Interview with A.A. Nemtheanga of Verminous Serpent (Primordial, The Nest, Dread Sovereign, Blood Revolt…)

This is a more brief discussion that took place over the course of a week with the venerable and fervorous A.A. Nemtheanga with the intention of poking and prodding into the intentions and ideas of his newest group, Verminous Serpent. I had an early listening promo and spent nearly two weeks straight listening to it, munching on their blend of bestial black/death metal which draws from the wells of the underground and early adopters aforementioned below… I intended to have this up a month ago, while 'The Malign Covenant' was striking the anvil hot, but life happened and I gulped down a barrage of work and other responsibilities which halted my progress in getting this up. I digress, it was my pleasure delving into this brief conversation with A.A. and I thank him for his time and patience. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes, so read on and educate.

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SHOM) First off, thanks for taking time out of your very involved life to blow some smoke regarding your newest project, Verminous Serpent and the debut album, ‘The Malign Covenant’ out on Amor Fati as of today (while I write this)… Feel free to open this up anyway you'd like.

A.A.) If you like nasty, bestial analog old school black/death metal, go for it… check the link to the album!

SHOM) What is the genesis story of Verminous Serpent, and when and how did this trident of metal veterans come to take its shape?

A.A.) Matt from Malthusian had the idea. He and I were jamming one day during the lockdown, and it came from there. He asked Joey from Slidhr and we started to put things together. No magical mystical meeting, and it took some shape and here we are. 

SHOM) The entirety of ‘The Malign Covenant’ is rife with a primitive and feral energy, sonically the mix of the instruments carries the same weight as a live performance and feels both raw and compelling in the same sense—What was the recording process like on The Malign Covenant? Was there any file trading in the early stages or were most of the decisions fleshed out in person in a rehearsal setting?

A.A.) We rehearsed together, old school. I wont trade files for any band I'm in, and neither are the guys interested in that. Has to be a human process. We hired a good studio, with a live room, went in, set up in the same room, blasted through the album in 2 takes… and used the first. All done in about 4/5 hours maybe. Overdubbed a few guitars and the vocals, mixed it. Done and dusted probably in about 16 hours proper work.

SHOM) Verminous Serpent exists somewhere between the death/black metal canopy—The overarching sound being something unfettered and bestial, do you find a different kind of catharsis in playing this type of sound over some of your other bands? Does this new sound open up different pathways of exploration for you in any creative sense?

A.A.) Not really… my influences for this were the same as they were in 1991/92 starting out with Primordial, we just took a slightly different path. For me it's kinda like returning to where I came from. The catharsis of course exists as we made this in lockdown, its a record full of anger and intensity. The main difference for me is really bass and vocals. I'm always open to creating with new people and in new environments with different goals. Life is short, get busy. 

Photo courtesy of Amor Fati Productions

SHOM) I really enjoyed what came from Blood Revolt—'Indoctrine' exists, in my opinion, as something wholly unique in the space of bestial death metal—Though the "signature" A.A. vocal delivery is still present throughout those songs, did you go into writing everything on 'The Malign Covenant' knowing you were going to explore new territory within your vocals or was it more of a byproduct of what seemed right within the desired tone and sound of Verminous Serpent?

A.A.) Well I knew (we all agreed) it shouldn't have any of my signature vocal sound, and once that was agreed upon… it was just a case of finding this new tone. I took a lot of influence from all the old Brazilian and South American bands, and Eastern European stuff from the late 80's. 

SHOM) This "signature vocal sound" nearly casts a shadow in the closing seconds of the album opener, 'Seraphim Falls', but instead yields to something more primitive and in a higher register. It sounds cool—In the earlier stages of Verminous Serpent were you experimenting with these types of vocal nuances or were you focused on keeping it more orthodox and within the range and influence of the South American and Eastern European stuff of the 80's?

A.A.) Well we all agreed at the beginning that it couldn't be my, what would we call it… signature voice—another band with the same tone, so we had to steer clear of it completely—Yet it also had to not be like my 'brutal' voice in Primordial either, so my intention was to always have this kinda old school obscure old style vocals and after a few experiments I got there. But also to give that tone some diversity as well, mix it up… so it had its own character, and without a doubt also me, but a different side. In the beginning really, we were concentrating on getting the songs together, the vocals weren't really first on the agenda.

SHOM) What were the explored themes and lyrical focus on 'The Malign Covenant'?

Photo Courtesy of Amor Fati Productions

A.A.) Just to set the tone, there is no specific statement being made, they are a texture, but of course dark. They are mainly (vaguely) alluding to religious, medieval occultism, secret societies, etc. But what I also wanted to do was have a flow of words based on the sounds, you might call it Onomatopoeia, a stream of consciousness to convey an overall atmosphere with no real grammatical structure. Which is why on the back of the album the lyrics are all in one long sentence.

SHOM) As a follow-up, could you illuminate the idea behind the album cover?

A.A.) Basically I collect interesting images all the time. I keep them in a folder and when I'm creating something and need an image, you never know, something might make sense… so that's what happened here.

This is if I am not mistaken a pencil drawing created some time in the early 19th century by an artist trying to depict the Black Death coming to the town centuries before. Seemed to make sense.

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This is where we cut it off, short and sweet—No more, no less. If you got to this point, I thank you for keeping the underground lit! Thanks once again to Amor Fati and Alan. A. for taking the time to engage. Give this monster of an album a listen—One of the years best!

Verminous Serpent - The Malign Covenant (bandcamp)

Amor Fati Productions (bandcamp)

Fōr - The Life Feeding Flame (2021)

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The Life Feeding Flame is an album that has tremendous output sonically, in that its energy is vigorous and full of weight behind it. Seriously this album has an elemental power running through it, like it's been forged through magma rather than written and performed. I don't know how to make sense of that but in the same way bands like Hate Forest, Bølzer and Irkallian Oracle capture and exude a formidable energy, this album manages to do something similar.

It's a potent and ferocious bid at fusing funeral doom and death/black metal, and maybe that's where the source of its strength lies… In its ability to use the slow and heavy moments with the bolstered through a dense and cavernous atmosphere of driven guitars (with a surprising amount of melody behind them) and though the album lingers somewhere between mid-tempo and plodding it's an unrelenting and vicious ritual of the feral side of metal.

Fōr - The Life Feeding Flame (bandcamp)

Hate Forest - Innermost (2022)

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The Unquenchable merchants of aural fury and barbarism ride into the end of the year with a late release of their trademark black metal and its sheer immensity picks up right where 'Hour of the Centaur' left off. Buoyed by the tumult of this year, and no doubt the years prior, intensity and animosity is a palpable force on 'Innermost' as torrents of icy riffs wage war with the galloping bombast of Hate Forests' typical unrelenting blast-beats and of course Romans gruff vocal belt, which atypical for the genre, lends bulk and threat behind its framework.

It's because of releases late in the year like this, that I try to hold off on cementing any type of year end list. The more spins I rack on Innermost, the more it creeps into my list… The riffs are compelling and impactful, and few out there match the primitive velocity Hate Forest conjure. The riff a minute into "Temple Of the Great Eternal Night" is a Bolt Thrower level war anthem!

As of the day of this posting, 'Innermost' is set to be released by Osmose Productions tomorrow, so I don't have a bandcamp link directly to the album, but me and everyone else without an early-listening link have been listening to it through this YouTube link the label provided.

Chasm Shroud - Manna From Heaven (2022)

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You peer into the void. You see nothing, but hear faint sounds in the distance emanating from the yawning maw of black space…

Manna From Heaven came out of nowhere, suddenly appearing (no demos or EP’s prior) and carrying with it some of the most intriguing black metal I’ve heard all year—It’s hard to pin down exactly, but a strange energy circulates here, like it’s been ritually charged and imbued with unknown intent.

The above statement might feel hyperbolic or even trite, but the overall sense is something palpable—An ominous portent of oblique black metal soundscapes reverberating around hypnotic dirges in a hallucinatory haze of frenetic dissonance. NAME YOUR PRICE, don't be a knucklehead!

Chasm Shroud - Manna From Heaven (bandcamp)

Chaotian - Effigies of Obsolescence (2022)

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Denmark’s murky death metal scene has been fertile ground for a death metal sound that I would say is uniquely its own—Purveyors of an atypical cavernous and oblique output with festering guitar chords and drums from hell!

It’s not that these things aren’t being done elsewhere, it’s just that Denmark is on its own level with its own ethos—Similar to New Zealand, Canada, Iceland, etc. Always dynamic and unhinged in a way that is both feral in energy and in production. Listen back to what Phrenelith, Taphos, Sulphurous, Tardus Mortem, Undergang, Septage have done in the last while (hell, listen to Ascendency’s latest EP) and you’ll see what I mean.

I digress, Chaotian's debut album is out in June and it sounds like it’s going to be a putrid pile of nebulous death metal as we’ve come to expect out of Denmark’s quiet, but venerable scene. Take notice and support!

Chaotian -  Effigies of Obsolescence (bandcamp)

Assumption - Hadean Tides (2022)

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In the arenas of doom/death metal, Assumption are a brutish juggernaut of sheer force and gargantuan magnitude, wielding —Hadean Tides was officially uncaged yesterday and its presence is a seismic amalgamation of glacially paced doom with bouts of frenzied death metal peppered throughout.

As I search my skull for fashionable adjectives and pithy aphorisms to describe this I can't help but think of Convocation's debut album "Scars Across". It's equally as crumbling and bulky in its weight, with emphasis on a slow churn and plodding rhythms, albeit with flickers of a gallop but never quite hitting a sprint. Kudos to the artwork being the underbelly version of a Turner painting, bang on!

Assumption - Hadean Tides (bandcamp)

Negative Plane - The Pact [Single] (2022)

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This is a big one! A new Negative Plane release announced and committed to wax is something to be hopeful about—A full decade and one extra trip around the sun later of muted silence, New York's esoteric black metal sweethearts of the underground are back and just as infallible as ever… But I'm rolling my eyes into the back of my skull by all these eager underground zealots professing it to be the album of the decade after a single track has dropped. I'm not immune to conflated statements but it's okay to dial it back a bit.

Negative Plane's vaporous cathedral sound is one of antiquity, drawing from the wells of soundscapes that could be heard from early Mercyful Fate, Mortuary Drape or Cirith Ungol but it's also a sound of something new bubbling and taking shape in the cauldron of metal, and that innovative energy is palpable and exciting to those of us who are looking to latch onto something forward-thinking.

From the first track alone, we can glean Negative Plane are doubling-down on their particular blend of oblique black metal with an ardent zeal, offering that well-honed esoteric sound of reverberating guitars that seem to be wailing from a cavernous depth or from some infernal place of worship. Each tonal flair carries with it the weight and ambiguity of the occult, leaning into a hypnotic atmosphere fit for gothic cathedrals whirling in incense smoke and the sound of the 80's—A faint bell rings in the distance…

Negative Plane - The Pact (bandcamp)

MORTUUS INFRADAEMONI - Inmortuos Sum (2022)

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This record came out a few days ago through the always promising Iron Bonehead Productions, and since then, I have been listening to it every day picking it apart in my head. At first I thought this was going to be another black/death record with a penchant for the avant-garde, but upon the 4 minute mark of the first song (excluding intro) it was clear to me that this album was going to wonder around in some weird musical territory. Which it does. It lives there.

After over a decade deep sleep, MORTUUS INFRADAEMONI return with a third album and its fucking banner is already hanging in the halls of great black metal records! Inmortuos Sum exists as a strong pastiche to 90's black metal, with a sound that nods to all the progenitors and early adopters but not without heavy experimentation—Obscure sonic landscapes are painted with bubbling atmospheres thick with angular and bubbling guitars building upon that putrid energy of the past but not withholding the nuances of influences that come from the newer legions like Funereal Presence, Cultes Des Ghoules, Spirit Possession or Warloghe. With the added experience from their early days in Germany's Lunar Aurora. Great band with a great track record, in my opinion. 

An off-balance freneticism often found in these newer acts permeates each track, moving feverishly between blistering, cold and garish into something slow, gurgling and decaying. It's a balance often failed by over zealous bands who don't take the time to understand the how and why of these sounds. Anyone around long enough can tell the difference. Thankfully the drums on this record are mixed perfectly, sounding as drums should, primitive and trance inducing…As is the whole production, murky, raw and potent!

•  Ω  •

If you're a fan of both old and new Darkthrone I can see no good reason you can't get into Inmortuos Sum. It has the entire wide-range of influence both Fenriz and Nocturno Culto cultivate and utilize. 

MORTUUS INFRADAEMONI - Inmortuos Sum (bandcamp)

Druid Lord - Relics of the Dead (2022)

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I've been meaning to have this new Druid Lord album up on here since it came out in late January but got distracted somewhere along the way. Relics of the Dead is a perfectly executed pastiche of old school death metal a la Immolation with the mid-tempo execution of Disma flanked by the THC soaked doom of Acid Witch with less vintage horror campiness, albeit Relics of the Dead leans into the retro horror atmospherics with just the right amount of profanation—A small example of this can be heard 03:05 into  'Mangled as the Hideous Feed' as that 2-cent Casio chord of gothic organ emanate around a heavily down-tuned and slow doom section breaks through for the remainder of the track.

This album is at it's strongest when it's moving around between this incredibly drooling mid tempo churn to the almost dead-stop dirge, sounding like an impersonation of Ahab playing Bolt Thrower songs at half speed—I see a lot of comparisons to Hooded Menace being thrown around, but unlike Hooded Menace's last album, Druid Lord got the production right. Absolutely nailed down. I'd say it's more in line with Disma's pace, the grime and mire of Coffins, the horror drenched wooziness of Acid Witch with moments of occasionally dipping into the molasses paced territory of Encoffination… Fuck those guys are slow!

°  Ω  °

This comes highly recommended, so get listening. "This album is going to make a big splash in the year-end lists this year." —Nostradamus

Druid Lord - Relics of the Dead (bandcamp)

Reveal! - Doppelherz (2021)

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Here's an album that is absolutely refusing to be pigeon-holed by arm-chair bloggers and critics alike, a giant fuck you to those of us who feel a compulsion to tie everything down with one of our genre packages—Sweden's Reveal! are one of the rare groups impure and brazen enough to traverse a rarely contested musical swath of influences running the gamut of everything declared under the banner of "Extreme Metal".

Doppelherz is a colourful mosaic of sounds both old and new, borrowed and invented, frenetic and calculated.—Throughout its entirety, creaky cathedral chords reminiscent of Negative Plane and Funereal Presence can be heard, which is not entirely uncommon, but definitely dubious when it's pressed up against something that sounds like early speed/heavy metal a la Mercyful Fate or disoriented black metal and thrash riffs in the vein of Obliteration or Spirit Possession… But somehow these guys fucking pull it off with gusto!

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I'll spare the multitude of comparisons and say this, it feels like this record shouldn't work. Like there's a little too much going on and too many things being pulled and implemented for it to even feel cohesive, but there's just enough structure and swagger to make it work. And I'll be the first to admit, not having this album in my last years top albums of 2021 was an impermissible misstep, but as it usually goes with very late releases in the year, I overlooked and under-appreciated Doppelherz when it dropped mid December.

Reveal! - Doppelherz (bandcamp)

Crypt Lurker - Baneful Magic, Death Worship & Necromancy Rites Archaic (2013)

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Every now and then, I'll glance backwards towards critically overlooked albums and resuscitate them for a few more gasps of life through this blog—That's more-or-less the function of this blog, pointing a shaky finger to the albums I like and hopefully giving them some more life.

Crypt Lurker were a flash in the pan of filthy and bloated doom metal from the outskirts of Liverpool, England, and their sound was a gargantuan accumulation of perfectly executed doom metal which flitted around the murky waters of sludge to breathe life into a genre that's more often than not way too clean with very little essence and hardly any depth.

Baneful Magic, Death Worship & Necromancy Rites Archaic is without none of those flaws, it's an incredibly heavy plod through serpentining tunnels of slowly churning guitar riffs, that flicker between the reverb drenched riffs of Witchfinder General to something even murkier, giving birth to something that reminds me of New Zealand's Meth Drinker—Caked in grime and molasses paced.

The drums on this album are spot on, the toms sound bulky and the cymbals sound like actual drum cymbals… Bonus points for using the bell on the cymbals appropriately. Listen to the 01:40 mark of 'Bearer of Two Torches' if there is any confusion. It's a kidney shot to the world of doom and sludge that these guys split-up shortly after, but this EP will live on forever!

Crypt Lurker - Baneful Magic, Death Worship & Necromancy Rites Archaic (bandcamp)

Desolate Shrine - Fires of The Dying World (2022)

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Three-piece Finnish firing-squad via pummelling death metal as we've come to expect from Desolate Shrine's decade long crusade against the status-quo of recycled riffs and puny atmospherics. All we have to go by is the one song teaser via Dark Descent Records, but it's really all you need to deduce the crushing ferocity Fires of The Dying World is looking to discharge upon our feeble minds. Happy to hear some tempo changes on a death metal record again… LOOK OUT

Desolate Shrine - Fires of The Dying World (bandcamp)

Deathless Void - Deathless Void (2022)

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In the endless sprawl of death metal, a new presence materializes out of The Netherlands thanks to the venerable Iron Bonehead—its form takes shape through a torrent of death metal and black metal which seems to mine from the same ore as bands like Aosoth, Bölzer, Abyssal and even Dephosphorus in the sense that it is as explorative and vacuous as it is frenetically delirious and crushing. 

From the singular track that exists through the Iron Bonehead bandcamp page we can easily take stock of the obtuse intensity that will come from the bands first album, and though I am carefully optimistic, I'm definitely looking forward to its whole release on February 04, 2022.

Deathless Void - Deathless Void (bandcamp)

Verbum - Exhortation to the Impure (2022)

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I gotta say I am pretty eager to get my mitts on this debut Verbum record tomorrow. Most things Iron Bonehead Productions are high up on my radar and judging from the two-song teaser currently up on the Iron Bonehead bandcamp page it's going to be a trip through sepulchral like doom with murky death metal of the highest order—Arcane and primitive shit! 

Verbum - Exhortation to the Impure (bandcamp)

Best metal albums of 2021—Top 30

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Before I dig into my top picks for 2021, I reached out to a few familiar faces within the sphere of metal and got them to send me the albums they dug the most this year. I told them the rules for the list are pretty flippant. Here's what they sent me:



Horus aka James Brown III (Harassor, Moonknight, Vorpal Sword, Rising Beast Recordings)



* In no particular order 
10) Stormkeep - Tales of Othertime

09) Trhä - Endelhëtonëg

08) Tardigrada - Vom Bruch Bis Zur Freiheit

07) Circle of Ouroborus - Kiromantia

06) Sadness - April Sunset

05) Kuka'ilimoku - Pahu O ka Ua

04) Zhmach - Euphoria Never Leaves

03) Kêres - Flaming Ash

02) Mooschops - Adventures Above the 61st Parallel North

01) Fugitive Wizard - Obscuri Æternum



Artur de Carvalho (Forever Cursed—Best underground metal blog laid to rest (R.I.P.)


10) The Devouring Void - Hypnagogic Hallucinations


Holy shit I just realised these guys are from Portugal as well.. fuck me!

09) Sermon of Flames - I Have Seen the Light, and It Was Repulsive


Repulsive as fuck

08) Carcinoma - Labascation


Good shit from the UK

07) Gosudar - Morbid Despotic Ritual


Some good OSDM shit from Russia

06) Koldovstvo - "Ni Tsarya, Ni Boga"


Great entrancing BM

05) Fuoco Fatuo - Obsidian Katabasis


Feels like being swallowed by a black hole


04) Qrixkuor - Poison Palinopsia


A two track, total 48 minutes of filthy obscure DM? Yes please


03) Lykhaeon - Opprobrium


A more traditional approach to BM as we know it, still a banger though)

02) Labored Breath - Dyspnea


A fucking trip into the bowels of the most insane BM you’ll hear this year


01) Reverorum ib Malacht - Svag i Döden


I know these guys have released two albums this year, but I’m a huge fan of this approach

A.L.N. (Mizmor, Hell)

07) Emma Ruth Rundle - Engine of Hell

06) Hoverkraft - Schwebende Musik

05) Vouna - Atropos

04) Grouper - Shade

03) Walt McClements - A Hole in The Fence

02) Andrew Black - Welcome Home

01) Yautja - The Lurch



Mattias Alagna (Abstracter)



06) Filth Chasm - Demo 2021

05) Apostasy - Death Return

04) Grinning Death's Head - Cataclysm

03) Altarage - Succumb

02) Antediluvian - The Divine Punishment

01) Moonscape - Monolith

Big thanks for those that contributed!



•  †  •


Another year down the hatch. And another year where I am certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have overlooked a few releases (I always do) but I'd say this year in particular I have a pretty firm grip on the records that impressed me the most—I can say that in order to whittle the list down to 30 I have made some hard omissions, but that's just the nature of the beast! Pretty heavy on the black/death metal releases, which either speaks to the quality of the release or where my palette is at. It really doesn't matter, here's what moved me in order:



30) Forsman - Dönsum í Logans Ljóma (Ván Records)



Another example as to why Icelandic black metal is legitimately one of the most consistent and innervating within the second wave of black metal.







29) Abstracter - Abominium (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)



A dizzying descent into a mix of well articulated doom blackened crust, doom, sludge and sonic overall sonic hostility. 

28) Tentation - Le Berceau des Dieux (Gates of Hell Records)



An absolute nod to the old days of heavy metal and a hell of a debut.



27) Divide and Dissolve - Gas Lit (Invada Records)



2-piece doom metal enveloped in a thick cloud of doom. Hits hard and feels significant.



26) Stormkeep - Tales of Othertime (Van Records)



Much like Havukruunu, Stormkeep have managed to capture all the elusive grandeur found in pagan black metal and dungeon synth without succumbing to the frivolity often found in it.



25) Concrete Winds - Nerve Butcherer (Sepulchral Voice Records)



Fast and dizzying death metal with very intentional glances towards grind and thrash. Pretty Spot on!



24) Wanton Attack - Wanton Attack (Black Writs Records)



A potent mix of early heavy metal rife with gritty duelling guitars and speed metal vitatlity!



23) Suffering Hour - The Cyclic Reckoning (Profound Lore Records)



Suffocatingly heavy death metal from a label that knows a good thing when it sees it. I don't think this record has any weak spots.



22) Vorpal Sword - Omens (Rising Beast Recordings)

The best account of blown out raw black metal I heard all year! A pastiche of noise punk, experimental ambient and shoegaze—It's perplexing how something so abrasive and corrosive in nature can be perceived as beautiful, but it does.

21) Sermon of Flames - I Have Seen The Light, and It Was Repulsive (I, Voidhanger Records)



A bubbling cauldron of cacophonous death metal infused with sludge, crust, doom and black metal with  incredibly devastating pace.

20) Ekulu - Unscrew My Head (Cash Only Records)



Nailed down New York Hardcore with a heavy grip on 80’s metal. Why even bother with Turnstile?

19) Labored Breath - Dyspnea (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

A spiralling churn of death metal infused black metal pushing through a feral wall of sound that straddles the line of the obscure and barbaric. 

18) Labor Intvs - Sunken Crucible (Unsigned/Independant)

This has got to be one of the most overlooked albums on this list. Some of the nastiest death/black metal releases this year heavily exploring elements of doom and the underground obscure.

17) Mork - Katedralen (Peaceville Records)


Mork have pretty consistently been the best example as to how we can still successfully draw from the nearly dried up well of 90's black metal, and this year on Katedralen they prove that point yet again with a bullet.


16) Phrenelith - Chimaera (Nuclear Winter Records)

Massively over-looked death metal in my opinion. Phrenelith aren't exactly incorporating anything new into their sound, but somehow they manage to sound like nothing else—A black hole of dynamic death metal with reverence to the underground. Some of the best drumming on a death meal album this year?

15) Succumb - XXI (The Flenser)

Incredible death metal with Cheri’s possessed vocal belch being the backbone of what makes them unique from their contemporaries. I'm so glad they didn't fuck this up.


14) Fuoco Fatuo - Obsidian Katabasis (Profound Lore Records)



Crushing funeral doom with a lot of mid-tempo death metal influence that will drag you through an hour of some of the most potent and unyielding metal this year. A full listen through of this colossus will leave you bereft and beaten, just the way we like it.



13) Big Brave - Vital (Southern Lore Recordings)



Big Brave's suffocatingly plodding doom intertwined around a whirring mix of reverb-ladened guitars and vacuous space comes full-force on Vital. Beauty and brutality.


12) Koldovstvo - Ni Tsarya, Ni Boga (Unsigned/Independant)

Atmospheric black metal with heavy emphasis on the atmospheric, bordering on ambient or shoegaze. Incredibly raw, visceral and avant-garde with a lot of uncertainty surrounding any information around the band. It's hard to explain, but theres also this inexplicable feeling that comes over me when I listen to this album… Like I am slowly being consumed by madness. A mix of euphoria and malaise. 


11) Altarage - Succumb (Season of Mist Underground Activists)



This release can hang with any of the aforementioned in the department of ferocity and heaviness, clocking in at over an hour of downright unfettered black/death from Spain. 

10)  Defacement - Defacement (I, Voidhanger Records)


Back when I talked about this release earlier in September I said "This is one of those albums that drags you through the abyss—A serpentining downward spiral through cavernous death metal that is equal parts technical, murky and experimental." Yet another album of extremely high caliber that has been buried amidst an ocean of sub-par music with high pay-grades and a full marketing team throwing petals at their feet. Stick with this, you'll thank me later.


09) Fyrnask - VII - Kenoma (Ván Records)

Fyrnask have been quietly creating some of the best atmospheric black metal around for over a decade now and VII - Kenoma is at the helm of it all. Powerfully melodic and thought provoking—Something between Misþyrming, Ash Borer, Morne, and Bölzer. 


08) Voidsphere - To Overtake, To Overcome (Amor Fati Productions)



Spirit inducing black metal that takes shape through blistering riffs built upon a wall of sound. One of the best uses of atmospheric ambience, dense but not without melody or purpose. These Prava Kollektiv guys sure know how to write a record.

07) Warloghe - Three Angled Void (Northern Heritage Records)

Dizzying black metal from the nether, ugly, brutish and filled with cold riffs! I'd even go as far as saying some of the best riffing I heard in a black metal album all year, this is pure fucking armageddon.


06) Portal - Avow (Profound Lore Records)

Portal remain thee lords of hypnotically plodding and nauseating death metal. Lovecraftian obscurity in sonic form. This is up there with my favourite Portal has ever released—It sounds like a lobotomy. And It feels like a nauseating decent into the abyss. Encompassing. 


05) Sulpur - Embracing Hatred and Beckoning Darkness (Amor Fati Productions)

Blown-out black metal doing everything MGLA does but even colder. A barrage of eerie riffs against a galloping tempo with some of the best sounding cymbals in the genre.



04) Darkthrone - Eternail Hails…… (Peaceville Records)

Has everyone forgot about Darkthrone? Hardly any mentions of Darkthrone this year… Am I the only one who loves the direction they’re moving in? I still think they're one of the most important bands in all of music right now. Three decades later and they’re still moving a worn-out genre into new territory. 



03) Qrixkuor - Poison Palinopsia (Dark Descent Records)



One of the most crushing death metal albums released in 2021. Two songs of obscure death metal that drag you through a serpentining labyrinth of riffs that sound like a spiral into your own absolute insanity. Much like the Defacement release sitting at my number 10, this album is and was way under-appreciated for how good it is. I'm not sorry to sorry to say it, but it's more dynamic and crushing than 99% of the other releases that pass off as death metal. 

02) Antediluvian - The Divine Punishment (Nuclear War Now! Productions)

Few try (with little success) to be as primitive and feral sounding as Antediluvian, its not something that can (or should) be contrived. It needs to come from a festering open wound or a sincere disapproval with some inner or outward force. The Divine Punishment is a pantheon in where these negative forces can live—A barbaric pile of forward-thinking death metal built upon an altar of whirring guitars, abyssal vocals and drumming that sounds like none of its contemporaries. Plodding, perverse, esoteric and entirely new.



01) Lykhaeon - Opprobrium (Repose Records)


Bestial death metal married with black metal and doom is hardly a new concept within the walls of metal, but very few albums are able to traverse new and refreshing soundscapes the way Opprobrium successfully does—An overtone of of ritualistic rites and dirges permeate the many layers of this album as you're dragged through a swath of of musical landscapes, all  equally barbaric and mind altering. The best metal release of the year for me for sure, not a single flaw to be found.

Succumb - XXI (2021)

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SHOM has been keeping a finger on the pulse of San Fran's Succumb since their debut record in 2017 which (like this album) saw its release made possible from the consummate and enigmatic The Flenser—which in my books, is a breath of fresh air in a saturated world of music where sterility and originality are celebrated and touted.

I digress, XXI picks up right where it's 4-year old predecessor left off: Down a serpentining pit of crust, grind and death metal with a sound that encompasses a lurching energy which simultaneously feels unique and familiar—Not much parsing needs to be done to hear a broad musical soundscape that harkens back to Converge, Gorguts, Mitochondrion, Caustic Wound, with tinges of Disfear.

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This album is going to end the year in high ranking with me… I think for all intents and purposes, this record is flawless. You've got to be bent to not get the appeal, brutish ferocity and whirling doom packed into 30+ minutes of abyssal death metal.

Succumb - XXI (bandcamp)

Nocturnal Graves - An Outlaw's Stand (2022)

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Following up a Melbourne release with another Melbourne release albeit with significantly different soundscapes and ethos—but all the same, I maintain that Australia has one of the most banging music scenes going on at the moment.

Nocturnal Graves is just pure unfettered worship for all things thrash and black metal and all the muck and mire in-between this ilk. We've got a one track (very early) teaser to go off of for the upcoming album, An Outlaw's Stand, and it's what you'd probably expect out of these guys; bestial energy pulsating through a barrage of blackened thrash with emphasis on a greased-up tempo and ruining your day.

Nocturnal Graves - An Outlaw's Stand (bandcamp)

Cerebral Rot - Excretion of Mortality (2021)

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It should come as no surprise at all that I like Cerebral Rot. Death metal of this ilk, putrefying and almost garish, can sometimes be executed with such incredulity that it's totally bereft and unconvincing, and though Cerebral Rot isn't pushing boundaries in the same way that Irkallian Oracle or Funereal Presence might be, they are maintaining an old guard in the way that death metal is meant to sound. A sonic sentinel in the way of repugnant hymns—Excretion of Mortality is extremely foul and heavy death metal and though I haven't gotten around to overplaying it I will most definitely be revisiting it often (even though I can't stop listening to the new Antediluvian record) and I'm sure you will too.

Cerebral Rot - Excretion of Mortality (bandcamp)

Abstracter - Abominiom (2021)

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Abstracter are no joke. No whimsy to be found. "Abandon all hope" is the message written on the wall followed by a "Eat dick, shit face" scrawled heinously next to an inverted cross. Abstracter have been quietly making a lot of noise within the cavernous walls of underground death metal, churning out the type of bloated death metal that is uncompromisingly bestial and bleak in its bones but somewhere in its DNA it is much more intelligible than its fully neanderthal counterparts, Canada's Revenge for example are full troglodytic death metal—and all forms are accepted with zeal by me.

In 2018 Abstracter released 'Cinerous Incarnate' and it snuck up on me as one of the better releases that year, its ferocity was unmatched by most riding under the banner of bestial death metal and it became more cohesive over time, when the froth of grime and swirling guitars gave way I understood the only goal is not obliteration, but obliteration through formulation. There's really only one song to preview so far on that albums follow-up, 'Abominiom', but I am optimistic it will be equally as potent.

Abstracter - Abominiom (bandcamp)

DEFACEMENT - Defacement (2021)

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This is one of those albums that drags you through the abyss—A serpentining downward spiral through cavernous death metal that is equal parts technical, murky and experimental. 'Defacement' touches upon black metal in more ways than one, notably drawing from the well of the second wave of black metal as its reach has almost become ubiquitous in the sphere of forward-thinking underground metal.

As is always the case with anything I, Voidhanger Records, their is an inherent energy to be found on 'Defacement', something completely ambitious and janky, with a structure that is far more freeform and gelatinous than it is formulaic. Atmospherically it is bestial and primitive with emphasis on dissonant churning guitars, cavernous vocals that don't pierce through the mix in a typically garish way and a drum sound that is mixed in just right and played with the velocity of a meteor shower. The inclusion of ambient passages isn't always an accepted accent in my palette, but on 'Defacement' its presence gives the album space and a sense of purpose beyond barbarity.  

Something between a cross of Mitochondrion, Chaos Moon, Yellow Eyes, Portal, Altarage, etc. 

DEFACEMENT - Defacement (bandcamp)