Bilskirnir - Never Dying Light

I'm sold!

Nefilim - Penetrate

Carl McCoy's Industrometalgoth side band from way back when. I'll be damned if it ain't still good though. The track after this one though, Melt, is fucking beautiful. Astronomically, powerfully emotive.

Tangorodrim - Morgoth

Already off to a good start. Kinda like early Aura Noir or post-90s Darkthrone, except it actually feels like black metal instead of a more vicious and dirty version of speed metal.


The vocals fit perfectly imo. They're not your typical high-pitched black metal vocals, more like a half-whispered, cavernous growl that I think really adds to the ancient feeling of the music. Varathron always seems to me like a trip into a dark, mythical past that's being narrated by some long forgotten being. Or maybe that's just confirmation bias, whatever.

Nah, I see what you mean. In fact, I grew to quite like them after I had made that comment. I enjoyed the second Varathron album as well, but the first one really had a tremendous atmosphere and vibe of its own. It's something special.

Anyway. Kawir - Isotheos

Excellent pagan black metal. Not cheesy and over the top, but distinct enough to make it interesting and add some great cultural flavour. Really good, rich production as well. Great stuff.

EDIT: Now I'm listening to Graveland - Ogień przebudzenia.

It's a re-recording of the album Fire of Awakening and it's absolutely brilliant. Better vocals, better drums, better choirs. The only thing that isn't better than the original is the guitars, which sounded heavy as fuck on the original recording, but they still sound quite nice here. Excellent stuff, and continues to uphold the faith I hold in Robert Darken. I may not agree with his political views, and I'm not convinced about his war in the woods (though he unarguably looks better than Vikernes' shitty attempt at playing viking), but goddamn can the man compose some brilliant, passionate music.

Black Sabbath - Megalomania
I sometimes tend to forget how much I like Sabbath. Great stuff.

Allen - Lande - Lady of Winter

That fucking Tolkki. What a way to redeem himself in my eyes. After that turd he wrote with his own name on it, this is pretty fucking catchy.

Down From the Mountain is a crazy song from that album. Most vicious Jorn performance in a while.

Diocletian - Gesundrian

Really enjoying this, songs are great and the album sounds fantastic. I've always liked the production of their work.

Type O Negative - Everything Dies

Anytime is a good time for some Type O Negative, but October is surely the best of those times.

Death In June - Symbols Of The Sun

I kind of like this, and I can definitely see where Ordo Equlibrio for example, got their influence from.

Horrendous - The Somber (Desolate Winds)

These guys know what the fuck they're doing. Unoriginal as hell but man do they know how to rip out these riffs with gusto and conviction. This could have come out back in 91.

edit:

Horrendous - The Vermillion

Okay, this is fucking cool - not sure what to make of Ecdysis but I like it. More traditional metal at times, a bit darker atmosphere and now this beautiful acoustic bit, all while still being firmly DM with no prog in it at all.

Archandrja - Zimowy brzask zwycięstwa

Decided to check this out after learning it was the original band of the Biały Viteź main man. It's alright, but my god is the playing rough around the edges. Lots of mistakes, members sometimes not playing in time with one another. More demo quality, than full-length. Still, there's some decent riffs here and there, a lot of the guitar leads sound great and the album does have a surprisingly awesome bass sound.

Deathspell Omega - Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice

I've been loving this album a lot recently. The atmosphere and lyrics are helluva insane and beautiful. A little grievance I have is the abrupt transition from chanting back to full-on blasting in Carnal Malefactor, where I find it breaks the haunting atmosphere, but I can live with it.

And I've also been looping "Third Prayer" a ton, that riffing is amazing. Sounds a lot like the riff midway into Arckanum's song Þyrpas Ulfar.

Listening to and liking this album.
While I'm not exactly a fan of power metal, I'm a huge Jorn Lande fan since most of his releases are borderline classic rock and that's the genre I grew up on.
Oh, and Russell Allen is godly as usual

I heard that Lady of Winter song and thought it was terrible. Is the rest really that much better?

Seasons of the Wolf - The Reaper

I wouldn't say it's terrible--it's just a bog-standard, boring song that neither excites nor offends.

Makoto Shinkai - Promise

One day, when I get the yens, you will be mine...

It's not unpleasant to listen to, but coming from a supposed professional like Tolkki, the generic song structure, hollow rip off of "Edge of Thorns" and the way it just repeats and repeats the overly harmonized chorus is pretty embarrassing (and something wrong with a lot of power metal since around 2005 or so). Good production and vocals, sure, but it didn't save it for me. Shame people don't use Jorn Lande for more interesting music more often.

That song is one of the "weaker" songs on the album...still, it's far from terrible. I heard it all and Tolkki has thrown some killer riffs in some of these songs.

The song does not rip off Edge of Thorns...okay maybe for like two seconds. Then the song has it's own identity and it's not that bad. It may not be Tolkki's best but it's way better than that turd of an album by Timo Tolkki's Avalon.

Slavland - Lechita

It's a shame this project got absolutely fuck all recognition outside of Poland, there's some really fine stuff here. Some of the best folk instrumentation I've heard in metal, and a lot of really cool riffs to stand aside it. Great stuff.

Cryptopsy - "Crown of Horns" from None So Vile

It had been far too long since I pulled this one off the shelf

Cradle of Filth - Thirteen Autumns and a Widow

Good song, despite being hurt by Cruelty and the Beast's bad production. "Sheeeeeee feared the liiiiiiiight!"

Shame on you.

Darkthrone - Graven Takeheimens Saler

Such a great album.

Sodom - M16

Classic Sodom track, arguably one of their top 3 albums. Love the mix of slow and fast in this album, great mix of melody and heavy thrash.

Extol - Human Frailtie's Grave

It's really interesting how much better I find this album all of a sudden. I used to just regard it as "that brutal Extol album that's good, but samey-sounding." It's amazing how wrong I was after giving it a listen again for the first time in a quite a while. Also, I didn't notice until just now, but the production job on this album is actually one of the best I've ever heard. Every single instrument is so clear and perfectly balanced all the way through.

Bohema - Two Sides of the Coin

Brutal Death from Georgia (country). Highly recommendable for everyone who likes his Brutal Death with an oriental touch.
A solid 3/5

Armour's self-titled. I'm at work. It rules.

THE MATTHEW GOOD BAND - Apparitions

Heard this song on the radio the other day. Can't get it out of my head.

Hate Eternal-Behold Judas

HE tends to be too chaotic but this album reached a perfect balance between brutality, inspired songwriting and a good production. Classif stuff for me one of my favourite brutal dm albums.

Usurpress - Ordained

Good d-beat influenced death metal. Occasional clean vocals are rather annoying though

Kreator - Europe After The Rain

Amazing song, fuck this band is so good.

Riot - Fall Before Me

Outstanding song. Impassioned, rocking metal with the heart and soul of the blues - just that whole blue-collar, swaggering arrogance and open-hearted honesty. Magnetic and entrancing material.

Necrovation - Pulse of Towering Madness

One of the best OSDM-revivals I have ever heard. Damn.

Rage - Soul Survivor

Loving Speak of the Dead. Earned a high scores from me.

Varyag (Варяг) - In Memory (Память)

I actually found this after getting the wrong Arkona, and then seeing this as the bands changed name. Obscure as hell, but I managed to find a download like surprisingly easily and... wow. Talk about a completely fantastic, unexpected surprise. They remind me heavily of Warhead's first album, Defenders of the Blood. Heavy, catchy rhythm riffs accompanied by almost never ending soaring melodic leads, contrasting with angry, pissed off vocals in the Russian language (Warhead's was in Polish, of course, but the result is the same). This is pretty sweet, and if that description interests you try and scour out a link for their album. Awesome.

Drudkh - Estrangement

I don't know why this album used to get a lot of criticism, very little wrong with it.
Its still better than their recent stuff

I know. I'm a horrible person.

NP: Blackguard - "Wasteland" from Firefight

Not sure if the mood hit me just right this morning or what, but I am enjoying this album quite a bit more than what I remember.

Loreena McKennitt - "Night Ride Across the Caucasus"

Sometimes I need a break from all of the heaviness. Really enjoy some of her stuff. Would be great to see her live too.

Mayhem - Buried By Time and Dust [out from the dark rehearsal]

the tape noise/cut-out gets me every time

Really? Big step down from Welcome to the Other Side, Unity and Soundchaser for me. Some fun songs on it for sure, but it always sounded simpler and shallower than the three preceeding. Not as bad as the two that followed it though, ech.

Horrendous - The Womb

I would put Soundchaser about on par, but I really dig how it incorporates a good hunk of the orchestral stuff (probably their best isolated stab at that sorta thing outside of Ghosts) and then still delivers great traditional tracks on the other end. I mean, I like all of these albums, but Unity and especially WttOS had a little bit more trouble keeping my attention for the entire duration. I'm not totally sold on the Smolski era honestly when looking at the big picture, but that album works the best for me.