Vinili

The solo album by Heike Langhans, heavenly voice for the likes of Draconian, Ison, Sojourner, Light Field Reverie and Remina!

After more than a decade of unfinished demos and other obligations, helped out by the skill of Mike Lamb Heike, 'Peace by Proxy' was released May 1, 2026 digitally but finds now a physical release via Avantgarde Mus

Winter lake (blue, crystal and black splatter) 12" double vinyl (33 rpm) in gatefold.
Limited to 300 copies worldwide!

THY CATAFALQUE is the solo-helmed Hungarian avant-garde metal project of Tamás Kátai, running since 1998 and now a two-time Fonogram (Hungarian Grammy) winner. What began as a studio-only outlet has grown, over the past few years, into a full international touring act with festival slots across Europe and Latin America.
'XIII: Sárga erdo' is THY CATAFALQUE's thirteenth album, and unlike its predecessors it carries no single narrative thread: the twelve tracks move instead through what plays like a wandering across old ground, touching on loss, distance, memory and disappearance without ever settling on one story. The record marks a real shift in how it's built: this is the first time THY CATAFALQUE has used a live drummer rather than programmed rhythm, and while the cast is enormous - thirty-four musicians plus a twenty-voice male choir - the folk and classical textures that once flooded every corner of a song (piano, strings, brass, reed, sitar, kamancheh, zither) are used here with real discipline, brought in only when a track calls for them. The result sits closer to the bone than the maximalism of the last record, heavier in restraint than in volume, and it still finds room for a fictitious folk song built for a vanished people on the Volga, an incineration metaphor turned into the album's heaviest cut, and an opener that reads like a farewell letter.
Gábor Vári returns behind the desk for a second record running, keeping the production language consistent even as the arrangements pull back.

Italy's melodic death doom collective Shores of Null open a new chapter with their new album "Homesick," set for release October 16th, 2026. Once again, the record will be full of sharpened songwriting, emotional depth and the unmistakable blend of doom, gothic, blackened, and melodic death metal that has become their signature. "Homesick" represents the band’s most mature and focused work to date. Conceived as a complete listening experience, the album moves through longing, loss, anger, vulnerability, and the search for belonging. It captures Shores Of Null at their most confident and emotionally honest, balancing crushing moments with some of the most memorable melodies the band has written to date, enriched by guest appearances from Natalie Koskinen (Shape of Despair) with her vocals on "The Numbing Void" and Shaun MacGowan (My Dying Bride) on several tracks, including violin on "Dreaming of a Scar" and "The Numbing Void".

The ultra-prolific Jason Köhnen (BONG-RA, THE KILIMANJARO DARKJAZZ ENSEMBLE, THE ANSWER LIES IN THE BLACK VOID, CELESTIAL SEASON) continues a rich seam of form with the 5th full-length emission from THE LOVECRAFT SEXTET, in which the feral obscurity of avant-primitivist-Black Metal is injected into his patented cinematic Darkjazz.

THEODOR BASTARD refuse to stay still. In the five years of relative silence since their previous studio venture, the world music pioneers were searching for a way out of the darkness that’s descended over reality. The path that they discovered didn’t lead back to their home in the harsh northern forest region of Karelia but away from it, into the coldness of the city and a collapsing civilization. By reconnecting with their electronic roots, THEODOR BASTARD are reborn on a new album mysteriously called 'V'.

'V' reflects just how much has changed since the world last heard from the band. While still widely recognized internationally as leaders for ritual folk and world music, THEODOR BASTARD have re-embraced their early electronic impulses because that’s now how modern life feels: cold, sharp, tense. Long-time fans were pleasantly surprised when the pulse-pounding analog synths of “Nebo” first appeared in the award-winning Russian crime drama ‘The Method’, but the album’s lead single is a sure sign that they’re bound for dark new horizons. Like a space shuttle, “Sverkay” rumbles with distorted bass before it’s suspended high above the earth by a trap-like beat.

“Vdokh – vydokh” ("inhale - exhale"), sings a bewitching Yana Veva as she glimpses what’s to come from our dangerous endgame with war, technology and social division. To a world that’s mired in its own deadly trance, 'V' arrives like a much-needed slap across the face. The album was created during a long and trying period for THEODOR BASTARD. It offers little comfort: its anger, confusion and disappointment are hurled at the outside world, which through our own actions, is tipping over the edge. The aggressive “Vedma” surges with black cosmic energy, as if summoning the apocalypse. But the band aren’t without hope. At their core, the ritual spirit remains. “Ostavlyaem” dances as light as a feather, only to transcend this earth for a place amongst the stars.

With 'V', THEODOR BASTARD return with dark electronics for dark times.

For fans of HEILUNG, GARMARNA, WARDRUNA.

Gatefold, three sides recorded, with extensive huge book!
Available in two vinyl colors options

One of the UK underground's longest-running and most respected acts, HECATE ENTHRONED has been praised by the likes of Terrorizer for their "mixture of death metal aggression with black metal atmosphere" while New Noise Magazine declares them "an absolute must for fans of extreme gothic metal". Originally co-founded in Wales by guitarist Nigel Dennen in the mid-1990s, the band is dedicated to delivering their own brand of evil metal with little regard to politics or the trends of popular demand. The group's 1997 full-length, the Andy Sneap-produced 'The Slaughter Of Innocence, A Requiem For The Mighty' (Blackend Records), was a seminal release in the then-burgeoning orchestral black metal movement, and since then, five more studio outputs including their M-Theory Audio debut in 2019 with the 'Embrace Of The Godless Aeon' (HECATE ENTHRONED's first recording with vocalist Joe Stamps) and numerous live performances have firmly established the band as one of extreme metal's most important voices.

The album will be released May 29 on Digipak CD, limited-edition colored vinyl including 250 Boreal Light (EU) and 250 Draconic Vision (US) variants, and digital.  'The Corpse of a Titan, A Lament Long Buried' is once again produced by HECATE ENTHRONED and Dan Abela (Akercocke, Bleed from Within, Annal Nathrakh), who also mixed/mastered the album with cover art created by Erskine Designs (Inanimate Existence, Bleed The Sky).

"The Scottish threat of blackened speed metal is back!
Featuring 8 new tracks over 44 minutes, the highly anticipated fourth album, Coronach, reaches new heights of metallic intensity.
Bolder, more daring, and more adventurous than ever, Hellripper is crafted for speed and razor-sharp riffs."

Black  vinyl

3LP triple-gatefold sleeve incl. a huge 24-page 12” booklet including an in-depth interview with Tomas „Samoth“ Haugen and many never seen before pictures.
An double-sided A2 poster will be added to every vinyl too.

Revealing Emperors’ dark past…

Founded by Samoth and Ihsahn in 1991, EMPEROR became widely acclaimed for their innovation and sophistication. They unquestionably rank among Black Metal’s most seminal bands. Throughout their exceptional career, they released landmark albums that will forever belong to the genre’s canon. Given EMPEROR’s status and popularity, it may then come as a surprise to some that this legendary band was a side-project of the Norwegian duo. This is especially true given that, at the time that EMPEROR was established, Samoth and Ihsahn’s main band was THOU SHALT SUFFER.

Although quite a short-lived entity and bound to forever dwell in the shadows of its members’ celebrated offshoot, the material which had spawned under the name THOU SHALT SUFFER is notable and worth being paid attention to. Even though the three recordings which comprises of a five-track-rehearsal, the EP Open The Mysteries Of Your Creation, and the demo Into The Woods Of Belial that the horde managed to unleash in 1991, are no less dark than what EMPEROR came up with subsequently, THOU SHALT SUFFER weren’t a Black Metal band, but were sworn to Death Metal of a distinctly tenebrous nature. Like many Norwegian bands, including IMMORTAL, ENSLAVED, BORKNAGAR, and HADES ALMIGHTY – who began as Death Metal acts under different names in the late 1980s and early 1990s before shifting towards Black Metal, Ihsahn and Samoth, aided by various members, (most infamously Ildjarn on bass), cut their teeth in a Death Metal outfit. It is sonically somewhat comparable to the earliest period of DARKTHRONE, PARADISE LOST, SENTENCED and the like when all of them still played Death Metal, and with some hints of CARCASS, which are especially audible in the fast parts, THOU SHALT SUFFER put to tape some great Death Metal darkness of lasting quality.

Despite the members being very young at the time the recordings were done, the tracks are proficiently composed and competently performed. They frequently shift between doomy, mid-tempo, and fast sections that are accompanied by Ihsahn’s morbid growls, which have nothing in common with his high shrieks that he would later be known for. This, plus some obscure keyboards on top, which adds a sombre layer to the compositions, the band were able to turn their music into a mandatory feast for devotees of dark Metal.

Darkness Shall Rise is very proud to present this re-release, which features the three recordings that THOU SHALT SUFFER had released during their short lifespan. As usual, we went to great lengths to turn this re-release into something out of the ordinary. Not only was all the music mastered for vinyl to achieve the best sound by Patrick W. Engel, but we didn’t spare any effort to create a thick booklet featuring old pictures, of which many are unpublished, and a lengthy interview with Samoth. Also for this release, the band has opened their vault and for the VERY FIRST TIME EVER, obscure material prior to THOU SHALT SUFFER has been exclusively featured. Namely XERASIA with rare rehearsal tracks from 1990, EMBRYONIC rehearsal tracks, and the official EMBRYONIC demo The Land of The Lost Souls from 1990.

Pressed on transparent black heavy vinyl w/ yellow swirl. Side D contains no music. Comes with a 2-page insert and a download card. Colors on final records may vary to a degree from the mockup.

The sublime 4th full length from UK avant-Black/Death Metal band LYCHGATE advances the kinetic potency of their 2020 DMP-debut EP, "Also sprach Futura", to a frightening level of mind-mangling intensity.

"Precipice" is progressive Extreme Metal plummeting inside a black hole: scorching, twisted and transfixing. The band have upped both the dystopic prog-Death quotient and their sense of experimentation, moving with formidable, mechanised poise and a surrealist’s sense of dread.

Black Vinyl