TWELVE – ULTHA Converging Sins

Relatively new to the black metal scene, Ultha do not rest. Starting off with their demo in 2015, they soon unleashed their debut full-length in Pain Cleanses Every Doubt the same year, and followed that with their participation in a split Bathory cover, alongside Morast, covering the iconic “Raise the Dead.” And just now they are releasing their sophomore record, Converging Sins, stepping up their game significantly.

Through all the music Ultha has released so far, you can feel their adoration towards the black metal genre. Their music is drenched in the aura of the ’90s black metal scene, retaining the traditional aspects of the genre intact. The ferocity is blazing, as the riffs come down like lighting, the howling vocals bring to mind the wolf-like screams of Burzum, and the groove, for the most part, carries on down similar pathways.

Read the full review here…

Converging Sins by ULTHA

ELEVEN – ASH BORER The Irrepassable Gate

This absence was strongly felt. Ash Borer, one of the leading black metal bands of the US scene, were keeping extremely active since 2013, releasing a couple of excellent records in their self-titled debut and Cold of Ages, a split with kindred spirits Fell Voices, and the fantastic Bloodlands EP. Three years is a long time to wait, but now they have returned with The Irrepassable Gate, a record that expands their sound further.

The production for the album was helmed by Randall Dunn, and the effect that he had on the work is prominent. The two previous albums had a suitable production for the type of sound that Ash Borer were after; however, Dunn brings it to another level. Able to retain the primal aspect and raw quality that was inherent in Ash Borer’s modus operandi, he manages to also expand their sound, turning it to an all-devouring, thick wall that relentlessly suffocates.

Obviously, Dunn cannot take all the credit for the record, and if it was not for Ash Borer’s unique riff crafting, all this would be meaningless. What these guys are doing is stunning, being able to take on the format of the standard black metal progression, with all its dissonant elements, but also push in aspects that are verging from noise rock to post rock. The cyclothymic mentality, the constant switching of gears on one hand, and the boundless expansion, the wall of sound approach comes together to construct this epic result. It is not an album that just stretches on the time domain, something we are used to seeing with Ash Borer, but also in terms of the panorama, becoming all-encompassing, sometimes with the aid of experimental means, as in feedback and effects, or plain guitar leads.

Read the full review here…

TEN – UADA Devoid of Light

If hailing from Portland has you thinking that Uada is just another bunch of tree hugging hippies who happen to dabble in the dark arts, think again. Devoid is an all-out sensory assault that sounds more akin to something out of Sweden or Norway than anything emanating from the Pacific Northwest. And at a very tight thirty-four minutes in run length, Devoid is also a no-nonsense release too, getting right down to business from the minute you press play till the second this little beasty ends.

Read the full review on Metal-Fi Reviews

Devoid of Light by UADA

NINE – 夢遊病者 (Sleepwalkers) 5772

I literally have no fucking idea where these guys came out of; but well, now they are here, so we must acknowledge their existence, cause this is some next level shit that is so good it’s almost impossible to describe. 夢遊病者 – AKA Sleepwalkers – literally came out of fucking nowhere. In fact, I’m not even sure how I found out about them, but I did, and when I did, my mind was blown so far I could barely believe my own ears. Sleepwalkers mix kraut rock, noise rock, black metal, shoegaze and ambient to DEVASTATING effects. The mix of genres they have attempted is as much bizarre as is it amazing. Much like one of those impossible objects designed by Escher, Sleepwalker’s music also seems impossible, yet they materialized it, and they have crafted it and presented it to us with such class, taste and finesse that it will literally steal your senses and lock you into a surreal state of trance and bewilderment, as if you have been drugged by some kind marvelous narcotic. Imagine Can, Faust, US Christmas, Nadja, Grey Daturas, Zeni Geva, Acid Mothers Temple and My Bloody Valentine forced into a darkened tunnel of (early) black metal chaos (Darkthrone, Peste Noire, Dark Funeral, Burzum etc.), and you will (perhaps) be not far from imagining what Sleepwalker are all about. But simple comparisons, examples and references are hard, and words still can not truly do justice to this music. You really have to hear it to believe it…

Read the full review here…

5772 by 夢遊病者

EIGHT – VERWOED Bodemloos

Formally known as Woudloper, VERWOED emerged in 2014, with a mammoth self-titled demo tape released through Breathe Plastic Records the following year. While sharing similarities in sound and dynamics, VERWOED greatly surpasses Woudloper with this latest release by delving deeper into paranoid, almost hallucinogenic textures, entwined with dense, melodic ambiance that will leave you with one huge mind-fuck of a listening experience that is as terrifying as it is satisfying.

Bodemloos, whose English translation amounts to “Bottomless,” is exactly that – an unending exploration through corridors thick with atmosphere and rich experimentation. Recorded by John Bart Van Der Wal (who also mixed and mastered the album), Bodemloos is as barbaric as it is entrancing. A visceral ascension into a comforting psychosis, if such a thing is possible. Simply put, I did not want it to end.

Read the full review here…

SEVEN – ISKANDR Heilig Land

Meatbreak NWODBM continues apace, with another incredible release from Haeresis Noviomagi.

The bass lines in this make it. Don’t usually get to say that about BM – but these are so eerie and groovy, really great counterpoints to the trebly sawing, and not just when it drops out. The loping bass riffs underpin the whole thing and make this album a disorienting menace from beginning to end. via Bancamp

Heilig Land by Iskandr

SIX – ALKERDEEL Lede

In recent years, with releases like The Abyss Stares Back and Dyodyo Asema, a collaboration with GNAW THEIR TONGUES, Alkerdeel have been exploring realms of blackened, ambient doomnoise and experimenting with material that’s heftier, deeper, and more long-winded than was their initial style. Their split with A DEN OF ROBBERS showcases a very different band, one with immediately accessible classic doom grooves, and abrasive minor-scale noise rock riffs all buried within a lo-fi, static blur. Lede has effectively found a happy medium between those two poles, with a stripped-down production and songwriting style that mixes succinct black n’ roll with epic, atmospheric melodies, even within the span of a single track like closer “Grat Deleenaf.” The record sounds incredibly clean and straightforward, while retaining an underlying air of weirdness and discomfort, a sense of raw, naked vulnerability – made even more apparent by the fact that every instrument seems to instinctually know its place and alternate freely between participating in the warm, repetitive hum, echoing to the forefront on occasion to show off briefly and beautifully, and then reverberating back again. “Regardez Ses Yeux III” begins with an emphasized, catchy black metal riff, accented by thin, prominent guitar tone, and the title track follows suit with a fairly succinct, punky anthem. The band’s trademark inhuman vocals and experimental soundscapes (demonstrated on “Regardez Ses Yeux” I and II) certainly continue to bring the chaos, but overall Lede comes across as the most focused and specifically structured work Alkerdeel have yet composed. It’s a powerful, trancelike album, one that makes it easy to forget that it’s humans who are playing this music…

Read the full review here…

Lede by Alkerdeel

FIVE – ANTAEUS Condemnation

Despite the ten-year gap since their last album, 2006’s monstrous Blood Libels, one listen should be all it takes to convince you that Antaeus are still as utterly merciless and inhumanly intense as ever. And with the drum throne for this album filled by the one-man barrage of Menthor (also of Enthroned and Nightbringer, among others), it should come as no surprise to learn that the level of blastronomic engorgement remains brutally extreme throughout.

At only nine songs (one of which is the aptly-named 51-second intro track, “Something Wicked This Way Comes”) and just over forty-one minutes long, Condemnation is one lean, mean, murder-machine of an album, with only the occasional moment of ominous, oppressive calm (such as occurs during the second half of “End of Days”) to provide respite from the roiling, boiling chaos.

Read the full review via No Clean Singing

Condemnation by Antaeus

FOUR – DEATH FORTRESS Deathless March of the Unyielding

The same has always been true for Death Fortress. They like to slow down to go mid-tempo a lot. When they do, they’re special. You can sing along to the vocal parts, and when they blast, you go back to enjoying quality prototypical black metal. They’re awesome. What more can be said?

So, their new album for Fallen Empire Records, Deathless March of the Unyielding, is another album that is going to get end-of-year list considerations. I voted their prior full-length into my top twenty. This album has plenty of competition in 2016, considering it’s been a boon year for black metal. There’s so much underground music getting attention now, people quickly forget the bands that put the moon up the rafters the first time around. While Death Fortress is still a young band, they have already made the impression on me as one of the best black metal bands in operation today.

Read the full review here…

Deathless March of the Unyielding by Death Fortress

THREE – SPIRE Entropy

Not much is known about SPIRE, except that they hail from Brisbane, Australia. Like a lot of other black metal acts, they are shrouded in mystique and secrecy. A faceless, formless group of musicians that have joined together to create a piece of art, an expression of suffering and despair that bends and morphs through opaque corridors ripe with despondency and decay. Spire manages this flawlessly on their debut LP, Entropy.

The album opens with “Ends,” an ominous and foreboding offering that begins subtly by exuding an uncomfortable build that quickly shifts into an unearthly assault of inharmonious cacophony. From the beginning, it is apparent that Spire’s musical craftsmanship is nothing short of excellent, incorporating atmosphere and ambiance with unhinged, frantic barbarity and precision. “Labyrinthine“ simmers and stews, slowly trudging through black and murky depths before exploding with intensity, a contrast that Spire has seemingly honed to a specific science.

Read the full review here…

Spire – Entropy by Iron Bonehead Productions

TWO – URZEIT Anmoksha

Anmoksha is an album conceptually rooted in the Hindu idea of moksha: the escape from the karmic cycle of death and rebirth. Anmoksha, or without moksha, would then be the feeling of never being at peace, stuck in an infinite repeating loop day after day, year after year, lifetime after lifetime. ‘This endless cycle, this Samsara / is a vacuous perseverance / a damned permanence / inverted essence – invisible, omnipresent’ is the wisdom the title track imparts to the listener, told from the perspective of someone who not even in death would be free from the hell of having to live with themselves. Indeed, much of Anmoksha lyrically focuses on the sense of self-hatred that comes from attempting to better oneself and be free of the cycle of rebirth, but knowing the struggle is utterly useless. There is a world-weariness that permeates the lyrics on this album that offsets the frenzied nature of the music that contains them. The song “Bellisunya” sums it up best: ‘And I cannot bear to be alone / cannot stand the sight of myself / sober, drunk, low, or high / I’m still myself… and I hate it.’

Read the full review on Nine Circles

Anmoksha by Urzeit

ONE – SKÁPHE Skáphe²

Deeply experimental, complex, and dissonant, Skáphe‘s full-length foray into noise avant-garde black metal is the best modern black metal to have incarnated since the beginnings of black metal itself. Largely formless and structureless, the sound on this full-length is about as harrowing as a trip into the mind of a mad scientist.

The songs have only Roman numerals as titles, and largely the songs lack a distinct identity from one another because of the nature of the compositions. The fact that you don’t know what to make out of each song played in sequence reinforces my love for everything experimental. You tend to listen to this album repeatedly, catching a riff here and there, a scream in the sequence of strange drum machine music. This album is as unpredictable as any band that has attempted to evolve black metal away from circa second-wave. Genre aficionados who love fourth wave black metal will easily spend the change in their pockets to get a copy of this.

Read the full review here…