Dark Descent   Page 4

Phobocosm

Deprived

Dark Descent

The long-awaited debut full-length from Montreal's Phobocosm is upon us. Several years in the making, Deprived is a suffocating and beastly dark death metal album with injections of doom, black and ambient elements throughout. Eight songs, 47 minutes. 16 page booklet, with gatefold jacket.

Sarcasm

Within The Sphere Of Ethereal Minds

Dark Descent

"What a journey it has been. Ok, technically speaking, this isn’t their first proper full-length—Burial Dimensions is. Although Burial Dimensions was recorded in 1994, it remained unheard in the vaults until seventeen years later and was finally released as a stand-alone album in 2016. Despite an initial short run, Sarcasm produced no less than six demos and went through some drastic stylistic changes in the process, starting with a quite basic gore ’n’ guts death-metal sound only to end up with some epic and melodic mix of black and death-metal. All of this over the course of only four years…so there was an unfinished-business vibe in the air. No one thought it would take the band over two decades to make it a reality. "After a first, short-lived reunion in 1997, a newly redesigned line-up of the band finally got together in 2015 with Heval, Oscar Karlsson (Defleshed, Gates Of Ishtar etc.) on drums who had previously played in the band in between 1993 and 1994, former axeman Henrik Forslund now on bass, Fredrik Wallenberg and newcomer Peter Laitinen on guitars. But as they were getting ready to work on some new music for their forthcoming sophomore album, tragedy struck with the unexpected death of Oscar, whose hard-hitting yet extremely precise style had become a massive part of the band’s identity. After few weeks of disarray, the band vowed to carry on, enlisting the veteran Matte Modin (also from Defleshed, Dark Funeral, Firespawn and so on) who actually was part...

Third Storm

The Grand Manifestation

Dark Descent

"In the past, not many knew of the Swedish black / death metal band Third Storm, still they managed to keep this beast going from 1986 - 1988. Other than founding member Heval Bozarslan, the lineup was completely different back then. Four 14-15 year-old crazy metalheads who worshiped extreme metal of that time and wanted to make their own noise in their home town Uppsala. Perhaps they were not very talented musicians back then, not strange since they were only kids, but they did a dozen shows and a couple of rehearsal demos before splitting up way too soon. Years passed, each member went their own way and the band dwelled in obscurity till 2014 when two original members, Heval and guitarist Jimmy Eriksson awakened this beast once again. Two new members joined, David Eriksson (guitar) and Daniel Ekeroth (bass), and session drummer Johan Ericson helped the band to record their EP Taritiya Me which saw the light of day in the fall of 2015 on Dark Descent Records. This line-up showed a new face of Third Storm. While the spirit of the '80s was there, now they were better musicians with better song-writing. The band proved with Taritiya Me that they can be reckoned with and indeed that 26 minutes EP blew many doubtful minds away. Soon after the EP, Jimmy had to leave for various reasons so Hasse Hansson joined as the second axeman. The band also found their full-time drummer Alvaro Svanerö. Both Hasse's song writing skills...

Tyranny

Aeons In Tectonic Intermen

Dark Descent

Finnish funeral doom duo, Tyranny—featuring within its ranks current and former members of Corpsessed and Wormphlegm among others—will unleash their first new studio offering in a decade this Fall via Dark Descent Records. Titled Aeons In Tectonic Interment, the record offers up five diseased psalms of slow, tortured, epically bowel-rupturing grimness. Composed, performed and tracked by members Matti Mäkelä and Lauri Lindqvist with additional percussion by Jussi-Pekka Manner and mastered by D. Lowndes at Resonance Sound Studio (Absu, Pallbearer, Profetus, Sigh, Wodensthrone etc.), Aeons In Tectonic Interment is at once spiritual and ill-omened; a fifty-one-minute soul-searing sound apocalypse where misanthropy, suffering and imminent ruin become one achieving purification through sonic decay.

Undergang

Døden Læger Alle Sår

Dark Descent

Døden Læger Alle Sår was recorded at Earhammer Studio, California subsequent to Undergang’s three-week U.S. tour in July 2014. The new material is a blend of the suffocating and filthy heaviness heard on the band’s previous two albums, Indhentet Af Døden (2010) and Til Døden Os Skiller (2012), whilst adding more twists and neck-breaking brutality to the mix. Undergang was formed in the early summer of 2008, with the intent of playing old-styled, low-tuned and extremely heavy death metal. Since their earliest breath of existence took place, the band has always kept pushing their limits and always stayed active, both in the studio and in live environments. The band has released two full length albums—Indhentet Af Døden (2010) and Til Døden Os Skiller (2012) )—and several smaller releases and splits. They’ve also done several tours in Europe and the U.S., not to mention their exclusive opening slot for U.S.death metal legends Autopsy, at their first show in New York after 19 years, in May 2012. Since then several other tours were completed in Europe, America, Australia and Japan.

Ascended Dead

Abhorrent Manifestation

Dark Descent

"Surprisingly born under San Diego’s sun, Ascended Dead are nevertheless as ugly as it can be. Not by design nor by trying their best to sound that way but just because that foul stench they ooze from every pore is their true nature. Yes, their founding members and some of their current members have played or are still playing in other bands but none of this really matters as their main man JR stresses out that 'everything we've attained was built from the ground up and we’d like to maintain as much of a stand-alone legacy as we can.' Yes, they’ve had their fair share of struggles and obstacles to overcome—something well-documented in the booklet of last year’s self-released Ritus Mortuus compilation—but this somehow only strengthened their determination and musical idiosyncrasy. "See, a lot of bands these days wish so bad they were part of the same early extreme metal wave that swept the plate clean in the llpasceabhoate '80s but end up only second guessing how all their idols thought. But Ascended Dead are a rare case of a band who just go for it and whose DNA is naturally carrying that FTW element, that simple idea, not wait, instinct to destroy everything in sight. Necrovore, Insanity or even Sarcofago are just of some of the acts they’ve been compared to but it doesn’t really matter because after one raw-as-fuck demo, one EP and two compilations, Abhorrent Manifestation is the sound of a band who have come to term...

Burial Invocation

Abiogenesis

Dark Descent

Burial Invocation exploded onto the underground scene when their debut EP Rituals Of The Grotesque, was released in early 2010. Coincidentally, this was the first release under the newly-formed Dark Descent Records banner. The initial pressing of this CD sold out quickly as the band's brand of doomy, crypt-dwelling death metal was as infectious as it was blistering. Mixing elements of Finnish death metal among other influences, Burial Invocation followed up the debut EP the next year with a well-received split 7-inch with Japan's Anatomia. This split, also released on Dark Descent Records, quickly sold out. The band eventually followed these releases with some memorable live appearances, including the initial version of Copenhagen's legendary Kill Town Death Fest. In the years since, the band was inactive as members pursued other projects and interests. There were rumblings from the band including small European tour runs and we were largely left to wonder: what happened to Burial Invocation? In 2017, the fires were lit once more as the band were said to be working on a new album. Once again under the Dark Descent Records banner (vinyl via long-time ally Me Saco Un Ojo), Abiogenesis sees this Turkish crew reign once more. No longer will we be left wondering…Burial Invocation has returned and the wait has been well worth it. Cover art by the legendary Dan Seagrave.

Corpsessed

Impetus Of Death

Dark Descent

Many things have changed since the 2014 release of the band's acclaimed first full-length album, Abysmal Thresholds. Main composer and guitarist Matti Mäkelä finally found some time to resurrect his funeral doom project Tyranny and release one crusher of an album (also on Dark Descent) in 2015. A year later, Corpsessed found a new bassist in Tuomas Kulmala (Lie In Ruins and Perdition Winds). And over the course of four long years, Corpsessed completed their second full-length Impetus Of Death, an album that manages to top it its predecessor in terms of heaviness and brutality while taking their epic sound a step further. "We've never been that fast composers" admits Mäkelä. "But the atmosphere must be there, the riffs must be killer and everything has to be top notch. Plus, we knew we needed to raise the bar this time. So all the band members contributed and we had three separate demo sessions of almost all the songs. It was quite time consuming but invaluable while thinking of the big picture, even more, so we've once again recorded the album ourselves." The recordings took place from November 2017 to February 2018 in their rehearsal place, with extra help from their label-mates Lie In Ruins and Desolate Shrine. Dan Lowndes from Resonance Sound Studio took care of the mastering last April. The album's title was inspired by the impression that, indeed, it is "death itself that sets things in motion, be it the fear or lurking presence of your own demise,...

Ellorsith

Orbhàis

Dark Descent

The enigmatic presence known as Ellorsith returns with their new EP Orbhàis. Continuing their pattern of a new release every two years (following their 2014 debut 1959 and the 2016 split with Mannveira), Ellorsith delivers a new twenty-minute themed opus. Reverse board printed jacket with insert and poly-lined sleeves. Includes digital download card. "In the late summer of 1929, Marie Nora Emily Edith Fornario left London for Iona. She was a student of ritual magic, occultism and telepathy. Once on the island, Netta found lodgings with a local landlady. By day, she explored the island. By night, she entered into traces and attempted to contact the island’s spirits. The first indication that something was wrong was a cryptic message she sent to her London housekeeper stating that she would be out of communication for a while as she had 'a terrible case of healing on'. Netta’s apparent distress escalated and she informed the landlady that she needed to return to London immediately, as several individuals were attacking her telepathically. After several hours, she came back out and calmly announced that she had changed her mind and would be staying on the island. "At some point the next day, Netta went missing. It took two days to find the body. Reportedly, a cross had been cut into the turf with a dagger and she was lying on top of it only wearing a black cloak. Her skin was marred by scratches and the soles of her feet were cut. Stories of...

Father Befouled

Desolate Gods

Dark Descent

After a five year wait, veteran Dark Descent alumni Father Befouled return with Desolate Gods, their fourth full length offering of twisted and cacophonous death metal chaos. Picking up where 2012’s Revulsion Of Seraphic Grace left off, Desolate Gods picks up the torch, infusing their influences into a suffocating and mysterious album of serpentine riffing and lurching, cavernous doom. Compounding that is a maturity—a sound evolved from the heavy-handed Incantation worship of before—to a distinct sound all their own. In their ten year existence, Father Befouled has developed into a tried-and-true death metal machine, and Desolate Gods is the direct result of that practice: a visceral and violent expulsion of rotting death metal blasphemy. As much as the music of Desolate Gods is rooted in the influence of bands like Morbid Angel, Incantation, and Monstrosity, the lyrical direction pays homage to the ancient gods of death and chaos. The darkness that governs the universe and the pain that death creates.

Krypts

Remnants Of Expansion

Dark Descent

"Three years may have passed since Unending Degradation, but Krypts have lost none of their excruciating power that made their debut album such a special one, erecting a bridge in between their homeland glorious and down-tuned early '90s glory and something even more sinister and doom-laden. And the arrival in 2015 of Jukka Aho from Gorephilia on second guitar has done nothing to alter that rare chemistry, on the contrary... "Just like its predecessor, Remnants Of Expansion reeks of that ancient feeling but dives even deeper into the abyss. Clocking altogether at thirty-three minutes, there's something very majestic and solemn about its five songs.  "Like a serpent circling its prey, the Finns like to play shadow and it's never truer than on the album's opener, the monstrous 10 minute 'Arrow Of Entropy'. But its follow-up, 'The Withering Titan', for instance starts off with Mongol throat chanting, two minutes later the listener is buried under a deluge of blastbeats, only to let the instrumental title-track drown you in the cold and bottomless waters of funeral doom. "Once again adorned with Timo Ketola cryptic artwork, Remnants Of Expansion is like a big haunted house at a top of a dead trees-infested hill on the outskirts of town by a moonless night. Grand in scope, seemingly devoid of any human touch, and yet towering over us like a malevolent entity. Behold." – Olivier Zoltar Badin

Malthusian

Across Deaths

Dark Descent

Debut album from Ireland's Malthusian. Across Deaths contains five new tracks from this death / black powerhouse. Released in cooperation with Invictus Productions in Europe.

Vanhelgd

Deimos Sanktuarium

Dark Descent

The significance of true Swedish Dark Metal now lies in torchbearers Vanhelgd on their fifth full-length record Deimos Sanktuarium. With the band’s unwavering style of obscurum death / doom heavily drenched in riffs of dejection, Mattias Frisk & Co. are determined to clobber out some of the most heaviest yet forlorn extreme music in the recent years. Deimos Sanktuarium is a vibrant work of contempt and apathy molded in an enraptured state of beautiful grief. Featuring Year Of The Goat frontman Thomas Sabbathi arranging and performing unearthly choirs on "Silent Observer". Recorded at Studio Underjord with Joona Hassinen (Year Of The Goat, Saturnalia Temple, Ocean Chief, etc) and mixing and mastering duties by Tore Stjerna at Necromorbus Studio (Watain, Repugnant, Desultory, etc.) and Vanhelgd frontman Mattias Frisk (Ghost, Entrapment, Vampire, etc.) once again handling the odiously haunting artwork on Deimos Sanktuarium.

Bestia Arcana

Holokauston

Dark Descent

The Age of Wrath is upon Us! At long last, Dark Descent Records presents Holokauston, the follow-up to Bestia Arcana's acclaimed debut To Anabainon Ek Tes Abyssu. Four aphotic hymns to the End-of-Days spoken in sepulchral tongues. Fever-dream oracles of howling gods. Dissonant paeans to mankind's ruin and the final triumph of Death. Who will withstand the Fires of Judgment? Our hands are full of Blood! Oh Lord, our hands are full of Blood! Artwork by David Herrerias.

Devouring Star

The Arteries Of Heresy

Dark Descent

"Devouring Star has shown considerable evolution in its sound from their nascent demo release, and I urge everyone to check it out if you want to hear a fresh and disturbing new take on black metal." - No Clean Singing Finland's Devouring Star strike once again with their pitch-black sophomore album, The Arteries Of Heresy. A follow up to their acclaimed debut Through Lung and Heart (2015), The Arteries Of Heresy see the Finnish band bolder than ever before, as they venture further into the depths to expand on their signature sound of crushing black metal. Each of the five tracks on The Arteries of Heresy see the band expertly command chaos and sonic violence: the cold and calculated opener "Consummation" threatens the listener with imminent dread, before "Sin Assimilation" unleashes an onslaught of unforgiving molten steel. The Arteries of Heresy is bound to be one of 2018's most unforgiving and uncompromising black metal records, and cements Devouring Star as on of Finland's best kept secrets in extreme music. Reverse board printed jacket with 12-page booklet printed on uncoated stock. Includes digital download card.

Solstice (UK)

White Horse Hill

Dark Descent

The masters of epic heavy metal return after 20 years to reclaim their throne. Twenty-years after their last full-length, Solstice unleash White Horse Hill. The band states: "After issuing two vinyl-only mini-albums on our own White Horse label in 2014 and 2016 respectively (Death’s Crown Is Victory, and a limited promotional version of early demo tracks from this album entitled To Sol A Thane), the resulting impetus has bought us around to completing the musical work that is White Horse Hill. The album is intended to work musically in conjunction with both the lyrics (rooted firmly in the English oral folk tradition), and artwork (by US artist Chris Smith), both of which we place in equal value as being part of the finished piece." Includes CD bonus track.

Spectral Voice

Eroded Corridors Of Unbeing

Dark Descent

***ON LIMITED GRAY MARBLE VINYL!!! After no less than five demos / rehearsals and two splits, Colorado’s Spectral Voice are finally crossing the Styx and delivering their first proper full-length…and it is gigantic. While things appear quite straight-forward on paper (the band has never hidden their love of roughly mixing early and down tuned Finnish death metal with extreme doom in an acid bath) there’s something quite unique about them. Instead of weakening their impact, their rawness and vast sound only emphasizes their genuine thirst for darkness. Like a lurker oozing with evil intentions, Spectral Voice like to remain in the shadow. There, they’ve patiently learned from their elders, only to regurgitate their own brand of extreme death / doom. For instance, "Visions Of Psychic Dismemberment" is an eleven-minute long trip into the darkest regions of our collective mind, where Unholy’s trippiest moments join Incantation for a dance around the fire. The opening blast beat sequence in "Lurking Gloom" on the top of bleak arpeggios will fire up most Disembowelment freaks. Far more than just a sum of its parts, "Eroded Corridors of Unbeing" is a unique and claustrophobic voyage, cavernous yet full of clarity. Here, Spectral Voice is the sound of one’s soul going further down the abyss…and they’re taking you with them. Includes digital download card, 12-page booklet and a tri-fold jacket.

Krypts

Cadaver Circulation

Dark Descent

Finland’s Krypts return to unfurl an aeonic slab of death metal upon the ears. Cadaver Circulation explores immeasurable depths with six intense offerings of misanthropic, doom-laden death metal. This album is as unrepentant as the grave in its tormented and suffocating aura. From funereal dirges to steamroller bombasts of putrid death and decay, it leaves no tomb intact. Reverb-drenched atmosphere collides with eerie chords and abysmal vocals to craft one of the most harrowing death metal experiences of the year.  “A journey into cavernous, hellish doom, the songs on Cadaver Circulation are beefier, more deathly and more powerful than anything the Finns have released before.” —Decibel Magazine

Imprecation

Damnatio Ad Bestias

Dark Descent

Imprecation rises again from the blasted lands of Texas with their darkest spell ever, Damnatio Ad Bestias. This album expands upon the themes of their 2013 debut Satanae Tenebris Infinita with deadly results. An aura of true Satanic majesty is unleashed in tracks like “Temple of the Foul Spirit”, “Morbid Crucifixion”, and “Baptized in Satan’s Blood”. Bludgeoning guitars, battering drums, and haunting keys create an experience that will terrify the unbelievers and convert the uninitiated. Formed in 1991, Imprecation has become a vaunted institution in the underground, with their now-classic Theurgia Goetia Summa compilation cited by bands across the globe. They have no need for trendy tags like “old school death metal”, for theirs is simply death metal as it it was intended—evil, dangerous, and crushing.

Lvcifyre

Sacrament

Dark Descent

After the leveling aural decimation of 2014’s Svn Eater, the UK’s Lvcifyre have re-emerged with Sacrament, a twenty-three minute extended-play offering of cacophonous and wretched death metal savagery. Where relentless and violent death metal riffing meets chaotic and claustrophobic atmosphere, this is a delve into the corner of death metal fringe that many fear to explore.  Features a faithful and blistering cover of Kat’s (Poland) “Morderca” in addition to four original tracks. Vinyl version is a single-sided 12-inch with an etched b-side featuring art from Timo Ketola.

Vircolac

Masque

Dark Descent

After five years of roaming city streets like a pack of rabid dogs, Vircolac is set to release its debut full length album Masque on Sepulchral Voice Records in Europe and Dark Descent Records in the US. Following on from 2016’s The Cursed Travails Of The Demeter EP, Masque celebrates a bolder edge mixing more visceral and vicious aural assaults with with a foreboding and obtrusive atmosphere throughout the thirty-six minutes of the recording. The album title reflects the myriad masks human beings hide behind and the cover represents what is ultimately left once the mask of flesh is finally removed. Whether pauper or opulently venal, the end is the same for all. Thematically, the album reflects two different strands of story telling, with the first half adopting a starkly defiant tone throughout. The second half then takes a moodier assessment of the obsequious venality that governs the world inhabited and inherited, the conclusion of this being the mass industrialized slaughter of much of Europe’s young in the great war. It is a direct statement of purpose by Vircolac and the culmination of half a decade of steadfast belief in the continual relevance and importance of death metal.  “Masque is a raw and aggressive death metal album that maintains a foreboding atmosphere throughout. This is best demonstrated on songs like ‘Snake Among Man,’ where the dizzying, dissonant riffs melt into each other in a sea of discordance and growls.” —Decibel Magazine

Blood Incantation

Interdimensional Extinction

Dark Descent

***BACK IN PRINT!!! Note new price. Recording of four previously released tracks from their nearly impossible-to-find demo tapes. Mixed and mastered by Damian Herring (Subterranean Watchtower). Eighteen minutes of Sci-Fi death metal for fans of Timeghoul, Demilich and other oddities. All copies black vinyl with an etched B side. Includes A3 poster and download card.

Horrendous

Sweet Blasphemies

Dark Descent

Single side mini-LP w/ silk screen B side featuring original art from Mark Riddick. Horrendous took 2012 by surprise with their debut full-length, The Chills. Prior to releasing unarguably one of the best albums of the year, Horrendous released the five song demo, Sweet Blasphemies in 2009. Originally released via homemade CDrs directly by the band and then two separate tape pressings by Dark Descent Records (and SPR), Sweet Blasphemies sees a proper LP release. All five original songs are included as well as a never released track from in between the Sweet Blasphemies recording and the recordings for The Chills. Six tracks, over 22 minutes of fury. Cover art by Raul Gonzalez. Additional art provided by Mark Riddick.

Horrendous

The Chills

Dark Descent

Horrendous' 2010 demo titled "Sweet Blasphemies" was merely a brief showcasing of this band's tremendous potential. In addition to the CD-r version of the demo, two separate 200 copy pro tape pressings were made and sold; first via a cooperation with Dark Descent and Skeleton Plague then later through Dark Descent Records. Horrendous' debut full-length titled "The Chills" is a full-on assault of the aural senses. Horrendous mixes HM-2 sound with unique melody and solos creating memorable and terrific songwriting . This is no "retro" band but a band that has clearly created a nine-song death metal masterpiece ending with the epic nine-minute closer "The Eye of Madness." Do not mistake this band for a clone of Entombed, Autopsy or Incantation. Doing this would be a great disservice to a masterful album and you would obviously miss out on what will be one of 2012's best death metal albums, hands down. Cover art by Raul Gonzalez (Morbus Chron, Deceased)

Skeletal Remains

Devouring Mortality

Dark Descent

Skeletal Remains returns with their third album (first on Dark Descent) on April 13th. Inspired by 90's legends from Asphyx over Pestilence to Gorguts, Morbid Angel, and Demolition Hammer, Devouring Mortality proves to be the band's most diverse and crushing opus to date.

Obliteration

Cenotaph Obscure

Dark Descent

“Cenotaph Obscure is the fourth album from Norway’s death metal custodians Obliteration. Following their now classic Nekropsalms (2009) and the harrowing Black Death Horizon (2013), the latest offering further expands on the quartet’s trademark sound: lead heavy old school death metal with distinct flavours of both doom and black metal. Inventive yet never difficult to grasp, technical without wankery and obscure without being diffuse, Obliteration are masters at their craft. Cenotaph Obscure was recorded in Studio Cobra, Stockholm with Martin “Konie” Ehrencrona at the helm, lending the album an organic yet in-your-face production. In perfect keeping with the music, the lyrics deal with dystopic, apocalyptic themes, extinct civilizations and interdimensional portals etc. With Cenotaph Obscure, Obliteration cement their status as leaders in the Norwegian death metal scene, delivering a grizzly yet flawless monument to death metal the way it was meant to be; obscure, ominous and unpredictable.”  —Einar Sjursø (Virus, Infernö. Duplicate Records)   “Obliteration is one of a handful of modern death metal bands that manage to strike a good balance between reverence for the old-school and the desire to carve their own path. But they also walk a tightrope between hooks and progression, and between aggression and atmosphere. This makes them one of the most compelling and important death metal bands making records today.”  —Decibel Magazine

Undergang

Misantropologi

Dark Descent

Kill Town's most rotten dwellers return for their fourth album of bone-rattling, sewer-drenched death metal.  Copenhagen's Undergang return with ten tracks of low-end madness.  Recorded at Earhammer Studio in 2016.

Ensnared

Dysangelium

Dark Descent

As with all things born that are destined to die, Ensnared has slithered and slavered, hungered and hated, corrupting those waves of air most precious to the ones with ears to hear, ever worse-wards since that momentous year of 2010. Rehearsing, rearranging, and recognizing the infinite possibilities of failure, its firstborn tore its way out of its womb and saw the grayness of the Swedish sky in 2011. As a demo, as the opening statement of intent and disorient, it bore the eponymous title of Ensnared. The sum of its parts exchanged on numerous accounts, withdrawing widdershins with wanton wounds: reorganizing, reconstructing, and returning to spew forth a second scorn in 2013, once again by the radiance of Nuclear Winter Records, it bore the title Ravenous Damnation's Dawn. Wrought in somber soundscapes, the toil of its tilling bore fruit and bore calamity to calmness and an end to silence: Ensnared killed, crafted, and descended to Hell’s Pleasure in 2014. As with all things dying that are destined to live,the band has toiled and trodden on paths worn down by those before. Ever failing, ever finding new futility in the opulence of expression, but by the virtue of perseverance did the dysangelical take its form and was moulded in its fathomless form. It now bears the title Dysangelium, wreaking purulence in hearts perverse, as a full-length display of magicks harnessed and discarded. Verily Ensnared in its immediate sonic sensation(s) yet very much its own rancorous, cantankerous creation stripped of precedent, Dysangelium...

Lantern

Ii: Morphosis

Dark Descent

Since LANTERN's debut full-length ‘Below’ perfectly got the zeitgeist of the mid-10’s dark and arcane DM revival DARK DESCENT RECORDS has almost become synonymous for, it would have made perfect sense for those Finns to simply so to speak return to very same cave and lock themselves up down there with no heat nor light for two weeks straight to conjure the same type of pitch black music. But this is where you draw the line in between those happy with their little niche and the real artists, destined to expand their horizon no matter what… Fear not, ‘II – Morphosis’ isn’t trying to reach for the light either and still reeks of the ancient metal ov death foul stench. And even if they’ve now officially integrated the three extra members the initial duo had with them since 2011 for live activities and recorded it as a five piece, there’s still here a palpable sense of obscurity throughout those nine songs, as if being seen through a veiled curtain. But many actually will probably actually be quite surprised by how articulate but also strangely melodic the ‘new’ LANTERN is. While a track like “Cleansing of the Air” or the epic instrumental “Necrotic Epiphanies” carry a strong thrash influence that can also be found in Necrophilos’ scruffy vocals, the album is first and foremost packed with twisted riffs that spiral on and off that pierce through the thick fog it conjures like razors. But no matter how hectic the whole thing...

Dead Void

Volatile Forms

Dark Descent

After some silence since their magnificent demo, Dead Void return from the depths to bestow a crushing debut album—Volatile Forms—upon the world. Drawing in on doomy, yet certainly not meek, atmospherics—the sheer monstrous tone of which will pin one to the wall—it is clear this is something unwieldy. Murmuring bass seeps through buzzing guitars in a manner that sounds profoundly unwelcoming, while the daunting vocals and crashing drums give no alleviation from the bludgeoning force. While the hostile and claustrophobic sounds of this record cannot be ignored, equally impactful are the grooves which hit like a hammer of pure malice when carefully spliced with the caverns of eerily contorting death metal. When the pounding drums break through the guitars, they have a real hard tone, while the seeping filth of the strings is not overshadowed. Clearly the three demos and spacing between them have allowed the band to develop into the best version of themselves, as on this debut album one hears a refined but unpolished and inhospitable cut of truly awesome music taking form. Moving forth, the hooks, the grooves, the expanses of doom and desolation, all conjure something inescapable and dread-tinged while the malignant hammering of pure old school violence is not lost or forgotten, as warped riffs and blast-beats meet gutturally-spewed vocals and occasional lead oddities. Contrasting often nuanced moments with an assault of bestial ferocity, there is no predictability or obvious pattern, rather a chaotic and honest approach to all of the songs. These tracks move...