Ærekær - Avindskjold (2019)

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I can't recall if I have already posted about these guys back when they released their first full-length back in 2018—Blowing right passed the process of writing and recording a demo or EP this Danish duo launched themselves into the sonic stratosphere via a full-length album rife with atmosphere and tonality through a musical cloth woven from early 90's black metal and soundscapes that traverse the entire range within dungeon synth.

Ærekær's sound is the perfect amalgamation between something that sounds both abrasive and pleasant—An abstruse combination of compelling synth arrangements that feel entangled in some other realm backed up against a barrage of caustic and raw black metal.

This is one of those instances where words feel like they fall flat… I can throw a slew of adjectives into this paragraph but it feels like it doesn't matter. Simply put, if you're a fan of densely atmospheric, ambient black metal there isn't a single reason I can conceive why you wouldn't like this. Listen through!

Ærekær - Avindskjold (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)

Häxenzijrkell - Urgrund (2022)

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Häxenzijrkell's, Urgrund, is some far out there black metal, heavily entrenched in a angular and obscure atmosphere that practically exhales something arcane… something at the very least, different then what we've all come to accept under the banner of black metal. A whirling plume of esoteric sounds swirl around here in a woozy haze of mesmerizing black metal, at times feeling like a mid-tempo cross between the obscurity of Cultes Des Ghoules mixed with the psychedelic downward spiral of Wormlust built upon the janky foundation of Urfaust.

Angular guitars which mostly move away from the typical frenetic tremolo picking and into a territory that is far more glacially paced and hypnotic, are the backbone on Urgrund, but the driving force to me is the interplay between the ritualistic like drumming and the way MK (of Rraaumm) delivers his charged (at times anthemic) vocal howls, anguished and from the larynx.

Leave it up to Amor Fati Productions to bring into the light this piece of obscure and ritualistic like black metal. Go and show your support!

Häxenzijrkell - Urgrund (bandcamp)

Véhémence - Ordalies (2022)

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Nowadays whenever I see anything that looks like this album (crudely illustrated) or is slapped with a "medieval", "epic" or sometimes even an "atmospheric" black metal tag I approach with the same type of caution Nosferatu might have towards a garlic factory. I used to gobble it up, things of this ilk. But now that I'm a decade older and grumpy it just mostly sounds like overproduced wankery with no real resonance—Aural or otherwise.

Véhémence of France completely deflect any suspicions that this album is just another cookie-cutter black metal record parading around as half-baked pseudo-traditional medieval songs infused with the barbarity of black metal. Ordalies for sure leans heavily into that medieval tone, borrowing chants and melodies that seemingly harken back to the crusades, but it's done with such poise that none of it feels contrived or lame, which is where most of the other battalion of metal bands fail when writing this sort of thing.

Right off the rip this record blasts into a barrage of blistering black metal built upon the back of uncompromisingly frigid tremolo riffs which are layered upon a foundation of equally pummelling drums, both galloping, working eagerly in unison as Hyvermor's vocals scratch some primordial itch. His range (along with the group chants) carry with them a powerful weight. A genuinely antiquated atmosphere permeates every track on this album with absolutely clarity and force, which is really where 95% of the other bands fall short for me. One of the reasons I still like and listen to either Myrkgrav, Windir, Bathory or even old Moonsorrow is that they still strike a chord. No wankery, real fucking resonance.

It's completely negligent to talk about this album without mentioning how defiantly catchy it all is. Catchier than syphilis at the greasy truck stop with a strip-club called "Last Dance at Peeler's". When the first stream came out, I replayed it in full a second time once I made my way through the first listen. I never do that. Now of course that's my experience, but if you disagree you're just wrong man, and that's on you.

This is a mandatory album in 2022, don't sleep on it… Go ahead, play it more than the new Deathspell Omega record… I'd understand!

Véhémence - Ordalies (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!

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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)

Qaalm - Resilience & Despair (2022)

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I've been sitting on my hands patiently for Qaalm's debut album ever since Hypaethral Records announced it and then benevolently dropped me an early listening link—The small perks of being a sonic traveller is that you can use tact and guile to convince people to send you unreleased records in exchange that you might put together a few (positive) words to promote a record.

Qaalm's aptly named debut 'Resilience & Despair' needs no promotion beyond its sonic achievements. This album is an uncontested aural monolith of doom and sludge coalescing into four towering tracks drenched in dour semi-funeral doom tonnage rife with crumbling sludgy guitars and plodding drums as former Harassor overlord Pete Majors lays waste through that uncanny vocal rasp of his which bears more resemblance to coughing up blood and spewing bile than it does "singing"… totally charged and feral—A similar comparison can definitely be made with doom/sludge zealots as Baton Rouge's Thou and Chicago's Indian in terms of range and grit. 

'Resilience & Despair' is an "Abandon All Hope" sign aimed at everyone. It’s like being sucked into the nether, a slow and heavy trip into the abyss filled with down-tuned guitars and a pummelling energy. That being said, I’d be remiss not to point out the success that this album has when it segues into lighter territory, trading chopping block heaviness for compelling melodies and floating passages—It's the sonic equivalent of sour and spicy. A force meant to awaken and bolster its counterpart, which is done with aplomb here by Qaalm. Devastating heaviness coalescing into something purely atmospherical with a tonne of weight behind it! Abandon all hope.

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Fans of Mizmor, Thou, Ahab, Convocation, Grief and Burning Witch will find plenty to like within the 1-hour+ runtime of this heavy hitter. 

Hypaethral Records (in connection with the esteemed Trepanation Recordings) was incredibly cool to send me 10 free download links for readers (and takers) of Severed Heads Open Minds on a first come first served basis… So big thanks to those guys! Drop a comment here or send me a message through Instagram to claim your download link ya heathens & GET THIS BILLOWOUS DOOM IN YOUR EAR CANALS.

Qaalm - Resilience & Despair (bandcamp)

Qaalm - Resilience & Despair (download link)

Negativa - 04 (2022)

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It's been in black metal's DNA to be dissonant, harsh and cold, but this record takes those fundamentals and beats you over the head with it for 40-straight minutes, which to those of us who beckon punishment, pounce on it like a werewolf.

Spain's Negativa has channeled these characteristics with aplomb throughout their entire discography, and the result of it has amounted to some of the densest black metal around today—Invoking a wall of sound built upon cascading guitar tones that whirr and drone between war hammer drums which favour force over speed and vocals that struggle to penetrate a thick layer of fog and noise.

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It hearkens back to last years output by Voidsphere and Sulpur, both of which released albums in 2021 that were in my top 10—Which might say something about how highly I regard this particular form of black metal, spirit inducing and relentlessly oppressive. Don't sleep on this record, unless you want to be a dummy idiot, then go right ahead.

04 is 'Name your price' on Bandcamp, put that coffee money to something worthwhile and toss these guys (and their label, Mystískaos) a few bucks and help keep the underbelly of metal well lit!

Negativa - 04 (bandcamp)
Download (Zippyshare)

Festung - Der Turm (2022)

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Well articulated raw black metal drawing from a deep well of sonic intentions running the gamut of dungeon synth, ambient black metal, atmospheric black metal and I'd even make the argument for an early black metal/punk inclusion somewhere in the fray as well. This album as a sound is definitely monolithic but the length too is a monolith, standing in at 80 minutes of towering black metal, which only serves to bolster the immensity of it as a whole. This was one of those listens that instantly gripped me and impressed from the start to its billowous end… This comes highly recommended, don't sleep on it!

Festung - Der Turm (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)

Det Eviga Leendet - Reverence (2022)

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The sophomore release by Sweden's hidden treasure, Det Eviga Leendet, came out a few days ago through the impenetrable forces that are Amor Fati and Mystískaos and the result is a potent blast of cold and unwavering black metal. The overall sound is cloaked in a dizzying atmosphere of reverb and transient gain, which is only compounded by a drape of layered guitars that weave in and out of inspired riffs and whirring chords as if it were trying to find the sonic equivalent to hypnosis—Another hallmark of success on Reverence is the way the drums sound, in the way that they are played and in the way that they're mixed, a compelling barrage of dynamic fills and blasts that have great interplay between a wall of tone and timbre.

Det Eviga Leendet - Reverence (bandcamp)

Cloakroom - Dissolution Wave (2022)

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Here's another album I'm looking forward to based off the teaser tracks on their respective bandcamp page, Cloakroom's third full-length, Dissolution Wave. I can deduce, by unpacking what I'm hearing in these three songs that this shit is going to be a scintillating coast down sonic highways traversing shoegaze, drone, bits of sludge and indie with helpings of stoner rock and post-punk (just to namedrop a few more genres into the fray).

I would be jumping to conclusions to speak any more factually without actually hearing the full album first, but it sounds like it's the bands most cohesive effort yet, which is saying something for me because I was never really gung-ho about the two previous albums fully. Again, speaking preemptively, it sounds as if everything has come to full bloom on Dissolution Wave. The songs are robust and the production is right on the fucking money—when it needs to pack a hammer, it does so with force, when it needs to float in suspended animation, it gently sways along beautifully, when we ask it to marry the two forces, it answers with complete fluidity.

I find it tiring to read about music in an overly-intellectualized way, so I'll try to say this succinctly. The overall tone is a shifting one. Unfurling riffs and tone that hit like a megaton hammer towards gradually cascading into ephemeral shoegaze and drone that inevitably sputter into moments of dream-pop. Which is only to be cut back into a vast doom like territory filled with more crunching lo-fi guitars and reverb. Highly recommended!

Cloakroom - Dissolution Wave (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)

Warloghe - Three Angled Void (2021)

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Warloghe's newest album Three Angled Void came out of the fucking abyssal ether, without mention or promotion. A spectre out of nowhere carrying a barrage of frozen riffs and a landscape built around pillars of jagged guitars and drums that don't feel any compliance to the constant blast-beat quota which might seem ubiquitous in the genre. Not to say you won't find any of that on here, you will, but it's not heavily leaned on—In fact, the drums are mixed in perfectly to my liking. Pure abominable class!

It's not unlike me to say this, but it's exceptionally rare for me to listen to an album and know right off the opening track that it will be a favourite of mine… There's always massive disappointments and pitfalls, but Warloghe is Warloghe, and every so often there are sure things. Three Angled Void is that. One of the best black metal albums released this year, in my opinion, and will be overplayed into oblivion for the rest of the year and well into the next. Cold chaotic energy.

As of right now, no streams or bandcamp downloads are available. But I will link a download to the album courtesy of the esteemed Finnish Black Metal blog.

Warloghe - Three Angled Void (DOWNLOAD)
Warloghe - Three Angled Void (YouTube)

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)

Michael Beach - Dream Violence (2021)

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Australia is an absolute uncontested hotbed in the realm of toothy rock and roll and Michael Beach is just yet another fish in the pond of energetic and woollen post-punk from Melbourne. Angular guitars pervade through a post-punk sentimentality that isn't at all afraid to traverse the sonic highways of a multitude of different genres and ideas, experimenting between tracks that harken to The Velvet Underground, Joy Division, Solid Space, Nick Cave and even a track in 'You Know Life Is Cheap' that sounds like something Timber Timbre would write with its wobbly bayou dirge. 

Michael Beach - Dream Violence (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)

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)

Crypto Order - Destructive Strategies for Sustainable Living (2021)

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An album that at first glance would be way out of left field for Severed Heads Open Minds but upon further inspection into Crypto Order's sonic aggression in the arena of off-kilter industrial electronic and hallucinatory rave songs you could deduce a host of similarities to boundary acts like Gnaw Their Tongues, Daughters, Mamaleek, Jute Gyte, etc.

Much like Death Grips in the sense that there are perceived as well as sighted influences from a cornucopia of bands that revolve around feral energy like Revenge, The Doors, The Microphones, Lightning Bolt, The Jesus Lizard and things that feed off the dark and dismal. You will find much of the same energy on Crypto Order's Destructive Strategies for Sustainable Living.

Listen around on Italy's Democide Products page and those without a "strictly blast beats" mentality will find an arsenal of songs and albums worth your time.

Crypto Order - Destructive Strategies for Sustainable Living (bandcamp)