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    Kult of Taurus - Divination Labyrinths (2013)

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    Arriving from Greece, today we have Kult of Taurus and their savage debut full-length release “Divination Labyrinths”. Featuring eight crushing Black Metal tracks, this release is as raw and decadent as humanly possible. This album should become a staple of the filthiest Black Metal that is enhanced with weird atmospheric elements. Said atmospheric weirdness pushes the band’s sound from average to attention demanding in a few seconds.

    Immediately after the typical mood-setting intro, “Channeling End” delivers some incisive Black Metal riffs that will stick on your head for days. The sound is quite raw and direct, allowing the band to have that late 90’s feeling to it. Continuing with “The Light That Divides The Earth”, the music is quite crude, just like old-school BM should be. With harsh shrieks, tight drumming, and punishing riffs, Kult of Taurus might not be extremely original but they get the job done.

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    The Negation – Paths of Obedience (2013)

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    Arriving from French Black Metal horde The Negation, today we have their debut full-length release titled “Paths of Obedience”. Featuring a relentless Black Metal onslaught, this album provides more evidence of the resurgent French Black Metal scene that has produced bands like Glorior Belli, Merrimack, Vorkreist and countless others. Filled with intensity and atmospheric sickness, this release is one hell of a ride.

    Opening with the punishing “Red Wrath”, the band immediately jumps into war mode with bestial drumming, incisive riffing, and demoralizing vocals. Mixing high-octane drumming with relentless guitars, the band brings devastation to the table since the first minute. The release gets more and more punishing as tracks like “Erased”, “One Good”, and “Lost For Ever” steamroll through the listener.

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    Solar Halos – Solar Halos (2014)

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    Arriving from the South of the USA, today we have Solar Halos and their self-titled debut album to be released on UK’s Devouter Records. Featuring six fuzzy and warm Psychedelic/Stoner Rock tracks, this trio delivers a top notch release that will instantly put them on the map. Led by the hypnotic vocals of Nora Rogers, this band sounds like a more accessible Jex Thoth with some Spirit Caravan thrown into the mix.

    Opening with fuzzy distorted guitars, “The Vast White Plains” fully showcases the band’s sonic power. The music tempo is quite mellow and very bluesy. In “Tunnels” we dive deeper into the rabbit hole with warm riffs and very fitting vocals. The trio has expert songwriting skills and they show through the perfectly timed tempo changes in their songs, as we can clearly appreciate on “Migration”.

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    Hail Spirit Noir – Oi Magoi (2014)

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    Featuring 60% of the members of Transcending Bizarre?, Hail Spirit Noir delivers their sophomore release with “Oi Magoi”. Featuring a very intriguing and elegant mixture of Psychedelic Rock, Progressive Black Metal, and some magical Avant-garde elements, this release blooms for over 45 minutes of truly unique sonic landscapes.

    The release blasts opens with the psychedelically charged “Blood Guru”, a track that is quite well layered and allows all the band’s influences to immediately shine through. The elegant finish to this song oozes melodic brilliance and posture. It is quite interesting to hear elements from bands like Jess and the Ancient Ones and Jex Thoth thrown into tracks like “Demon for a Day” and “Satan is Time”, allowing Hail Spirit Noir to be one of the few bands that mixes Psychedelic Rock elements to create Avant-garde Black Metal.

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    Aenaon – Extance (2014)

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    Delivering their most high-octane release to date, Aenaon returns with the punishing “Extance”. Hailing from Greece, this band has managed to push the boundaries of Black Metal with their previous efforts and this one is no different. Mixing Avant-garde/Jazzy elements into a well-structured Progressive Black Metal core, this release sees the band further refining their craft into near perfection through the 11 songs presented here.

    The band’s incisive riffing and commanding vocals are immediately felt with the intro “The First Art” blending into “Deathtrip Chronicle”. Excelling in creating killer guitar melodies, Aenaon has managed to further refine their sound since “Cendres et Sang”. The tempo changes and vocal arrangements are other factors that make the band’s music instantly be recognized. The Avant-garde weirdness we love form the band starts to shine with the upbeat “Grau Diva” and its intricate arrangements.

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    tot aus dem Wald – Hatecore-Noir (2013)

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    Arriving from Germany, today we have a one-man deranged project of pure musical vile. Featuring 11 tracks that range from Noise to Punk to Death Metal/Grindcore, this release is as decadent and random as they get… and we kind of like it. With only one track over 2.40 minutes, “Hatecore-Noir” is a crazy d.i.y release that is guaranteed to get a reaction (good or bad).

    Featuring intros similar to bands like Macabre on some of their songs, tot aus dem Wald starts the homebrewed proceedings with “Null im schwarzen Quadrat”. While most of the music seems like pure and total chaos, there are traces of certain Metal elements in the band’s music that are undeniably solid like the riffing on “Fahrstuhl ins Fegeteuer” and “Keiner darf überleben”. One very evident influence as well is the Punk/Crust vibe oozing from tracks like “Der Tod, ein einsames Geschaft” and “Zukunft verbraucht”.

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    Australasia – Vertebra (2013)

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    After a half-baked debut album “Sin4tr4” in 2012, Australasia returns with the very strong “Vertebra”. Combining dreamy soundscapes with ethereal guitars and solid drumming, this one-man outfit delivers 35 minutes of majestic music that fully explore Australasia’s potential in a more cohesive way.

    Opening with the Post-Rock-ish “Aorta”, the band shows more solid songwriting skills and delivers very improved songs (when comparing to their debut release). The guitars are perfectly layered and with certain Shoegaze elements we are left with ton of highlights during the release. The experimentation with certain synth elements like the opening of “Vostok”, really give the music new avenues to explore and be unique, similar to bands like Closed Room. We particularly love the heavy Doom-influenced riffs on this track.

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    The Fall From Grace – The Colours of Change (2013)

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    Dancing around the fine line between Alternative Rock / Post-Hardcore and the dreaded Metalcore, The Fall From Grace manages to deliver a multi-textured and well-crafted release with “The Colours of Change”. Hailing from Denmark, this three-piece crushes the competition with catchy and powerful tunes that will be stuck in your head for days to come.

    The album really opens with the second track titled “Static Conclusion”. Immediately you get that guitar tunning that tons of Post-Hardcore and some Metalcore bands use, but the band stays away from the clichés and carves their own path with incisive riffs and very diverse vocals. The vocals are quite solid, providing a mix of screams and clean leads that are far from your average (and annoying) Metalcore blabber.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Hecate Enthroned – Virulent Rapture (2013)

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    After a 9 year ‘hibernation’ period, Hecate Enthroned returns with one of the biggest surprises of 2013: “Virulent Rapture”. Always living under the stigma of a CoF clone band, this band was long discarded by us with some of their more ‘experimental’ releases over the years before dropping out of the map in 2004. When we got this promo, curiosity got the best of us and we decided to give it a spin… blowing us away since the first track.

    Opening in a bombastic manner with “Thrones of Shadow”, the band indeed still sounds a bit like CoF used to do back in the day, with the huge difference than Hecate Enthroned is now 10 times better than CoF. The growls and shrieks, courtesy of new vocalist Elliot Beaver, are top notch and nicely elevate the intensity level of the already well-crafted symphonic music. Never leaving the aggressive Death Metal elements aside, tracks like “Unchained” are equal parts brutality to melody. The drumming is quite massive and the overall melodic-yet-aggressive vibe is super in songs like “Abyssal March” and the brilliant “Plagued by Black Death”, one of our favorites of this release.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Strangeways - Rotting under the La La Bombs (2013)

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    Always expecting the unexpected, today we have a very unconventional and rather unique release from Strangeways titled “Rotting under the La La Bombs”. Hailing from Israel, this duo produces one of the most dissonant and yet coherent releases we have reviewed in the last few months. With punishing Black Metal sections thrown into some Noise/samples experimentations, the band instantly establishes their uniqueness since the first minute of this release.

    “Licking the Pussy of Mother Earth” immediately blows things wide open with excruciating Black Metal onslaughts filled with weird samples and tormentous vocals. The riffing is quite powerful and the combination of madness and devastation will immediately fuck with your head. The cool glitching sounds of “BloodRedArt” will surely confuse you on the first spin, but you will soon find out that is all part of the madness in this release. Other tracks feature weird atmospheric elements like on “Manifesto” that has a brilliant section of typing (yeah you read it right) and lush piano notes that is simply amazing.

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