“Endinghent” is an album full of alien and otherworldly dissonant, technical death metal. The murky and cavernous death metal trappings that were present on Altarage’s previous album, “Nihil,” have been transmuted into mechanical chaos, with sinister angular riffing on “Endinghent.” Besides the evolution in production quality, which is pristine and pure, the band have matured further in their technical prowess that now grants the songs a more tortured and alienating aspect to them. Altarage have yet again birthed an ominously dark and foreboding album that this time oozes inhuman, sterile menace beyond just sounding like a monstrosity clamoring about in a cave.

https://altarage.bandcamp.com/album/endinghent

I sure wasn’t expecting an existential black metal album based on a fantasy book which explores the mind’s ability to cope with pain. Each of the four songs about the doors to the mind: sleep, forgetting, madness, and death are introduced with spoken word which can at times be profound or unintentionally awkward and funny. Besides pushing the thematic boundaries on “The Four Doors of the Mind,” Dynfari also pushes their sonic pallet further to the blurred extremes. The songs vary and flow from warmly hued black metal, emotive guitar atmospherics, crushing guitars, and at times soundscapes that verge on post-metal airy epicness. Dynfari have evolved and emerged out of their early black metal Icelandic roots into an entity that has a truly special musical vision.

https://dynfari.bandcamp.com/album/the-four-doors-of-the-mind

The “Shores of Mourning” album is a sorrowful affair with somber but transcendentally soaring songs. Cascadian black metal filtered through melancholic folk with a dash of early 1990s English doom characterizes Isenordal’s glorious sound. However, it is the way Isenordal compose and craft their songs into a journey for the listener that breathes life into the typical grandiose black metal meets acoustic guitars with soaring violins cliche. Also the incredibly sublime pairing of raspy black metal vocals with angelic vocals is another metal trope that has been overwrought with failure, but Isenordal again shine and conquer it with pure conviction and passion. Honestly, not sure how much further Isenordal can advance their sound, but the “Shores of Mourning” the have released the genre defining album for Cascadian blackened folk doom.

Almyrkvi is yet another incredible black metal band to rise out of the fertile Icelandic scene. On “Umbra,” Almyrkvi deliver a mesmerizing mix of haunting melancholic black metal and glacially voluminous sonic soundscapes. The vocals also alternate between extremes with clean vocals transforming into roaring hellish growls as songs build and transmutate. Thematically, “Umbra” delves into the cold vastness of space and the cosmos with tracks like “Stellar Winds of A Dying Star,” and “Forlorn Astral Ruins.” The music perfectly reflects the vastness and loneliness of space with melodic, grandiose black metal bleakness and overwhelming spacious doom. “Umbra” is a hymn to black desolate void and the cosmically fertile possibilities.

https://almyrkvi.bandcamp.com/

Utterly vile. Primal. A sonic abasement to the senses. Caustic.

https://primitivemandoom.bandcamp.com/album/caustic

Infectiously discordant, brutal and unhinged riff work is the backbone of the “In Passing Ascension” album. Now couple the incredible guitar work with abrasive guttural vocals, that are actually understandable, and it provides a perfect blackened death oft-kilter album. Even with the discordant riffage, the songs grow organically and twist and turn onto themselves in a very catchy, memorable, and fun manner. A new age of brutal, technical death metal seems to be upon the metal community and Suffering Hour is leading the pack into a new brutal era.

https://sufferinghour.bandcamp.com/releases

When a corpse painted black metal dude shrieks in the forest does anybody hear him? When a black metal band creates a musical masterpiece and nobody has a chance to listen to it, is it still a masterpiece? At the edge of kvlt blackness lives Lord Vast of Lluvia. He conceives incredible, eerie, atmospheric black metal that he doesn’t want anyone to listen to unless they have the purest of black souls. “Engima” was released as a triple album box set with no song titles and limited to only 30 tapes. Even with the black metal elitism flying high, “Enigma” is one of the most mesmerizing, atmospheric, and trance inducing black metal albums to be crafted in the 2000s. Every song is it’s own labyrinthine epic with eerie, ambient movements flowing into furious black metal that is desolate and haunting. It is such a shame, an album with such amazing qualities and grandeur will never leave the trve klvt underground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VQw2VSThSo&list=PLiTuFdElnBgpngsgzG1IbOx07RpUDNG1s

N[]O is a Ukrainian black metal band with the worst band name in the world. Is their name pronounced “NO” or “N bracket O” or is the “N and O silent?” Who knows or cares, because they write brilliant music with every song and musical note on “Adrestia” which is dripping with raw passion and an emotive quality. The band released this statement about the album, “Adrestia is the feeling of despair and hopeless anger at the world and humankind. Take on this despondent journey and join the losing fight against the world and the self.” This perfectly summarizes the songs on the album, especially songs like “The Inferior” and “The Other,” with their raging, vicious and plaintive vocals, intricate black metal, powerful post-metal swirling synths, and biting lyrics. N[]O have conceived a stunning and sublime album that is transcendent and introspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_-MTYd6i3Q

I totally adore the music underground, it keeps delivering incredible bands that flow from every corner of the world. Before this year, Dvne was a totally unknown band to me and I only found out about them since they are playing at Psycho Fest. Dvne come from Scotland, and have released two prior eps before this album. With “Ashern,” Dvne have crafted a tour de force of sprawling stoner, progressive sludge that just bleeds with raw emotions and a passion that is undeniable. Dvne assembles the progressive influences from Mastodon, Kylsea, and a wee bit of Neurosis, with a huge swathe of stoner, groove vibes. The result is pure sonic bliss with a massive sound which is earth shattering spacious but nuanced, and delicate when it needs to be. Dvne have conceived and encapsulated a stunning album with “Ashern” that verges on a timelessness quality.

https://songs-of-arrakis.bandcamp.com/album/asheran

Spellbinding, free flowing stream of consciousness music that ebbs and flows with the legendary Michael Gira orchestrating every nuance and climax. “Deliquescence” is like a 1950’s revivalistic church ceremony that hypnotizes and scares a redemption of oneself. Subsuming to the visceral power and journey of the songs is the main draw for all Swans music, but “Deliquescence” resonates and succeeds with an incredible performance by musicians at the top of their craft. Always on the edge of musical ecstasy or falling into a chaotic quagmire, this album ends yet another brilliant chapter for the Swans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEguGPXg0IE

Horrifyingly heavy. Unnervingly heavy. The ominous waves of claustrophobic doom induced dirges and vocal yowling is untouchable and chilling. As wretched and dismally bleak, the soundscape forged contains super catchy riffs and songs that are incredibly hummable in an agonized but glorious manner. Songs ooze and yon with a mindful determination to assault, pummel, and liquify the listener’s sense of reality and time. Hell is beyond harrowing, immense, and immersive which pushes the doom genre boundaries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud9ugr1nCWo