Album Reviews

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Liv Kristine - Amor Vincit Omnia (2025)

    cover

    Returning with her enchanting vocals, today we have Liv Kristine’s latest solo effort “Amor Vincit Omnia”. Featuring eleven tracks and nearly 45 minutes of music, this release was composed with Sascha Dannenberger, creating very enchanting compositions that are slightly different from her previous release, but yet deliver her signature sound. Filled with melancholy and very captivating, this release masterfully showcases the magic of Liv Kristine.

    Opening with the album title track, we start strong with playful guitars, solemn vocal interludes, and a bit of a mixture of very old-school Theater of Tragedy (thanks to the harsh vocals) and the more modern influences of Liv Kristine’s latest solo efforts. This melodramatic tone continues through the dramatic “Ode to Life Pristine”, the melancholic and very dreamy “12th February”, and the catchiness of “Angel in Disguise”. Sascha perfectly leverages Liv’s vocal harmonies to create very engaging and powerful tracks that are very direct and effective.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Ahamkara - The Harrow of the Lost (2025)

    cover

    Hailing from the UK, today we have Atmospheric Black Metal outfit Ahamkara, with their sophomore release “The Harrow of the Lost”. With a more than 10 year gap between releases, this outfit nicely delivers four tracks and over 42 minutes of music that blends elements from outfits like Saor, Fen, Fellwarden, and Panopticon. Creating a very organic and effective sound, this band masterfully crafts immersive atmospheres that will capture the listener’s attention.

    Creating a very mellow and intoxicatingly bleak atmosphere, “The Circle of Remembrance” opens this release with a slow burning approach that quickly is flanked by piercing riffs and harrowing harsh vocals. Austin Lunn of Panopticon fame handles the drums in this release, keeping things tight and very versatile as each track changes moods. The band’s atmospherics are subtle and never overbearing, thanks to Alexandra Blenkarn-Durning keyboards and effects, like on “Our Scars Shall Abide In The Thaw”, a very elegant track that blends in fierceness with Alcest-like dreaminess.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Messa - The Spin (2025)

    cover

    Facing the herculean task of following up to their ground-breaking release “Close”, Messa returns with “The Spin” and manages to shake things up enough to create awe and excitement. After heavily touring the world after their previous release, the band took a different approach when recording this album, and managed to deliver another Doomy/Jazzy/Proggy offering with a few interesting surprises.

    Quickly turning heads, the release opens with “Void Meridian”, a mysterious track that while having some of the band’s signature elements, it also introduces some intense Darkwave/Goth Rock vibes. With an eerie The Sisters of Mercy meets Tribulation meets Soror Dolorosa, the opener and “At Races”, and “Fire on the Roof” showcase the band’s on a different light, making them more dynamic and perfectly complementing their already hypnotic style. Sara Bianchin’s vocals are a perfect fit for such a style and are as haunting as ever, particularly on the solemn “Immolation”.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Epica - Aspiral (2025)

    cover

    Damn, it is the first word that comes to mind when listening to Epica’s latest effort “Aspiral”. Just when you think that a band can’t get any better, this Dutch outfit returns with eleven tracks and over an hour of some of their most explosive and bombastic music. Filled with signature Epica-style moments and tons of melody and catchiness, this release completely surpasses the level of awesomeness that the band delivered a few years back with “Omega”.

    Instantly opening with the banger “Cross the Divide”, the band fully immerses the listener into their world of dramatic orchestrations, lush guitar work, and a very hectic and yet digestible pace that is masterfully led by Simone Simons talented vocals. In a very epic fashion, the band perfectly blends dramatic choirs with crafty tempo changes. Creating mesmerizing songs like “Arcana”, “Darkness Dies in Light - A New Age Dawns Part VII”, and the super bombastic and catchy “Fight to Survive - The Overdrive Effect”, one of their best tracks to date.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Rotting Christ - 35 Years of Evil Existence - Live in Lycabettus (2025)

    cover

    Celebrating their 35 years of existence, Rotting Christ is unleashing a 25-track live release of their show in Lycabettus. If you have never seen the band live, the Tolis duo (and live musicians) always deliver a raw and powerful hypnotic experience that is very hard to describe. Luckily for all, this release brilliantly captures that energy and showcases the band’s very diverse and constantly evolving musical style with most of their popular songs.

    Not banking on having an overproduced release, but rather a more organic and direct approach, this live release showcases the band’s crowd interaction and live antics that brings songs to life in slightly different versions (to the studio ones), as one can hear on “Sorrowful Farewell”, “Dies Irae”, and “Shadows Follow”, some of our personal favorite tracks. However, all those sick riffs and melodic passages are always there, and we can’t help ourselves from starting to headbang here and there.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    In the Woods… - Otra (2025)

    cover

    As one of our favorite bands back in the late 90’s, In the Woods… is a band that has always been evolving and rediscovering themselves. Even with Anders Kobro being the only original member, “Otra” delivers yet another masterful release of highly melancholic Metal music with a healthy mix of melody and heaviness. Featuring seven tracks and 46 minutes of music, the band returns with their signature style and plenty of catchiness to release one of the most intoxicating releases of 2025.

    Opening with “The Things You Shouldn't Know”, you get a healthy mix of the band’s ‘newer’ emotional sensitivities with fast paced heavy passages that bring back the “Omnio” and “Heart of the Ages” feeling. Bernt Fjellestad’s vocals again deliver those very dramatic and hypnotic clean vocals that he surprised everybody with on “Diversum”, after James Fogarty left the band. At first we were skeptical of this change, but he has demonstrated both live with the old material, and on the new studio album that he was the perfect fit for the job.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Fractal Universe - The Great Filters (2025)

    cover

    Masterfully crafting intoxicating Progressive/Technical Death Metal songs, today we have Fractal Universe and their excellent “The Great Filters”. As the band’s fourth full-length release, this album unleashes nine tracks and over 46 minutes of perfectly balanced musicianship with melody and a good dose of heaviness. For fans of bands like Leprous and Opeth, to heavier outfits like Obscura and Allegaeon, this release has a bit for everybody with refined taste.

    Opening with the proggy goodness of “The Void Above”, we get masterfully layered guitars and crafty tempo changes alongside a hearty growl and a very clean and direct atmosphere. This track has some serious Leprous vibes that gently make their way into most of the release, as heard on tracks like “The Great Filter”, “Causality’s Grip”, and “The Seed of Singularity”, nicely enhancing the band’s range and keeping things very lively and engaging.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Allegaeon - The Ossuary Lens (2025)

    cover

    Continuing their crushing onslaught to the top levels of Technical/Melodic Death Metal, today we have Allegaeon and their latest opus “The Ossuary Lens”. Featuring ten tracks and nearly 45 minutes of blistering music, this release further refines the band’s high-octane sound, while infusing some new elements and marks the return of their original vocalist Ezra Haynes. With a focus on creating engaging songs and delivering maximum brutality, the band manages to unleash their finest release to date.

    After the atmospheric “Refraction”, the band instantly means business with the punishing “Chaos Theory”. This track sets a very hectic pace thanks to its insane riffing and crafty drumming. The band has never focused on creating complex tracks just for the sake of it, like others in the genre, but rather deliver a perfectly balanced mixture of musicianship, melody and brutality, as “Driftwood”, “Dies Irae” and “The Swarm” showcase.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Alien Weaponry - Te Rā (2025)

    cover

    Showing that their impressive momentum after “Tangaroa” was no fluke, New Zealanders Alien Weaponry return with the blistering “Te Rā”. As one of the loudest and more direct Groove Metal bands in the scene, these guys perfectly blend additional elements in the Djent and Progressive Metal realms to create eleven tracks of high-octane music. Full of attitude and authenticity, the band’s overall vibe is a masterful mixture of haka and crushing Metal riffs.

    Opening with the blistering “Crown”, the band immediately hooks the listener with a superbly catchy riff that carries the track from start to finish. The vocals and drumming perfectly complement the band’s high-octane opening move and set the mood for the rest of this intense release. With “Mau Moko”, “1000 Friends”, and “Hanging by a Thread”, this outfit cranks out masterful guitar melodies alongside crafty tempo changes to create a very unique and engaging style, that could be described as a mixture of Jinjer with Into Eternity.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Hanging Garden - The Unending (2025)

    cover

    Always evolving and delivering some interesting Gothic/Doom Metal music, today we have Finland’s Hanging Garden and their engaging “The Unending” EP release. Settling in new members over the last few years, has allowed the band to add extra influences to their music and stay more active, releasing a couple of EP’s since their last full-length release. If you like Doom/Gothic Metal with that Finnish edge, you will certainly love this release.

    Opening with the playful “To Seize the Night”, the band sets a very lively tempo, giving us some Theatre of Tragedy vibes from their “Aegis”/”Musique” days. This track is quite entertaining with its crafty clean vocal arrangements and its very melancholic nature. Moving into catchier territories, “The Passage” has a certain Melodic Death Metal edge to it, perfectly complemented by Riikka Hatakka’s dreamy vocals and Toni Hatakka’s harsh growls.

Pages

Recent Image Galleries