Grand Belial’s Key (USA) – Goat Of A Thousand Young / Triumph Of The Hordes LP

Black Metal

Hailing from Finland, while EMBRYONIC SLUMBER may be a brand-new entity in name, the duo are longtime veterans of the underground: VARGRAV / DRUADAN FOREST mainman V-Khaoz and Hellwind Inferion, an incredibly prolific drummer but more recently known as the vocalist for both Sargeist and Desolate Shrine. And while what they create together as EMBRYONIC SLUMBER may show slight shades of their collective pasts, the resulting recording – the full-length In Worship Our Blood is Buried, the band’s bolt-from-the-blue debut – handily transcends comparisons altogether.

Comes with poster and insert

Black Metal

Originally released as cassette by Mahamvantara Arts Records earlier this year, RÜNDGARD’s first public recording is one literally out of time. Mainman Lord Valtgryftåk is a prolific veteran of Chile’s increasingly potent black metal underground, concurrently handling the likes of Pyreficativm, 13th Temple, Gryftigæn, and Winterstorm among others. And while a number of those bands and satellite entities belonging to the Pure Raw Underground Black Metal Plague are indeed the rawest of the raw, with RÜNDGARD does he delve into ancient times, medieval majesty, and grim splendor somewhere between the earliest Nordic works and contemporaneous Polish ones.

Recorded during two periods over the course of MMXX/MMXXI and now featuring a mix & master by Rudrah Studios, Stronghold of Majestic Ruins suitably evokes its namesake both sonically and thematically. Empirically, the recording evokes the ancient passages and memories of a distant land submerged in mist and an interesting story behind ruins. As Lord Valtgryftåk explains, “Originally, this entity is directly related to those archaic dimensional Valdivian forces that still inhabit our realms, those forces from the past written in blood and guarded by solemn towers and fortresses that still remain alive.” And truly, that past comes alive across the album’s succinct-yet-expansive 25-minute runtime, maintaining a faithful respect for the old traditions and the sound of glorious times with an interesting melodic register at the same time very organic. No record-collector-nerd “raw black metal” here: only authentic ancient vintage!

For those nostalgic for forgotten realms and archaic ages, RÜNDGARD returns from a deep slumber with the fortifying Stronghold of Majestic Ruins!

Black Metal

And so it goes with the band’s sixth full-length, Esoteric Atavism. Ever aptly titled, Esoteric Atavism’s contents embody that title in a most provocative manner. While BLACK CILICE is esoteric in the extreme, more so is the entity atavistic, and indeed are those energies the cornerstone of this record. Characteristically coated in miles of miasmic rawness that’s an instrument unto itself, the lyrics of Esoteric Atavism delve into the OLD – old energies, old spiritually – and the music follows suit by reconstituting elements from elder BLACK CILICE recordings. Always in the red but now deeper into the black, that’s not to say Esoteric Atavism is a deliberate throwback or crass “return to the roots”; rather, the band’s birth pangs are given a deeper wisdom and wider-screened hysteria for the listener to drown himself in…or avoid, revoltingly stratifying as BLACK CILICE’s black metal may be. More pointedly, riffs are more forthright, with experimentation subtler, and songs in kind shorter: the proverbial ouroboros, then, forever feeding on the past.

Neofolk

Debut album of this Neofolk solo project.

Black Metal

Burier IV – Wielding Malignity – an auditory altar, forged to conjure a series of surreal, blood drenched nightmares, permeated by abstract and otherworldly expressions of rage, pain, and horror.

Originally planned in concept as 7″ format, the material overflowed and the result is a 12 track 40min full length release.

Recorded at the end of the Australian summer MMXX, Burier IV is comprised of tracks that are short in length and aggressive in nature, bursting forth with a sharpened edge.

Burier IV could be considered a conceptual anomaly, yet is undeniably congruous with the Burier catalog of recordings so far, employing similar palettes of darkly coloured, complex instrumentation and tortured, shrieking vocals, dynamically pulsating, here wielded with a heightened sense of ferocity.

Exclusive import from Goatowarex (CHINA).

Black Metal

UK Black Metal act GLEMT brings forth their debut long play record entitled “Eclipsing Through The Womb Of Twilight And Dementia”. This album falls nothing short of pure audible chaos and insanity forcing the listener to become engulfed in the pure darkness of the void so they become an active participant in the rituals manifested through Glemt. Therefore this is more of a pact between the void and the forbidden, leaving no room for light or hope for all life.

This album was manifested through the will of tormented spirits that made themselves know through Magick and communication with the deceased. This, therefore, opens forth the Left-Hand Path and the bleak passageway into the utter blackness of deaths abyss past the point of no return, so that all forbidden truths are relieved.