Album Reviews

French black metal avant-gardists Blut Aus Nord draw parallels between the melodious elements of the band’s past albums and the cosmic space odyssey in the newest endeavor, “Ethereal Horizons”, out via Debemur Morti Productions on November 28, 2025. Throughout the epic sixteenth album, the mastermind behind the creative sonic works "Vindsval" molds a galactic and dimensional experience while leaving the black metal elements at the forefront.
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When members of the Finnish black metal band Sielunvihollinen, Soldau (drums) and Ruttokieli (vocals, all instruments) forged a pact in the year 2021, together they unleashed a new entity under the name of White Rune. Adding another magical musical creation in the sub-genre of melodic and symphonic black metal. The duo returns with their second full-length album, “Eventide on Aurora”, which embraces the second wave of Finnish black metal bands of the early '90s. White Rune’s composition is mainly focused on keyboards, guitar melody hooks, and vampiric shrieks, all of which are the hell-mark of the Nordic frostbitten tradition.
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Back in 2013 Tuomas Saukkonen stated that he stopped al his ongoing projects and start a new band called Wolfheart. But you can't kill your own children that easily, so in 2020 came a new album from his project Dawn Of Solace and out of nowhere came a new album from Before The Dawn in 2023. With on vocals the talented Paavo Laapotti, who competed in the Voice Of Finland in 2022 and became second place. Since 2013 Tuomas released 7 albums with Wolfheart, 3 albums with Dawn Of Solace and now his second since the resurgence with Before The Dawn. That's on average one album each year, how's that for being productive. Here comes 'Cold Flare Eternal'
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After a pretty decent demo ‘Lutum’ Transcending Obscurity, underground savy record label from India picked up this Costa Rican death doom troupe. Perishing’s debut album ‘Malicious Acropolis Unveiled’ fulfills on the promise of those initial recordings.
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'Leo Rising' will be the 12th album by Danko Jones. The Canadian rock band, led by the charismatic singer Danko Jones, is releasing a new hard rock album together with longtime band members drummer Rich Knox and bassist John 'J.C.' Calabrese. Danko Jones remains true to his style; this is a truly powerful, hard-hitting rock 'n' roll album with razor-sharp riffs, pounding rhythms, and infectious hooks. It’s exactly what fans expect from Danko Jones. This might be the best album since his release 'Wild Cat'.
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Tolkien-inspired black metal outfit One of Nine returns with their sophomore release, “Dawn of Iron Shadow”, out via Profound Lore Records since October 31st. The fantasy flair merges the gateways of epic, glorious atmosphere that evoke bands like Summoning and Stormkeep. One of Nine Aesthetics invokes the medieval tales of Middle-earth, but it is also steeped in the essence of the second wave of 90s black metal.
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Northern Silence Productions presents the highly anticipated first full-length album “When Night Rode Across the North” by the Swedish symphonic and melodic black metal formation Haimad. The band was established in 1994 and released its demo "A Dream Vision Vanished" one year later but before going on a long hiatus, Haimad released two EPs: “The Horned Moon”, and “Majestic” capturing an epic quality in the vein of Odium, Emperor, Mactätus, Obtained Enslavement, and Covenant.
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Switzerland’s Coroner is one of the staples in the thrash metal scene since the early 80s. The band has been among my favorite acts, a part of Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Alastis, and Samael. Coroner proved to be undisputedly relevant due to their distinctive style of combining technical guitar arrangements with maximum solid aggression. Over the three decades, Coroner released five studio albums, the raw sound that distinguished the debut full-length album “R.I.P.”, and other landmark studio records such as “Punishment for Decadence”, “No More Color”, and “Mental Vortex” served as a guide for the early wave of thrash metal.
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It’s been a good four years since Perturbator’s latest album. As the brainchild of James Kent, Perturbator has been at the forefront of the so called synthwave genre together with the likes of Carpenter Brut since 2012.
With a background in black metal, the man has explored the depths of eighties styled electronic music, creating soundtracks to sci fi cyberpunk movies that has never actually been filmed. Albums like ‘I Am the night’ or ‘Dangerous Days’ are today considered as essential classics in the genre. As it often goes with pioneers, they tend to tire at some point of the genre they helped create. With Kent this was especially apparent on the previous album ‘Lustful Sacraments’, where he distanced himself from the Terminator style cyberpunk tropes the genre has become synonymous with
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One of the real revelations for me this year for sure must have been the haunting witch doom of Frayle. The duo from Cleveland consisting of Sean Bilovesky and Gwyn Strang took me completely by surprise on their stint at Alcatraz this year. Now, as such this is not a new band. This dynamic duo already has a slew of EPS and 2 full lengths to their name since their inception nine years ago.
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