Vinili

Malum is set to release their next chapter, From the Voids. While firmly rooted in Malum’s established sonic foundation, the album is more aggressive, continuing the confrontational path introduced on Towards Nothingness. It is driven by anger and stands as a ruthless observation of the world as it appears — dark, broken, and hollow. 

The forthcoming full length consists of six tracks and does not abandon the band’s core identity but drives it forward with greater force and clarity. Having refined its expression into a cold and faceless descent toward inner collapse and existential void, Malum directs that vision beyond introspection. The music is sharpened to its core, carrying Malum’s bleak vision without compromise. 

Malum rose from the ashes as a brand-new entity in the Norwegian underground scene. Their prime directive is raw, atmospheric and melodic black metal — with a sound rooted in the bleak traditions of the second wave of black metal and shaped by modern existentialism and nihilism. Malum delivers music that is both oppressive and cathartic and has carved a path through Norway’s underground with raw intensity and philosophical depth. 

Malum is not merely a band — it is a confrontation. With the self. With silence. With nothingness.

Double LP, blue vinyls. One-off limited edition 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.
 

Gatefold sleeve, double LP in opaque blue vinyls

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.

Gatefold sleeve, double LP in  orange vinyls

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.

Finally to be reissued by peaceville

White/black marble 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

• Hellish jazz-inflected metal
• Features virtuoso bass playing split between Damon Good (Mournful Congregation, Stargazer, Cauldron Black Ram), and Ben Ricci
• Drums by Dylan Marks, Atheist live drummer
• For fans of Stargazer, Pestilence, Chthe’ilist, Morbid Angel, Immolation, The Chasm, Aenigmatum, Atheist, Timeghoul

Julinko, nome d’arte di Giulia Parin Zecchin, è da tempo uno dei segreti meglio custoditi della scena sperimentale del nord-est italiano, con tre dischi che hanno contribuito a definire la sua inconfondibile mescolanza di heavy psychedelia, slowcore e dark ambient. In Naebula ciò che colpisce davvero è la potenza e l’intensità della sua voce, un’arma di forza innegabile, capace di trasformarsi in un mezzo di fervore grezzo o librarsi con grazia in un delicato lamento. Il suo approccio non convenzionale risplende in brani come ‘Jeanne De Rien’, dove una cadenza ritmica da marcia funge da colonna sonora portante per un lungo mantra che sfiora quasi il territorio del powpow. ‘Peace Of The Unsaid’ sfrutta la propria struttura aritmica per creare spazio, un’ode notturna e crepuscolare che raggiunge le vette della forza intima di Sinéad O’Connor, pur mantenendo una dolce compostezza. Che si tratti di urla glaciali e assassine o di una vitalità dal tono quasi gospel, brani come ‘Cloudmachine’ o ‘Kiss The Lion’s Tongue’ sembrano attingere tanto alla tradizione del minimalismo europeo, con l’uso dei droni e della ripetizione, quanto a quella dei canti popolari come inni, dove armonie modali cedono il passo a un’ apparente stasi. Un altro elemento chiave nella scrittura di Julinko è la fusione impeccabile fra il suo approccio minimalista e quelle trame dense ereditate da un lontano retaggio di outsider metal, un noir lynchiano spinto all’estremo o esorcismi senza parole attraversati da correnti profonde. 

Scritto e interpretato interamente da Julinko, ‘Naebula’ dispiega e avvolge i suoi incantesimi in spirali sonore creando la colonna sonora perfetta per ossessione, desiderio e contemplazione, un mondo abitato da grandi come Meredith Monk, Diamanda Galás e Jarboe, artiste diverse ma tutte guidate dalla ricerca della più pura e cristallina forma di catarsi. 

Olde Throne is a melodic and atmospheric black metal band born in a time when main composer and frontman Harrison McKenzie was living in Glencoe, Scotland. Even after moving back to his native New Zealand, McKenzie felt deeply inspired by his experience in the highlands, and this project was the result of such inspiration. Olde Throne released two studio albums under this monicker, An Gorta Mór (2022) and In the Land of Ghosts (2023). Two years later, the man from Christchurch signs with Italian long-standing label Avantgarde Music to release their third full-length album, Megalith.

Two years in its creation, Megalith is a primal journey into the depths of prehistory. Where previous albums explored the strife of 19th-century Ireland (An Gorta Mór) and the spectral lore of 17th- and 18th-century Scotland (In the Land of Ghosts), Megalith delves into the primordial darkness of the Neolithic age. Drawing inspiration from stories of Celtic mythology, the album’s narrative is rooted in tales dating back as far as 10,000 BC. The use of flutes, throat singing and tribal drums forges an immersive brand of Neolithic Black Metal.