Decay. These songs arrive shortly after Broadrick released a public statement about major abdominal surgery he underwent earlier this year. “Fortunately, all of the recordings for Decay were completed long before the surgery, vocals included… although the back end of a couple of songs were recorded with the hernia itself, and that was a struggle. I was already aware that the GODFLESH shout, so to speak, was exacerbating the hernia greatly, as was every GODFLESH performance in the lead-up to the surgery once the hernia appeared, and the hernia was mostly caused by year upon year of shouting in GODFLESH. The album was mixed post-surgery, and while I was still in some pain and considerable discomfort, but fortunately GODFLESH is generally me expressing my pain, albeit [usually] mental, philosophical and existential, whereas this was physical pain.”

While the middle of the record pulses with five-minute hate-grooves, Broadrick credits the slime-wracked opener “Master and Slave” and crawling closer “Consume Me” with Decay’s true conceptual thrust. “The bookends of Decay are the most important pieces to me. They say it all, so to speak; the album could have been just those two songs alone – the duration of them is half of the total album!”

As GODFLESH's active tenure comes to a close, Broadrick expresses gratitude that it was ever his vessel to use as he willed. “It expresses my pain, and I’ve put my body and soul into this expression for the majority of my existence. I feel quite lucky, because Godflesh is now physically impossible for me, rendering it useless. I now wish to move out of its constraints, move on creatively with heavy/ugly music to new ground.”