Sheol

Intersting, Thy Darkened Shade's "Liber Lvcifer" was damn good, as was their track on the 4-way split with Mortuus, Abigor and Nightbringer.

A intro better be real fucking special for me to not consider it filler and skippable. Case in point, Atlantean Kodex - Course of Empire. Listen how the intro "The Alpha And The Occident" seamlessly segues into track 2 "The people of the Moon" at 2:11 min. And the into is warranted because keeping them as one track would make the song unnecessary long if you just want to get straight into the meat and potatoes of "People...". And yes, this is perhaps the most flawless album I've heard, at least in the past 5 years. It's simply amazing from start to finish.

Holy fucking shit man, that was great! I've actually seen several of your album covers; Marrowfields and Afterbirth specifically. "Victory" and "Justice" are both really evocative, feels like many of your images tell a story, a before and an after, if you know what I mean? I understand the selfdoubt and not being satisfied with the end results, but if there's anything I've learned from my more talented artist-friends is that they're never fucking happy with anything, so you're not alone. But I also know that as a consumer I can derive great pleasure and satisfaction from something, even if the creator hates it

Ninkharsag - The Dread march of solemn gods UK black metal of the more modern sort. Kind of like a mix of Dark Funeral, Naglfar, with some traces of Norwegian scene thrown in. Halfway through and I'm digging it. Good riffs and focus on tight songwriting. SPectral Lore - Don't let the ugly as fuck cover scare you off, Spectral Lore once again prove to be one of the most talented bands in black metal. It's a long album, and requires some time invested, but IMO it's worth it.

Just wanted to say that Ketola was incredibly talented. His art felt very primal and emotional. He was also good at employing different techniques and styles. Unlike say Mariusz Lewandowski or Eliran Kantor who have a very distinct style and often emply the same tropes, Ketola was more chamelon like. I was legit surprised that some of the artwork I knew very well was made by him.

So are your art or bands publicly known here on the forum or would you rather stay anonymous? Just curios.

Celestial Sword / Erzfeynd - Split Celestial Sword are damn good, but Erzfeynd are even better! Really impressive given that he's a debuting artist. "Hasz" is just a delight to listen to.

As someone who has gotten a lot of his order from UK lately, I feel you man. Ever since Brexit, Swedish customs are quick to slap on a €7-9 VAT on every package as well. Ouch.

Agreed, I've heard some excellent live gigs by extreme bands, and often when it sucked it was down to a combination of no soundcheck or sound guy/girl being clueless. Oh and the room acoustis. Some venues are just bad for live sound.

Is this the band you mean? If so I really enjoyed "What a time to be alive", dumb and brutal, just like it should be.

Hey, I really enjoyed this one. Thanks! Kankar is "cancer" in German I think

Hahaha, yeah Ulvers early catalogue is something else. You could tell be "Kveldsanger" that they were destined for living outside the box. And then "The marrige of heaven and hell" dropped. 😮

I'm sure there's been psychological papers and armchair analyses of this, but I think suppression and oppression makes you appreciate highly emotional culture more. We Scandinavians aren't the most emotionally expressive people (that's what alcohol is for), no big flourishes or dramatic outbursts generally. So I think metal, being extremely dramatic and emotional, is indeed as a pressure valve for many of us. Same with the fervor of enthusiasm that South American and east Asian fans are known for, both regions with very strong societal or religious pressure of conformity. Sure, I'm generalising, but I think you know what I mean.

Current? Oof, that's hard. But right this second; Atlantean Kodex Saidan Spectral Wound The Suns Journey Through The Night Ancient Mastery

Got these babies delivered yesterday.

Hm, doom/death? There's def. elements of doom, but I seem to remember that the type of riffs and vocals was more black than death. But I guess maybe that's just my subjective memory. Judge for yourself

So I restarted the computer and reinstalled Firefox and now it works. Just a weird glitch I guess.

1914 - Where fear and weapons meet October 22, presumably on Napalm Records. "Blind leading the blind" was my favorite album of 2018 so I'm really looking forward to the follow up. For those unaware, 1914 is an Ukrainian black metal band (no Nazi) that mainly sing about WW1. They're not the rawest, nor the most commercial, but straddles that nice middle ground of being memorable while still being fucking intense.

I got the black vinyl delivered to my door today (together with Wayfarers "A romance with violence") so I just had to take a break from work and put on "Frigid and Spellbound". Well, one thing led to another and I've now listened through the whole album. Man this is so fucking good it's ridiculous. Harsh, blasting, but still tons of melodies and groove. I don't know how they pull it off!

When I first heard Transilvanian hunger it was pretty shocking, the production was rawer than anything I've ever heard and I dropped it like a hot potato. Then some year later I for some reason started to listen to it again and it just clicked. The vocals and guitar riffs were just so perfectly melded with the production. I'm not a huge fan of the punk-infused era of DT, in my ears they made a "come back" with Arctic Thunder and Old Star. I sometimes wonder what would've happened had they continued on the path of Soulside Journey; that one is a fantastic early death metal album IMO.

Joe Cat-riani confirmed.

Some possible suggestions: Anaal Nathrakh - Front Front - Antichrist militia https://frontofficial.bandcamp.com/track/antichrist-militia The Monolith Deathcult - The Fist of Stalin And of course, there's Bolt Thrower - Anti tank (dead armour)

New Djevel track from the upcoming Tanker som rir natten. One thing I've always liked about Djevel is that their songtitles are about as trve as you can get. Just take this track title: The moon shall be my eyes, the burning star my legs, and here I shall wander for all time (Maanen skal være mine øine, den skinnende stierne mine ben, og her skal jeg vandre til evig tid) Here's another new gem Celestial Sword / Erzfeynd split album https://celestialsword.bandcamp.com/album/celestial-sword-erzfeynd-split CS is doing his usual raw black metal of high quality, but Erzfeynd. Oh man, for a completly new artist this is some top notch stuff. Keep an eye on him! He's got another split with Rraumm out on Ván records, and an EP on the way. Gate Master / Reign Split https://thetruereign.bandcamp.com/album/gate-master-reign-split Splits seem to have become really popular in the past few years, and I like it. A good way to sample bands, and often not boring enough to make me tap out like a full length might. This split is hella fun. One track each from each band, then two collaborations. I'm not familiar with Gate Master previously, but he did real good. Reign is one of my favourite black metal one-man bands to emerge from U.K. in the past 5 years.

So does anyone else just get a blank formatting bar when writing posts in Firefox? See image. I tried with Chrome and that worked fine, so it's not the forum that's broken. Anyone else? I'm running version 88.0

Well shit, I forgot that Empire of the Moon and Kawir were Greek. Αδράστεια and Έκλειψις were excellent and on my 2019 AOTY list. I've heard good things about Macabre Omen too, but they never really grabbed me.