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Woodtemple – Hidden in Eternal Shadow
For those who wanted more of Following the Voice of Blood, Woodtemple approximates this style in longer songs that allow a range of emotion to create a backstory to the dominant mood of darkness and...
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Sadistic Metal Reviews 01-06-14
The music fan possesses limited resources to achieve the goal of an enjoyable listening experience: time, money and energy. Reviewers tend to write about how cool everything is, but they should be...
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Demoncy – Joined in Darkness re-issue on Forever Plagued Records
This re-issue gives a classic black metal treatment to this underground powerhouse, which previously was heard as being more of a death metal album owing to its production more resembling that of the...
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Sadistic Metal Reviews 01-12-15
A few speak the truth, but most lie, not because they mean badly but because they think it helps them “get ahead.” Later do they learn that unearned merit simply means they are trapped in a world of...
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Infamous – Of Solitude and Silence
Black metal like most underground metal compares to Romantic art because it has a passion for nature, the raw power of the universe and the emotions which are true in the human being. This inherently...
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Idis Örlög – The Spiral Tide of Seasons
Commanded by Witchblood composer Megan Leo, Idis Örlög creates acoustic folk music with accompaniment by flutes, pipes and other indigenous European instruments, sounding very much like a better...
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Idolatry – Idolatry
Idolatry creates basic black metal with a flowing melodic inner structure despite its raw exterior. The strikingly morose atmosphere of the music is what appealed to me the most. The mood is sometimes...
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Sadistic Metal Reviews 02-02-15
We all seek a claim that our lives are worth living. For some, this comes from money; for others, being right or at least being cool. In order to achieve either or both, one must emit product, and far...
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Codex Obscurum – Issue Six
Underground metal zine Codex Obscurum gained an audience for its focus on music of an underground nature without the associated fetishism of image and product obsession that blights most zines no...
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Burzum releases new track “Mythic Dawn”
Burzum mastermind Varg Vikernes demonstrates a long history of crossing over between worlds. With Burzum, he crossed black metal with the cosmic space ambient music (RIP Edgar Froese) that defined the...
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Mainstream media discovers Mayan-themed metal, ignores black metal past
Darling writers and poor researchers at L.A. Weekly have discovered Eduardo Ramirez, composer for post-black metal band Volahn, and his use of Mayan imagery: A large shipment of a new heavy metal...
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Chalice of Blood – Helig, Helig, Helig
This album presents a perfect case study in wallpaper black metal and a discussion of its apologetics. The title, formed from three repetitions of the Swedish word for “holy,” incurs two different...
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Alchemyst – Nekromanteion
Purveyors of occult black/death Alchemyst introduced their ominous presence in the underground in 2009 only to seclude themselves in 2014. During that time the band released three demos, a...
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Mütiilation – Vampires of Black Imperial Blood
In the 1990s, there dwelled a cabal of musicians in France called Les Légions Noires which specialized in basic, raw, occult black metal. Many of the LLN releases were superb, most however, were...
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Demoncy re-issues re-recorded Empire of the Fallen Angel
Musicians who go back and improve former works get all respect from me. For example, Godflesh re-imagining Love and Hate as a dub album, or even the recent Nausea re-working of demo-era material....
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Maanes – Under Ein Blodraud Maane
When a genre performs a postmortem on itself as black metal is about to do, it looks back through the years not only to find its peaks, but to find its forgeries. Like the first real black metal...
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Lucifer Rising: Sin, Devil Worship & Rock ‘n’ Roll by Gavin Baddeley
Among the many questions that journalists have struggled to answer, the fascination of some rock music and most heavy metal with Satan has ranked highly among them. Some take the pejorative view that...
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#metalgate roundup: the censorship continues
The ongoing rebellion against censorship in the name of social justice #metalgate continued this week when metal fought back against commercial assimilation. Commercial assimilation and social justice...
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Floating Tomb: Black Metal Theory released
If you do not assert the truth, idiots come in and talk endlessly about their vision of it, which other idiots accept as truth, and soon a circle jerk starts where just about everyone thinks the lie...
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Graveland works around mass media, opens own store
Despite being one of the premiere third wave black metal bands, Graveland have long been excluded from mainstream media and most distros as much for their esoteric music as their rumored controversial...
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