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Haunted Plasma, powerhouse of futuristic synth in symbiosis with the super violence of kosmische black metal, release their debut album in May 2024

The phenomenal three-piece band includes members of Oranssi Pazuzu, K-X-P, Grave Pleasures and Aavikko

Svart Records is proud to release the debut album, I, from Haunted Plasma, a powerhouse of futuristic synth in symbiosis with the super violent atmospherics of kosmische Black Metal. Haunted Plasma is “man meets machine” in a cybernetic wasteland, set to a conceptual backdrop of William Gibson and Phillip K. Dick style mind-melt. The highly evolved creatives at the heart of Haunted Plasma’s sound, cite Terry Riley, Massive Attack, a contemporary take on Krautrock hypnosis, psychedelic Black Metal and 90s Techno, resulting in an orgy of mutant sound.



The phantoms at the beating nucleus of this unearthly machine are Juho Vanhanen (Oranssi Pazuzu, Grave Pleasures), Timo Kaukolampi (K-X-P, Op:l Bastards) and Tomi Leppänen (Circle, Aavikko, K-X-P), transmitting a music form evolved from a life of redefining sonic boundaries in their respective projects. Also featuring guest vocals from Mat McNerney (Hexvessel, Carpenter Brut, Grave Pleasures/Beastmilk), Pauliina Lindell (Vuono, Dust Mountain) and Ringa Manner (Ruusut, The Hearing). Haunted Plasma promises an extraterrestrial experience from some of the foremost contemporary musicians at the heart of the Finnish heavy and avant-garde musical underworld.



Haunted Plasma reveals:

“We are liberated futurists, embracing free-form and natural composition, mirroring the merciless forces of cosmic creation. We have a motto to stay true to our feelings, to spawn a sound that’s never been heard before. Servants of music. Energizing, radical and pure”

The first single from Haunted Plasma’s cascading debut, Reverse Engineer, is a creepy, slowly erupting, synthetic nightmare, of a downloaded being waking up in the wrong future. Ghostly vocals demand the listener to “give us what we want” in an Orwellian glimpse into the current dystopia we live in, where information is controlled, and thoughts are bought and sold. As McNerney intones the words “technology of power” he describes the threat of a malevolent and omnipresent artificial intelligence, as much as describing the oppressive and electromagnetic sonar pulse of Haunted Plasma’s sound itself. Psychedelic guitar hypnosis from Vanhanen snakes around Kaukolampi’s molten and morphing synths, while Leppänen’s uncanny man/machine rhythms pull our strings and animate their other-worldly mechanisms. Have a look at the official visualiser of "Reverse Engineer" on the Svart YouTube channel here

Culminating in the full-blown fast Krautrock of the final self-titled track, oozing with blistering noise elements and enigmatic vocals from Ringa Manner, the album's journey reaches its zenith, taking you to unknown territories on a Kubrikian space trip. I is a rare record of talented musicians coming together to create a completely new sound, which is entirely their own, boldly glowing, where no light has shone before. From the dreamy psychedelia of Echoes to the discombobulated Spectral Embrace, Haunted Plasma is a willful force of deliberate sound contortion.

Whether you want to give in to Haunted Plasma’s sound or not, you are being watched, you are being recorded and your every move is monitored. Haunted Plasma will enter your system on the 31st of May 2024. Turn on your phantom circuits and be prepared for an interdimensional excursion into Haunted Plasma’s alien dreams.

Total speed metal rager Obnoxious Youth return with a new album out in October.

The Swedish-Finnish speed and thrash metal quintet Obnoxious Youth is back with a bang after a four year break. New album Burning Savage will be out in 18th October 2024.

-“A total speed metal rager manifesting the driving force behind the onslaught that is Obnoxious Youth. A sexual flame and a satanic force of nature. An urge to discover and embrace the primitive flame that grows inside. Succumb to the Burning fucking Savage” Affe ”Phantasma” Piran, the vocalist of Obnoxious Youth, manifests.

The sperm of Satan’s cock AKA the Obnoxious Youth was born in 2002 in Uppsala/Sweden. But the fully fledged and perverted behemoth that stands before you today was an international collaboration brought to life in 2009 by John ”Zeke” Finne, Affe ”Phantasma” Piran and Frans ”Cult” Utterström. But today Edde ”Shit” Aftonfalk and Lukas ”Spine” Häger are added to the live lineup of the band.

The purpose of the band was to break boundaries and to return to the time when extreme music didn’t have any rules or regulations. When there was no ”death metal” or ”thrash metal”, when there was just ”metal” or ”punk”. Just channeling the most insane music that was humanly possible. Using methods that was founded in the 80’s, Obnoxious Youth fully encloses itself and gets swallowed by the power of extreme music and getting influences from a feeling rather than other bands. Taking the listeners back to a time when heavy music was something to fear.

In 2012 the band received a Manifest Award for the debut album The Eternal Void and has since then released two EP’s (Suck On The Cross, 2013 and Mouths Sewn Shut, 2020) and one more full length album Disturbing the Graves in 2017. They have established themselves as a fierce live band that leaves no one unaffected.

Members of Obnoxious Youth has played in or currently plays in bands such as Vorum, Undergång, Endtime, Reveal!, Morbus Chron, Century, Tøronto, Degial, Begravningsentreprenörerna, Entombed and No Future.

Svart Records releases Obnoxious Youth’s new album Burning Savage 18th of October 2024 on black, transparent red and limited yellow/red/black marble vinyl versions – and of course on glorious CD. Pre-orders are now available on Svart Records’ webstore.

Hexvessel, the enigmatic Finnish band known for their genre-defying musical conjurations, is thrilled to announce the highly anticipated second vinyl pressing of their sixth album, "Polar Veil," via Svart Records, including new limited vinyl colours and a poster! Following the unexpected shift in tone from their Psychedelic Folk roots to a more atmospheric Black Metal sound, "Polar Veil" not only garnered Hexvessel a broader and even more diverse audience but also became one of Svart Records' best-selling albums of 2023.

Originally released to critical acclaim, "Polar Veil" earned the title of #1 Metal Album of the year in Sweden's Aftenposten newspaper, secured the #2 spot in Inferno Magazine's top 10 domestic Metal Albums of the year, and claimed the #13 position in Soundi's top 20 domestic albums of the year after receiving a stellar 5/5 review. The album was also nominated for Band of The Year in the Finnish Indie Awards, setting the stage for an exciting year of live shows in 2024.

Hexvessel's sixth album "Polar Veil" is a mesmerizing journey into the Sub Arctic North, weaving together elements of Black Metal, Ritual Folk Psychedelia, and Doom Rock. The second LP pressing is available on Svart exclusive transparent violet vinyl, limited transparent yellow vinyl, and standard issue black vinyl. Each pressing comes with a large-scale 12-page booklet featuring artwork by Thomas Hooper and the Svart exclusive edition also has a poster showcasing Benjamin König's stunning, jaw-dropping cover artwork.

Experience the magic of "Polar Veil" once again. Don’t miss out on one of these limited rarities and order your copy now!

Der mit einem Grammy® Award und mehrfach mit Platin ausgezeichnete Singer-Songwriter, Schauspieler und New-York-Times-Bestsellerautor Corey Taylor (Slipknot, Stone Sour) verrät Details zu seinem neuen Solo-Studioalbum Cmf2. Cmf2 ist der Nachfolger von Taylors Solodebüt Cmft aus dem Jahr 2020, das die Nummer-1-Billboard-Mainstream-Rocksingle „Black Eyes Blue“ und die Streaming-Sensation „Cmft Must Be Stopped“ (feat.Tech N9ne und Kid Bookie) enthielt. Das Album erreichte Platz sechs der US-amerikanische Billboard Top Rock Album Charts und #9 der deutschen Albumcharts.



„Mein erstes Soloalbum spiegelte wider, wo ich herkam. Dieses Album zeigt eher, wo wir hinwollen", fügt Taylor hinzu. Cmf2 – auf dem Taylor singt und Lead- und Rhythmusgitarre, Klavier und Mandoline spielt – bündelt die Energie, Experimentierfreudigkeit und Direktheit, die eine Karriere ausmachen, in der Taylor mit seiner mit einem Grammy ausgezeichneten Band Slipknot mehr als zwölf Millionen Alben und mit den Chartstürmern Stone Sour weitere Millionen verkauft hat.



Cmf2 ist Taylors erstes Album für BMG und das erste auf seinem eigenen Label, Decibel Cooper Recordings. Jay Ruston (Anthrax, Steel Panther, Amon Amarth), der sowohl Stone Sours 2017er Album Hydrograd als auch Cmft produziert hat, kehrte für Taylors zweites Album zurück. „Zusammen haben wir großartige Ideen, große Energie und probieren einfach alles aus", sagt Taylor über seinen Studiokollegen. „Wir haben keine Angst, uns gegenseitig zu sagen, wenn wir etwas für eine gute oder schlechte Idee halten; wir haben diese Art von Vertrauen.“



Die Cmft Band sind:

Corey Taylor (Vocals/Gitarre)

Zach Throne (Rhythmus/Lead Gitarre)

Dustin Robert (Schlagzeug)

Christian Martucci (Rhythmus/Lead Gitarre)

Eliot Lorango (Bass)

Antichrist Siege Machine was formed in 2016 as an alliance between RZ and SB. Through extensive touring along the east coast and multiple releases, Antichrist Siege Machine has solidified their place as a violent force to be reckoned with. Each effort has further developed the duo’s sound, enhancing the barbarity of previous releases. The storm now approaches. Antichrist Siege Machine are prepared to release their new full length LP “Purifying Blade.” Sustaining the unhinged violence on display on 2020’s “Filth of the World” EP Antichrist Siege Machine rise victorious in the temple assaulted. Each track on “Purifying Blade” a weapon wielded by wickedness and hatred directed at the heart of Christendom. Faces of black evil, shields hardened with the cracked ribs of the dead.

Finland’s Hexvessel return with their sixth album, Polar Veil, a cold, metallic hymn to the Sub Arctic North. Haunted by primal forest spirits, Mat “Kvohst” McNerney summons the ghosts of his past in a jaw-dropping, unheard-of rebirth of style and sound. At once unmistakably Hexvessel, Polar Veil is also steeped in the nocturnal atmosphere of McNerney’s past, churned in the cauldron of Black Metal, Ritual Folk Psychedelia and Doom Rock, and echoing with shivering Gothic undertones. Polar Veil features Ben Chisholm, main collaborator and multi-instrumentalist with Chelsea Wolfe on Listen To The River, Nameless Void from Negative Plane, performing the guitar solo on the song Ring, and Okoi from Bölzer on guest vocals on Older Than The Gods. When the components of the medicine are familiar but brewed in a completely novel concoction, the resulting side effects can be deliriously intoxicating. Peer behind this Polar Veil for a breath of fresh tundra air.

Polar Veil is pressed on limited edition transparent lake green vinyl, limited transparent ice clear natural vinyl and standard issue blacker than midnight wax variants and each comes with a large scale 12 page booklet featuring artwork by Thomas Hooper.

Der mit einem Grammy® Award und mehrfach mit Platin ausgezeichnete Singer-Songwriter, Schauspieler und New-York-Times-Bestsellerautor Corey Taylor (Slipknot, Stone Sour) verrät Details zu seinem neuen Solo-Studioalbum Cmf2. Cmf2 ist der Nachfolger von Taylors Solodebüt Cmft aus dem Jahr 2020, das die Nummer-1-Billboard-Mainstream-Rocksingle „Black Eyes Blue“ und die Streaming-Sensation „Cmft Must Be Stopped“ (feat.Tech N9ne und Kid Bookie) enthielt. Das Album erreichte Platz sechs der US-amerikanische Billboard Top Rock Album Charts und #9 der deutschen Albumcharts.



„Mein erstes Soloalbum spiegelte wider, wo ich herkam. Dieses Album zeigt eher, wo wir hinwollen", fügt Taylor hinzu. Cmf2 – auf dem Taylor singt und Lead- und Rhythmusgitarre, Klavier und Mandoline spielt – bündelt die Energie, Experimentierfreudigkeit und Direktheit, die eine Karriere ausmachen, in der Taylor mit seiner mit einem Grammy ausgezeichneten Band Slipknot mehr als zwölf Millionen Alben und mit den Chartstürmern Stone Sour weitere Millionen verkauft hat.



Cmf2 ist Taylors erstes Album für BMG und das erste auf seinem eigenen Label, Decibel Cooper Recordings. Jay Ruston (Anthrax, Steel Panther, Amon Amarth), der sowohl Stone Sours 2017er Album Hydrograd als auch Cmft produziert hat, kehrte für Taylors zweites Album zurück. „Zusammen haben wir großartige Ideen, große Energie und probieren einfach alles aus", sagt Taylor über seinen Studiokollegen. „Wir haben keine Angst, uns gegenseitig zu sagen, wenn wir etwas für eine gute oder schlechte Idee halten; wir haben diese Art von Vertrauen.“



Die Cmft Band sind:

Corey Taylor (Vocals/Gitarre)

Zach Throne (Rhythmus/Lead Gitarre)

Dustin Robert (Schlagzeug)

Christian Martucci (Rhythmus/Lead Gitarre)

Eliot Lorango (Bass)

Demilich’s demo compilation is back in print! This deluxe 2LP compilation comes with a gatefold sleeve and a 12-page booklet.

With the release of Black Magnet’s debut album ‘Hallucination Scene’ in 2020 a new Industrial Metal power emerged from the unlikely landscape of Oklahoma City. After anxiously waiting out the pandemic Black Magnet returned to the road in late 2021 and now drop ‘Body Prophecy’ the second full length burst of machine driven mayhem and electronic deviance.

On ‘Body Prophecy’ mastermind James Hammontree welds the frenetic vitality of post-punk and metal energy with driving synthetic club beats, factory force physicality and alluringly stark melodic pulses. Tracks like ‘Floating in Nothing’ and ‘Violent Mechanix’ feature both intensely catchy hooks and hammering brutal noise. ‘Sold Me Sad’ is a quietly deranged lullaby that takes an atmospheric turn. The throbbing drug-addled lurch of the Manson / Reznor-esque ‘Incubate’ is, at the end of the album, treated to a completely re-imagined and extended club style remix by scene legend Justin K. Broadrick (Godflesh, Zonal, etc).

For all its harsher, scraping atmospheres and pummeling aggression ‘Body Prophecy’ always remains an eminently tight, memorable album molded for the stage and constructed to keep bodies in motion and listeners transfixed.

MORGUL BLADE's sophomore album delivers righteous headbanging anthems. Songs like the title track and "Beneath the Black Sails" lean into their love of Tolkien lore, with the arena rock attitude inspired by Dokken and the Scorpions. Other tracks like "Frostwyrm Calvary" attack with the ice cold speed of classic black metal. More ambitious yet are "Razor Sharp" and "Neither Cross Nor Crown," which speak to the band's working class attitude and disdain for zealotry. "Heavy Metal Wraiths" is an instant classic blackened epic heavy metal album. Album cover by James Bousema. 1. Eagle Strike2. Beneath the Black Sails3. Heavy Metal Wraiths4. Frostwyrm Cavalry5. Widow's Lament6. Spider God7. Razor Sharp8. A Welcoming Hearth9. Neither Cross Nor Crown10. The Last in a Line of Kings

Repress on Galaxy Blue Vinyl. Limited to 500 copies.On their second long player, FIRES IN THE DISTANCE further expand on their musical foundations of wistful melodicism, crushingly heavy guitar work and intricate atmospherics. Across Air Not Meant For Us' six tracks, FIRES IN THE DISTANCE tie together intensely personal ruminations on mental health and themes of existentialism in the form of mortality salience, without losing sight of the importance of perseverance.Teaming up with Salt Lake City producer Randy Slaugh (Devin Townsend, Tesseract, White Moth Black Butterfly), FIRES IN THE DISTANCE's chief songwriter Yegor Savonin (composition, guitars, programming, lyrics) sought to reach even greater dynamics within the band's core sound of melodic death and doom metal. With live orchestration in the form of violas, violins, cellos, as well as piano work, proving to be an incredibly fruitful collaborative process for both band and producer.

From their formation back in 1986, to becoming one of Norways’s finest musical exports (with a number of highly revered black metal masterpieces released in the early 90’s helping to solidify their legacy), Darkthrone has continued to evolve and challenge in equal measure, throughout their illustrious recording career spanning over three decades. And now, the ever-productive duo of Nocturno and Fenriz continue their own metallic saga with a new selection of fine, vintage sounding headbanging classics in the making.

‘Astral Fortress’ is itself a swift follow-up to 2021’s ‘Eternal Hails’ opus, as a result of Darkthrone’s consistent and ongoing writing process, which has been in force for some years now. For Darkthrone does not sleep - it only waits.

Carried on the brisk wind of eager rock, with foundations in black, thrash, doom and heavy metal, ‘Astral Fortress’ is the latest album of stellar, eclectic old metal in the Darkthrone odyssey. With a seemingly endless dungeon full of heavy metal influences channelled through Darkthrone’s dynamic riff-machine, plus also with many increasing inspirations taken from their own past catalogue, Darkthrone has truly become its own beast within the metal world. Even though sprinkled with atmospheric touches such as synthesizers and mellotron on ‘Astral Fortress’ to great effect, the Darkthrone sound remains stripped down to the core; always primitive and organic.

‘Astral Fortress’ was recorded at Chaka Khan Studios in Oslo, the same location used for the ‘Eternal Hails’ album, with Ole Øvstedal and Silje Høgevold.

Solid green vinyl. Qwälen became what it is in 2017. The band members share a passion for playing music in its various raw manifestations and their band backgrounds include Küroishi, Nistikko, Dumathoin and Akma among many others. Punk background bleeds into the music connecting Qwälen's interpretation of black metal into how the genre started decades ago. Simplicity, rawness, speed and honesty. These values were present in the beginning and the same values still hold true. Punk background especially shows live as the chaotic energy of hardcore punk clashes with the ritualistic nature of black metal. Lyrical themes in the first album focused on self-portrayal, dealing with loss, building anew along with finding alternatives in abandonment, misanthropy and Satan. The second album ponders the sheep-like nature of humanity, the inevitability of destruction, the acceptance of being faulted and surrendering to a greater force. Syvä hiljaisuus was recorded at Waiting room recording studio in Tampere with Mikael Neves who has worked with the likes of Death toll 80k and Tryer. Mikael also handled mixing duties. Mastering was done by Will Killingsworth at Dead air studios.

Classic black vinyl!The contemporary Belgian music scene keeps spawning awesome bands, and B R I Q U E V I L L E - the spaces in between the letters are part of their moniker are among the most intriguing and compelling of them. The meditative heaviness of their sound and the carefulengineering of the visual aspects of their mesmerizing live-performance rituals are awe-inspiring and challenging in equal measure.After 2017's dazzling instrumental opus ,II", the Flemish 5-piece finally return with their 3rd studio album, one of the first real pandemic-albums to be released on Pelagic. The band members had to finish the album in separation, which worked outbetter than they had initially expected: the forced distance allowed them to take distance not only to each other, but alsotowards their own song material. Some pieces grew larger than originally intended, others were stripped down to the essentials and reinvented.The end result is a staggering album that is sophisticated and smothering at the same time, made up of altogether shorter songs as compared to the previous release, and there is a more prominent focus on those tasty electronics, which have always been an integral part of B R I Q U E V I L L E 's sound. The album is also the first one with an album title: Quelle means ,source" in German, and ,which" in French. ,We strongly feel that this record keeps all the ingredients of previous recordsand explores them further than we ever did before. The theme of a 'source', and the 'which' linking it reflexively to our previous album artwork gave us the feeling that we stayed true to our original concept, music, artwork and clips. Water and sand as a source of life and death. How an isolated soul deals with these elements", says a nameless band member... What? Yes, B R I Q U E V I L L E is a band shrouded in mystery. The black Nazgûl-robes and golden masks that all members wear on stage give their presence the air of an occult ritual... butthe band is not chasing (a) Ghost; in fact t...

The absolute vile-force of Deathpunks DOLDREY is encroached in the group’s latest pièce de résistance “Only Death Is Eternal”, an EP featuring five tracks of cruel, glacial-piercing riffs akin to a rusty knife clutched deep into an infected stabwound. “Only Death Is Eternal” is a true manifestation of nefarious, show-no-mercy Death/Thrash Metal with the sensibilities of streetpunk, intricate but brilliantly arranged song structures further elevate the wicked and twisted DNA of DOLDREY; “Only Death Is Eternal” is the sublime transition and a flawless emulsifier of the unadulterated lawless nature of Punk and the precision musicianship of traditional Metal. Recorded and mixed once again by Izzad Radzali Shah at Dungeon 416 and mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios, Western Massachusetts, USA (Full Of Hell, Iron Lung, The Body, Glue, etc), with macabre cover artwork and illustrations conceptualized by Alexander L. Brown (Bølzer, Cruciamentum, Horrendous, etc). 1. Moral Decay2. Only Death Is Eternal3. All Is Hell4. Societal Machine5. Keres

Vltra was the swansong of the leading Italian late 90's black metal movement. After 2 albums and an handful of demos released on domestic labels, SEW found international recognition with their third and most complete, mature album, Vltra. This was recorded with analog equipment and features some wonderful symbolist/futuristic art by Russian Konstantin Yuon (1920). 1 I2 II3 III4 IVVocals – Il Colonnello5 V6 VI7 VII8 VIII9 IX10 X

Mamaleek seeks to weaponize the tropes of blues, jazz and black metal through an understanding of their respective formal structures. Known for flouting genre conventions, the band’s newest album Come & See, marks yet another degree of separation from their black metal roots. Here Mamaleek draws inspiration from post-war public housing—specifically Chicago’s notorious Cabrini Green housing project—seeking to analyze the emotional impact of the spaces one occupies, the surreal forces behind the appearance of physical reality, and the residues they leave behind. This is the band’s third full-length album for The Flenser, and their first release written and recorded with a full band.

Founded in 2008 in the Bay Area by two anonymous brothers, Mamaleek has explored a vast sonic territory on the edge of a genre often renown for its aversion to change. Their expert utilization of left-field samples and unconventional instrumentation, and their insistent drive to experiment continues to set the band apart from their peers.

Demos & Live assault from legends of UK punk/metal Sacrilege! Contains the first two ’84 and ’85 Sacrilege demos alongside a remarkable set from the eminent Ambulance Station Squat on Old Kent Road in London, 1985

Qwälen became what it is in 2017. The band members share a passion for playing music in its various raw manifestations and their band backgrounds include Küroishi, Nistikko, Dumathoin and Akma among many others. Punk background bleeds into the music connecting Qwälen's interpretation of black metal into how the genre started decades ago. Simplicity, rawness, speed and honesty. These values were present in the beginning and the same values still hold true. Punk background especially shows live as the chaotic energy of hardcore punk clashes with the ritualistic nature of black metal. Lyrical themes in the first album focused on self-portrayal, dealing with loss, building anew along with finding alternatives in abandonment, misanthropy and Satan. The second album ponders the sheep-like nature of humanity, the inevitability of destruction, the acceptance of being faulted and surrendering to a greater force. Syvä hiljaisuus was recorded at Waiting room recording studio in Tampere with Mikael Neves who has worked with the likes of Death toll 80k and Tryer. Mikael also handled mixing duties. Mastering was done by Will Killingsworth at Dead air studios.

Svart Records proudly present the Black- and Doom Metal pioneers Unholy’s compilation of early material – Demology out on July 19th



“Unholy are arguably the most original, avant-garde, definitive, and important Finnish extreme metal band. The paths they have walked have always been lonely and unknown, entering to the deepest celestial forests and psychic graveyards, and the treasures found there dark and exquisite. This compilation consists of their three legendary demos, of which Trip to Depressive Autumn is the best recording ever done in Finland, of any genre or style”. - Albert Witchfinder, Reverend Bizarre



Svart Records is set to release the compilation album “Demology” by Finnish avant-garde death doom metal band Unholy. Including their early demo recordings "The Procession of Black Doom" (1990), "Demo 11.90" (1990) and "Trip to Depressive Autumn" (1992), this is the first time these demos are in the same package with exclusive liner notes.



Unholy emerged from the eastern Finnish town of Imatra in the late '80s. After changing their name from Armageddon to Holy Hell and eventually to Unholy, their mission was simple; to create harder, heavier, and slower music than their idols Black Sabbath and Celtic Frost. The lyrical themes and ideas for the songs came from Satanism, mysticism, anti-Christianity, mushroom trips, and shamanism among others. Finnish deep ecologist Pentti Linkola also inspired the band and their music. Some of the songs came up naturally by jamming riffs and others entirely by improvisation.



While the first two demos already made Unholy a force to be reckoned with, the release of “Trip to Depressive Autumn” caught the attention of the underground metal scene and various labels. The band was hungry for a recording contract, and it finally came into realization when Lethal Records released their debut album “From the Shadows” in 1993.

Svart Records proudly present the Black- and Doom Metal pioneers Unholy’s compilation of early material – Demology out on July 19th



“Unholy are arguably the most original, avant-garde, definitive, and important Finnish extreme metal band. The paths they have walked have always been lonely and unknown, entering to the deepest celestial forests and psychic graveyards, and the treasures found there dark and exquisite. This compilation consists of their three legendary demos, of which Trip to Depressive Autumn is the best recording ever done in Finland, of any genre or style”. - Albert Witchfinder, Reverend Bizarre



Svart Records is set to release the compilation album “Demology” by Finnish avant-garde death doom metal band Unholy. Including their early demo recordings "The Procession of Black Doom" (1990), "Demo 11.90" (1990) and "Trip to Depressive Autumn" (1992), this is the first time these demos are in the same package with exclusive liner notes.



Unholy emerged from the eastern Finnish town of Imatra in the late '80s. After changing their name from Armageddon to Holy Hell and eventually to Unholy, their mission was simple; to create harder, heavier, and slower music than their idols Black Sabbath and Celtic Frost. The lyrical themes and ideas for the songs came from Satanism, mysticism, anti-Christianity, mushroom trips, and shamanism among others. Finnish deep ecologist Pentti Linkola also inspired the band and their music. Some of the songs came up naturally by jamming riffs and others entirely by improvisation.



While the first two demos already made Unholy a force to be reckoned with, the release of “Trip to Depressive Autumn” caught the attention of the underground metal scene and various labels. The band was hungry for a recording contract, and it finally came into realization when Lethal Records released their debut album “From the Shadows” in 1993.

Black Friday Record Store Day 2022 Reissue. Color: Blue. Limitation: 3000 copies.

Papa Roach deliver their most diverse album yet, bringing together themes of rock, rap, alternative and pop in a style that is authentically their own, on their 11th full-length album in the 22nd year of their careers. Track include the hard left turn of “Swerve” featuring Jason Aalon of Fever 333 and Sueco, the 4-week-at-#1 Mainstream Rock Hit “Kill The Noise”, the anthemic “Dying To Believe”, and the latest single “No Apologies”. The band continues to veer across traditional boundaries that most bands barely have the nerve to occupy, creating one of the most diverse and fearless discographies in Rock music.

Exclusive First Pressing on Blue Seafoam Wave Vinyl, Bonus Acoustic 7” on Translucent Yellow Vinyl, Pop-Up Ego Trip Roller Coaster Gatefold

Red Fang's self-titled debut full-length will be reissued on Sargent House in December 2021.This debut is being repressed for the first time since 2015). Red Fang is the formation of long time friends and collaborators Bryan Giles (Last of the Juanitas, Party Time), Aaron Beam (Dark Forces, Lachrymator), David Sullivan (Party Time, facedowninshit, Shiny Beast) and John Sherman (Party Time, Bad Wizard, Trumans Water, All Night). Unleashed on New Year's Eve of 2006 in Portland, Oregon, Red Fang stormed out of the gates, introducing a sweaty, seething basement to a new kind of unforgettable fist-pumping, beer-chugging rock music. Since that night, the band has continued with the same intensity, energy, and intimacy to quickly become a touring juggernaut, playing shows all over the US with bands like The Melvins, Big Business, and The Sword, to name just a few. Residing somewhere between Black Flag and Black Sabbath, Red Fang recall a time when rock was more urgent and horrifying. Synthesizing a variety of heavy music influences into their own distinct musical identity, the band easily shifts from barn-burning punk to mid-tempo, hyper-distorted bass destruction all while maintaining a cohesive sound. Red Fang create gigantic rock songs that are easy to listen to (not easy listening, mind you) and qualify the simultaneous usage of both the thinking and the banging head, which are usually mutually exclusive. Their instrumentation is fluid and effortless, and the vocals are delivered melodically and forcefully, with enough rasp and effect saturation to fit nicely within the music. Paired with elemental imagery, the lyrics are immense and satisfying without any pretense. Classic black vinyl, for Fans of Fu Manchu, Melvins, Clutch, Stoner, Doom & Sludge!

Killer live album from one of the most legendry hard-core bands - Volume 1!

Blistering live set featuring 18 tracks and including “We Gotta Know, World Peace, Show No Mercy, Apocalypse Now, Signs Of The Times, Age Of Quarrel, Hard Times and Death Camps”.

Unavailable for ages, now re-mastered with new art!

Black Rainbows are back with a brand new album! This time they are delivering 12 new and fresh tunes. Recorded and produced by Fabio Sforza, who was also behind the previous album Pandaemonium. “Cosmic Ritual Supertrip” has a monolithic force; guitars, drums and bass are all glued together to give the listener a punch in the face! This album gets its magic power from mixing together a 70’s attitude with a doom-occult and stoner rock sound in a masterful way. We can count a bunch of singles, such as “Isolation” and “Master Rocket Power Blast”, as well as a couple of doomy songs like “Universal Phase” and “Saacred Graal” and also more catchy tunes like “Radio 666” and “At Midnight You Cry”. This is the 8th album of the band and we believe the best one so far. Recorded at Forward Studios in Rome on a huge Neve desk, this new gem will be out May 1st, on Heavy Psych Sounds Records.
The amazing artwork, made by the one and only Robin Gnista, is matching in its entirety the album music concept.

Haunted Plasma, powerhouse of futuristic synth in symbiosis with the super violence of kosmische black metal, release their debut album in May 2024

The phenomenal three-piece band includes members of Oranssi Pazuzu, K-x-p, Grave Pleasures and Aavikko

Svart Records is proud to release the debut album, I, from Haunted Plasma, a powerhouse of futuristic synth in symbiosis with the super violent atmospherics of kosmische Black Metal. Haunted Plasma is “man meets machine” in a cybernetic wasteland, set to a conceptual backdrop of William Gibson and Phillip K. Dick style mind-melt. The highly evolved creatives at the heart of Haunted Plasma’s sound, cite Terry Riley, Massive Attack, a contemporary take on Krautrock hypnosis, psychedelic Black Metal and 90s Techno, resulting in an orgy of mutant sound.



The phantoms at the beating nucleus of this unearthly machine are Juho Vanhanen (Oranssi Pazuzu, Grave Pleasures), Timo Kaukolampi (K-x-p, Op:l Bastards) and Tomi Leppänen (Circle, Aavikko, K-x-p), transmitting a music form evolved from a life of redefining sonic boundaries in their respective projects. Also featuring guest vocals from Mat McNerney (Hexvessel, Carpenter Brut, Grave Pleasures/Beastmilk), Pauliina Lindell (Vuono, Dust Mountain) and Ringa Manner (Ruusut, The Hearing). Haunted Plasma promises an extraterrestrial experience from some of the foremost contemporary musicians at the heart of the Finnish heavy and avant-garde musical underworld.



Haunted Plasma reveals:

“We are liberated futurists, embracing free-form and natural composition, mirroring the merciless forces of cosmic creation. We have a motto to stay true to our feelings, to spawn a sound that’s never been heard before. Servants of music. Energizing, radical and pure”

The first single from Haunted Plasma’s cascading debut, Reverse Engineer, is a creepy, slowly erupting, synthetic nightmare, of a downloaded being waking up in the wrong future. Ghostly vocals demand the listener to “give us what we want” in an Orwellian glimpse into the current dystopia we live in, where information is controlled, and thoughts are bought and sold. As McNerney intones the words “technology of power” he describes the threat of a malevolent and omnipresent artificial intelligence, as much as describing the oppressive and electromagnetic sonar pulse of Haunted Plasma’s sound itself. Psychedelic guitar hypnosis from Vanhanen snakes around Kaukolampi’s molten and morphing synths, while Leppänen’s uncanny man/machine rhythms pull our strings and animate their other-worldly mechanisms. Have a look at the official visualiser of "Reverse Engineer" on the Svart YouTube channel here

Culminating in the full-blown fast Krautrock of the final self-titled track, oozing with blistering noise elements and enigmatic vocals from Ringa Manner, the album's journey reaches its zenith, taking you to unknown territories on a Kubrikian space trip. I is a rare record of talented musicians coming together to create a completely new sound, which is entirely their own, boldly glowing, where no light has shone before. From the dreamy psychedelia of Echoes to the discombobulated Spectral Embrace, Haunted Plasma is a willful force of deliberate sound contortion.

Whether you want to give in to Haunted Plasma’s sound or not, you are being watched, you are being recorded and your every move is monitored. Haunted Plasma will enter your system on the 31st of May 2024. Turn on your phantom circuits and be prepared for an interdimensional excursion into Haunted Plasma’s alien dreams.

The debut album from Haunted Plasma will be packaged in a beautiful tip-on sleeve, swirling fog artwork, complete with 12” booklet and pressed on 3 exclusive vinyl colours: 300 copies on Standard Black Wax, 200 copies in Amber + Black Smoke and 500 copies of Svart exclusive Turquoise/Black Marble. The album will also be available on CD and digital platforms.

The debut self-titled album by emerging East Coast chaos-mongering warnoise terrorists Sulfuric Hatred (formed by vocalist Alexander Jones of Undeath, guitarist / bassist Liam McMahon of Vile Ritual, and Sam Shereck of Stabbed, Exsanguinated, Bowel Erosion, Blame God, ex-Pink Mass, ex-Reeking Aura etc.) brings a new meaning and purpose to the concept of dehumanizing music and of its forced transmutation into a weapon. Bringing the listener to their knees to surrender, succumb and dissolve before the omnipotency and immensity of absolute armageddon, across its eleven tracks and thirty four minutes of musical terrorism, Sulfuric Hatred experiment on human senses the limits and effects of complete audial insanity. Black metal, grindcore, and death metal in this context can be used as nothing more than simplistic references for the sake of generalization, as the actual and true fabric really materializing this abomination is something that can hardly be associated to music and which is actually closer to pure noise, to other forms of experimental sensorial warfare or to abstract idealizations of pure terror. An underlying contradiction that can not be overlooked defines this senseless display of audial savagery: where in most bands and subgenera of extreme music an antihuman aspect is sought out musically, in the case of Sulfuric Hatred, the formula of bass, guitar, drums and vocals is actually the last human thing standing. The incessant carpet-bombing blasting, the ear-splitting screams, and the mangled, chaotic guitar carnage, in the chaos-torn world of Sulfuric Hatred are nothing but the last shred of humanity left. Everything else being engulfed and devoured in this blown out, noise-broken abomination, is the embodiment of absolute, abstract, and conceptual antihuman bedlam.

Powerflo is a rap metal band formed in 2017, consisting of Cypress Hill rapper Sen Dog, guitarists Billy Graziadei (Biohazard) and Roy Lozano (ex-downset.), bassist Christian Olde Wolbers (ex-Fear Factory) and Worst drummer Fernando Schaefer.

The band's history can be traced back to the 1990's, where the band members would often collaborate - such as Cypress Hill and Biohazard performing on the famous Judgment Night soundtrack, or Wolbers and Lozano appearing in Cypress Hill albums Skull & Bones and Stoned Raiders. In 2015, Lozano played some demos to Sen Dog on a ride to the airport, setting the foundations for Powerflo.

The name of the band comes from a comment Roy Lozano made about Sen Dog's vocal tracking for the upcoming album. Describing their sound as a "cross between Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and Cypress Hill", they first unveiled the group on March 1, 2017 while recording their self-titled debut album. On May 2 2017, they released the first single "Resistance" via Metal Injection. In launching the first single, Sen Dog indicated that this is a long term project and that future Powerflo albums will be released after their self-titled is released.

From their formation back in 1986, to becoming one of Norways’s finest musical exports (with a number of highly revered black metal masterpieces released in the early 90’s helping to solidify their legacy), Darkthrone has continued to evolve and challenge in equal measure, throughout their illustrious recording career spanning over three decades. And now, the ever-productive duo of Nocturno and Fenriz continue their own metallic saga with a new selection of fine, vintage sounding headbanging classics in the making.

‘Astral Fortress’ is itself a swift follow-up to 2021’s ‘Eternal Hails’ opus, as a result of Darkthrone’s consistent and ongoing writing process, which has been in force for some years now. For Darkthrone does not sleep - it only waits.

Carried on the brisk wind of eager rock, with foundations in black, thrash, doom and heavy metal, ‘Astral Fortress’ is the latest album of stellar, eclectic old metal in the Darkthrone odyssey. With a seemingly endless dungeon full of heavy metal influences channelled through Darkthrone’s dynamic riff-machine, plus also with many increasing inspirations taken from their own past catalogue, Darkthrone has truly become its own beast within the metal world. Even though sprinkled with atmospheric touches such as synthesizers and mellotron on ‘Astral Fortress’ to great effect, the Darkthrone sound remains stripped down to the core; always primitive and organic.

‘Astral Fortress’ was recorded at Chaka Khan Studios in Oslo, the same location used for the ‘Eternal Hails’ album, with Ole Øvstedal and Silje Høgevold.

M-Theory Audio is proud to present the second album, and first for M-Theory Audio, from VERNI. If that name sounds familiar it is the solo project of legendary bassist DD Verni, better known as the bassist and a founding member of thrash metal legends OVERKILL, also of Bronx Casket Company. Much like his first solo album ‘Barricade’ in 2018, Verni wrote and produced all the songs while handling vocals, guitar, and holding down the low end. The album features Overkill bandmate Jason Bittner on drums with some famous friends such as Charlie Benante (ANTHRAX), Virus (DOPE), and Michael Romeo (SYMPHONY X) adding guitar parts. While this album bears some resemblance to ‘Barricade’, Verni lets his punk roots shine more on this album, which leads to 11 blistering tracks chock full of speed, intensity, and sing-alongs. The album will be available digitally and on CD and limited-edition black & white marble vinyl. 1.Lunkhead2.Cemetery Safari 3.All You Need To Know4.The Whore With The See Thru Shoes5.Red Flag6.Wild Horses7.Thanks For The Memories8.Call Of The Highway9.Tears On My Heart10.Takin’ Care of Business11.Victoria

Behold! Every single raw, filthy, ripping old school punk/(death)metal note from Seattles' legendary lords of destruction ever recorded is within this box!

contains: †Black Breaths' 1st demo on cassette! (available for the first time ever!) †Razor To Oblivion EP (with 2 previously unreleased tracks!) †Heavy Breathing vinyl LP †Sentenced to Life vinyl LP †Slaves Beyond Death 2xLP

This essential box also contains a killer 8 page booklet with tons of photos, liner notes from Todd Jones (nails) and a tribute to bass player: Elijah Nelson.

Malfunkshun is an American punk/Love-rock/proto-grunge band formed in 1980 by brothers Andrew (aka Landrew) and Kevin Wood with drummer Regan Hagar.

Combining glam influences with distortion, they were one of the earliest grunge bands from Seattle. Andrew would become the frontman for Mother Love Bone.

"Olympus Awaits" is a definitive compilation of all Malfunkshun recordings. It includes their Return to Olympus album (here on vinyl for the first time ever), compilation appearances and very rare demo recordings with a dark-punk hardcore aesthetic.

This is thee ultimate Love Rock archival release of Mfunk!

Sentient Ruin is proud to release RUIN LUST's incinerating sophomore LP Sacrifice for the first time ever on vinyl, after a self-released tape surfaced in early 2019 bringing back under the spotlight one of America's most elusive and feral extreme metal entities. Featuring current and past members of ANICON, TRENCHGRINDER, VORDE, VILKACIS, FELL VOICES, VANUM, and YELLOW EYES, the NYC black/death/war metal horde return six years after their debut album was released on Psychic Violence Records, with their darkest and most baneful compositions to date, blending the most pestilent strains of black and death metal with the blunt force trauma of grindcore to elevate the notion of sonic warfare at unseen new extremes. While remaining true to the genre's voluntarily involved and feral approach to aural barbarism, a careful ear will not fail to notice the modern and transformative approach taken by the band to assemble their sonic war zone, utilizing a dense and suffocating sense of atmosphere and an immanent sense of dynamics and unpredictability to mercilessly blindside and destroy the listener. By all means a pinnacle in this year's war metal output, Sacrifice is a modern and defiant spasm of extreme metal terror that will find loyal proselytes amongst fans of Diocletian, Knelt Rote, Heresiarch and other contemporary black/death bands who show to be more inclined to breaking new ground and paving the genre's future than living in the past.

Limited 200 copies silver vinyl. Die-cut cover sleeve. Black metal remains a musical chimera. From its fiery beginnings this extreme style proved to be as diverse as productive. German sons of this northern spawned darkness often display a penchant for bold aggression and directness as embodied by ENDSTILLE and NEGATOR. These virtues are also embraced by DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT. Yet the band does not simply follow heavily trodden paths. Adding fragile moments of psychedelic meandering, these Germans have also been compared with WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM or DEAFHEAVEN. An extra dose of melancholy points towards their named influence IMPERIUM DEKADENZ and there are far more details to be discovered within the many layers of their harsh but strongly melodic new masterpiece 'Stellar'. Recorded at Ghost City studios, the Germans third full-length is now ready to hit the world with irresistible force. Get ready and brace for a massive black impact! Recommended if you like: Wolves In The Throne Room, Endstille, Deafheaven, Imperium Dekadenz.

Black Sabbath – Paranoid. The second epic studio album from the band who instigated the heavy metal genre, and the only Black Sabbath album to top the British charts for the next four decades. This 1LP red and black splatter vinyl re-issue contains several of the band’s signature songs, including ‘Iron Man’, ‘War Pigs’, and the harrowing title track.

Conceptually, Nordjevel evolves further and ventures into even more sinister territories. Gnavhòl is driven by war, destruction and hellish esoteric beliefs, they have created an album that is even darker and more brutal than their previous releases. About the album Nordjevel states: “Gnavhòl is darker, more dynamic and tecnhically on another level than before. This is how we want Nordjevel to sound.” Nordjevel entered the international black metal scene in 2015 and spread like a plague, capturing audiences at festivals such as Inferno, Kaltenbach Open Air, Wacken, Hellfest, Bloodstock, Maryland Deathfest and In Flammen Open Air. The band was founded by Doedsadmiral, and consists of established musicians from bands such as Ragnarok, Myrkskog and Dark Funeral. Through distinctive vocals set to a brutal and instrumental sonic desert, Nordjevel leads the listeners into an empire of infernal rage filled with an obscure, barbaric darkness. Their self-titled debut album was released in 2016, and Nordjevel entered the field like a freezing storm, and quickly became a force to be reckoned with. Nordjevel`s brutal and true take on black metal impressed. The band’s atmospheric and committed sound paired with high technical finesse, unique interplay and raw, unfiltered imagery, has the power to give any black metal fan the chills. In 2019, Nordjevel released the follow-up album Necrogenecis, and in 2021 they released the EP Fenriir. Both releases show the hugeness Nordjevel is capable of, receiving raving reviews and top scores from press and fans all over the world. All of Nordjevel’s releases has made it to numerous “best of the year lists”, and they have quickly proved their position on the international black metal scene.

if you survived trips 1-17 with one tiny speck of psychedelic sunshine intact, Brown Acid The 18th Trip will be your coming of age nightmare. Vintage underground '70s hard rock, coming at you from bizarre angles, local scene wasteland America when everybody was out for themselves and the drugs went bleak. The guitars kill, the attitude is twisted, even the sex is headed down the wrong road. Real people, no compromise, pure and potent. Get stoked, take the 18th Trip and know that the artists will get paid for pulverizing your soul! "People… are you ready?, 'cause the music now is getting so heavy"… Back Jack out of St. Louis, Missouri in 1974 launch our trip with "Bridge Waters Dynamite". It's an invocation to rock flashing on Mark Farner whooping up a Grand Funk crowd, then getting to the point quickly with berserk guitar assaults. Heavy riff with power chord stalks beneath as you take their advice… get loose and blow up the past. Smokin' Buku Band dropped my jaw with the audacious track "Hot Love" coming on like some fractured fever dream burlesque of Led Zep moves out of Hollywood in 1980. Swooping elongated vocals above, a total Zep chord move at the end of each verse. Writer/producer Steve Shauger aka Shag Stevens gets a brilliantly messed up sound quality here, the ideal polar opposite of slick. The extended guitar break is an epitome of serendipitously crude virtuosity, simply outrageous! Coming at you from way outta left field is "Moby Shark" by Atlantis, a hilarious and strange Baltimore pre-punk vibed dose of D.I.Y. meets hard rock. Lon Talbot is the mastermind, the flip side of this impossibly rare Mekon Records label single was featured in an obscure 1978 B-movie titled "The Alien Factor". Follow the lyrics closely, when the ominous jaws jaws jaws start coming after you you you… the song's big hook is so preposterously catchy the shark attack feels like good news. Inquiring minds should know that the band formerly known as Atlantis can now be found by searching for the Lon Talbot Group! Tommy Stuart and the Rubberband's "Peeking Through Your Window" from 1970 opens with a spooky organ riff, slips into a gushy fuzz/organ groove akin to "Mustache In Your Face” by Pretty. The singer creates downright creepy vibes, a stalker peeking through the girl's mind like a peeping Tom at the window up to no good. The lyrics evoke a disturbing scenario. Tommy Stuart also made a strange LP titled Hound Dog Man in 1977 and some terrific rare garage singles under the names Magnificent Seven and The Omen & Their Love in the mid '60s. Nothing better than an angry two chord guitar attack with cowbell to set the stage for this rant about getting "Ripped Off" by love. Taken from their rare 1977 LP on Dynamite Records, Chicago Triangle was Marvey Esparza, Dave Guereca, Jose 'Tarr' Perez and Robert Aguilera. They unleash such strong brain-scrubbing wah wah frenzy in the guitar break here that it seems to perversely mock it's own intensity! Like I said, Brown Acid the 18th Trip comes at you from all kinds of uncanny angles. Damnation of Adam Blessing out of Cleveland, Ohio unleashed a stone killer psychedelic hard rock classic "Cookbook" in the late '60s, this track "Nightmare" from 1973 has them cooking again at full power. A different singer, name change to Damnation and then Glory, unleashing a deadly dose of dark progressive heavy rock drama peaking when spooky 'oooo-wa-oooo' background vocals emerge during a bizarre spoken bit. It unfolds like a mini-epic and includes some remarkably brutal guitar and turbulent organ, too. "Swing your sword, all aboard… bid farewell to the dreamer" Dalquist exclaims. Cynical view of human nature, idealism is over, war is coming, it always does. Opens with a cold menacing riff and atmosphere reminiscent of "Synthezoid Heartbreak" by Maya. Mournful despondent vocals ride an insistent churning groove, gnarly guitar break moves into free noise territory. This rare track is from a local various artists benefit album titled Kangaroo Jam issued for the Waco Family Abuse Center in Texas circa 1980. The Pawnbrokers "Realize" is prime proto heavy rock emerging out of psychedelic garage roots in 1968 Fargo, North Dakota. Unusual arrangement, terrific sustain guitar tones like on the first Blue Cheer LP, even a rip on Hendrix "Manic Depression" with unison voice and guitar ascent near the end. They made three 45s and were active from '65 to '69. Hats off to Blake English, Kent Richey, Paul Rogne and Steve Harrison, you nailed it in just a hair over two minutes! As pure and creative as the original psychedelic garage hard rock gets. Parchment Farm from Union, Missouri gigged with the likes of ZZ Top and Foghat back in the day and unleashed the amazing "Songs Of The Dead" in 1971. Primitive riff/chord pattern dosed with some funky prog moves, sky turning black, 'is this heaven or hell' type disoriented confusion… may as well grab your guitar and sing songs to the dead. Robert 'Ace' Williams on bass, Paul Cockrum on guitar, Gary Reed on keys and Micky Waterman on drums, replacing Mike Dulany (R.I.P.) Cool that they use the Blue Cheer misspelling from Vincebus Eruptum for the band name! Ominous organ, thick minimalist fuzz riff, funky psychedelic wah wah flashes and freaky sex combine in one twisted dance titled "Rockin' Chair" by Brothers Of The Ghetto. Out of Chicago in 1975 with some Santana atmospherics and a delicious fuzz wah screamin' guitar break, the groove is highlighted by an off the wall vocal which sounds eerily detached in a subtly sleazy way. Rene Maxwell is the writer of this hard-rock boogie-down hybrid straight out of the twilight zone. It was issued on Ghetto, a subsidiary of the peculiar Kiderian label that released the Creme Soda LP. Now that your head is totally skewered, go Back Jack and play side one again! (Words by Paul Major)

The Body and Big|brave are bands possessed of an unequaled ability to convey overwhelming weight with simplicity, repetition, and detailed sonic atmospheres; artists who continue to alter the definition of what it means to be a heavy band. The Body are consistently prolific while increasingly ambitious as untethered producers and collaborators. Big|brave shape sound with dense waves of guitar and feedback, minimalist and hypnotic crashes, and emotionally exacting vocal melodies. In collaboration, The Body and Big|brave shift the gravity of their compositions to woven layers of percussion and unspooling guitars that sprawl through stark frameworks of earthy folk. Their debut collaborative album Leaving None But Small Birds distills the two ensembles’ pioneering approach to heavy music into psalms for the forgotten, threnodies of lost love, and odes to vengeance.

Typical to The Body’s creative process, Leaving None But Small Birds was composed almost entirely in the studio at Machine With Magnets with engineer/producer Seth Manchester. The Body and Big|brave aimed to challenge themselves to craft a fully realized and cohesive work that strayed outside the boundaries of the music they make individually. The Body’s Lee Buford set up the initial challenge: collaborating to make an album that evoked the country and folk roots of The Band. Big|brave’s Robin Wattie compiled lyrics and melodic lines from across Appalachian, Canadian, and English hymns and folk songs. Select phrases were then reworked and precisely arranged to center the experiences of marginalized characters, victims of hardship, and those yearning for love within each story. The despair and empowerment of these traditional tunes draw remarkable parallels with each group’s focus on championing people often cast aside in history. Leaving None But Small Birds takes its name from the “Polly Gosford” lyric “He covered her grave / and hastened home / Leaving none but small birds / her fate to bemoan,” an image in traditional songs evoking the alienation and isolation of the persecuted. The Body and Big|brave, following a folk tradition, make each song their own through shifts in perspective and a synthesis of passages from kindred tales.

Leaving None But Small Birds transfigures The Body and Big|brave’s heft into a daring diversity of sounds unbridled and austere. The loping opener “Blackest Crow” implements gusts of violin and harmony against the bedrock of a droning riff and shruti box that subtly shifts timbre. “Hard Times” threads stories of indentured and child factory laborers through cascading trellises of rubato guitar as Wattie’s petitions are swallowed by the swell. The Body and Big|brave’s maximalist rumble looms at the fringes of each song as guitarist Chip King’s (The Body) staggering drones seep into their fabric with resolute percussion from Buford and Big|brave drummer Tasy Hudson punctuating with their steady current. Wattie and fellow Big|brave guitarist Mathieu Ball twirl repeating phrases around one another into restrained meditations that bend and shift incrementally. Hudson joins Wattie in harmonized duets and hockets across the album, enhancing the loneliness of “Once I Had A Sweetheart” and laying bare the raw brilliance of “Black is the Colour.” “Polly Gosford” froths with persistently rising walls of violin, guitar, piano and trudging toms that only capitulate after Wattie spins the tragic song of femicide into ghostly revenge with “She broke him, she tore him / she ripped him in three / because he murdered / her baby and she.”

Big|brave’s roots as a minimalist folk band and The Body’s love of old-time, country blues, and folk music enable the quintet to strike a formidable balance between sorrowful lamentation and uplifting resolve to weighty effect. Leaving None But Small Birds thatches together two monumental innovative forces that render the emotionally profound with lucid, devastating vitality.

Finland’s Hexvessel return with their sixth album, Polar Veil, a cold, metallic hymn to the Sub Arctic North. Haunted by primal forest spirits, Mat “Kvohst” McNerney summons the ghosts of his past in a jaw-dropping, unheard-of rebirth of style and sound. At once unmistakably Hexvessel, Polar Veil is also steeped in the nocturnal atmosphere of McNerney’s past, churned in the cauldron of Black Metal, Ritual Folk Psychedelia and Doom Rock, and echoing with shivering Gothic undertones. Polar Veil features Ben Chisholm, main collaborator and multi-instrumentalist with Chelsea Wolfe on Listen To The River, Nameless Void from Negative Plane, performing the guitar solo on the song Ring, and Okoi from Bölzer on guest vocals on Older Than The Gods. When the components of the medicine are familiar but brewed in a completely novel concoction, the resulting side effects can be deliriously intoxicating. Peer behind this Polar Veil for a breath of fresh tundra air.

Polar Veil is pressed on limited edition transparent lake green vinyl, limited transparent ice clear natural vinyl and standard issue blacker than midnight wax variants and each comes with a large scale 12 page booklet featuring artwork by Thomas Hooper.

”Ritual, though, is a hotter, more raw proposition, expressionistically blowing the lid off Finnish stoicism. It is very exciting.” - Steve Lake, the Wire Nov 89

Gargantuan volcanoes erupting with primal force, fountains of molten lava bursting sky high and massive boulders hurtling capriciously through the air. These potent and violently alluring images in the documentary series The Living Planet captivated Raoul Björkenheim's imagination in 1986. The search for a band name had come to an end.

-”I was mesmerised. The name Krakatau sounded like a drum fill to me”.



After studying at the Helsinki Conservatory for a year and the Berklee College of Music in Boston for three, Björkenheim relocated to Finland where he played in bands with Jone Takamäki, Antti Hytti and Tom Nekljudow, and later went on to work with composer and drummer Edward “Eetu” Vesala (1945-1999). His always original and highly demanding Sound & Fury workshops were a pivotal hotbed in the local improvised music scene, but after four years of Vesala's strict leadership Björkenheim felt a need to leave Sound & Fury behind and direct all of his attention towards Krakatau.



The lineup on the first album “Ritual” consisted of reed virtuosos Jorma Tapio and Tapani Rinne, the bassist Sampo Lassila and two drummers, Michel Lambert and Heikki “Lefty” Lehto. “Krakatau’s debut album was very challenging to make, as I felt that it might be my one and only chance to record my own music, so I wanted it to be as intense and effective as possible”, says Björkenheim, “I was lucky enough to work with an incredibly talented cast of musicians. I can still listen to the album and feel satisfied that it really works. The first guitar solo illustrates what was to become my modus operandi: to try and play the electric guitar in unexpected ways.”



Svart Records will release an expanded double LP version of Krakatau’s Ritual. Limited to 500 copies and due out on March 24th, the album contains an album’s worth of previously unheard material recorded in 1987 in Studio Helsinki and at the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation studio.

"Symphony for the Lost" is a live album by British gothic metal band Paradise Lost, released in 2015. It was recorded at the Plovdiv Theater in Bulgaria, accompanied by the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra. This album features an epic performance of the band's hits, fusing dark metal with the majesty of a symphony orchestra. The unique atmosphere and powerful performance make "Symphony for the Lost" a memorable listening experience for fans of metal and classical music. Disc 1LP-Side A1- Tragic idol 5:102- Last regret 4:593- Your own reality 4:224- Over the madness 5:42LP-Side B 1- Joys of emptiness 4:042- Victim of the past 5:133- Soul Courageus 3:464- Gothic 6:224- The Black Token 5:19Disc 2LP-Side C1- The enemy 4:102- Erased 4:023- Isolate 4:134-Faith divides us, death unites us 5:00LP-Side D 1- One second 3:522- True belief 5:143- Say just words 4:464- The last time 3:50

"Green" is distinguished by its fusion of thrash metal with progressive and technical elements. The band expands its musical horizons by incorporating more complex rhythms and innovative song structures. Sharp and precise guitars are intertwined with intricate solos that demonstrate the musicians' technical skill. Now reissued by Black Sleeves on a limited edition LP Gatefold Picture Disc.The album is a milestone in their discography and a gift for fans looking for a deeper and more nuanced thrash metal experience. With “Green”, Forbidden not only defied expectations but also expanded the boundaries of the genre. LP-Side A1- What Is The Last Time? 2:342- Green 3:163- pHat 3:324- Turns To Rage 5:475- Face Down Heroes 3:446- Over The Middle 3:18LP-Side B1- Kanaworms 3:232- Noncent$ 3:533- Blank 5:544- Focus 5:285-(Silence) 5:556- (Hidden Track) 1:11

In the winter of 2013, IDVex (a.k.a Ifigeneia Derizioti) formed the one-man band 1/2 Southern North (read: Half Southern North) in Kalamata, Greece. The musical compositions are characterized by heavy melodic lines, a languid and sluggish tempo and the use of prolonged sonic scenes. In addition, the lyrics deal with Mythology, Left Hand Path Philosophy, Occultism and personal experiences. In a nutshell, the band is inspired by several genres such as black metal, doom metal, experimental and avant-garde music.

The aesthetic of the first full length album, “Narrations of a Fallen Soul”, is based on ancient Greek tragedy while the compositions’ structure is similar to the forms of classical music.

The main theme of the album is the essence of Death and the Soul, as the Spirit is freed by Lucifer (the sacred snake Ophis). Death here represents the minor god Thanatos of ancient Greek mythology, who is the last lover of the maiden Soul, a "marriage" of eternity, the bitter inevitability of death and decay. The Soul accepts her destiny and frees herself from the bounds of matter to join the Moon, the ancient Mother of all.

Once upon a time, Helga Gabriel was sequestered away in the far reaches of the Swedish hinterland. She sang in choirs, but in reality, the lake and woods were always her church. Her voice drifted like birds through an evening mist, chanting psalms amidst birch and pine. But in 2019, a calling stirred within Helga. She traveled 800 miles north to North Yorkshire, where she met three childhood friends and a precocious poly-instrumentalist. The rest is history. Helga was born. Helga draw on many different influences: Swedish folk, progressive metal, post-rock, pop, black metal. Their debut album, ‘Wrapped in Mist’, summons formidable drumming, spectral strings and chugging riffs into lamentations on mortality and metal health. They’re just getting started. But already, this young band have revealed themselves as a fresh, full force. FFO: Opeth, Anna Von Hausswolff, Alcest, The Gathering, Silver Mt. Zion, Myrkur, King Crimson.

AVAILABLE AGAIN!!! INTER ARMA's 2010's Sundown now available again courtesy of our friends at Robotic Empire! Inter Arma is a Richmond metal band we've watched grow over the past few years into a truly formidable force. Tastefully spanning most metal genres (blackened chaos through downtrodden sludge), Sundown fetures six lengthy songs. The vinyl includes a download code with a killer bonus song and intricately trippy cover art by RVA native ELIZA CHILDRESS. Printed in black ink on brown chipboard covers.

Brachyptery, the condition in insects of having vestigial wings and having lost the capacity of flight. This is the cult of the dewinged, of the downcast and of the condemned. Now remastered (courtesy of Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios) and consecrated through its first ever vinyl edition and a graphic facelift, Maurda's catastrophic second short player "Cultus Brachypter" went largely ignored upon its original 2022 self-release, but its obscurity can be solely attributed to the hermetic extremism that defines it. In reality, a world is contained within these sixteen minutes and six movements of absolute eschaton. A world so impenetrable it takes complete sacrifice to enter it. With its ruinous sensorial assault, "Cultus Brachypter" initially evokes the war-torn bestial insanity of bands like Pseudogod or Teitanblood, but as the onslaught progresses the listener soon realizes they are being drawn into a desolate, void-like inner world of dehumanized alienation. The grim specter of Dsbm rears its head as the minutes pass and the sense of misery and isolation becomes suffocating and reaches its inevitable consequences and conclusions. This form of enigmatic, inward-vanquishing extreme metal appears inscrutable in its uncommunicative isolationism, and can be solely superficially interpreted as an unprecedented fusion of war metal and depressive black metal in which feelings of dread, melancholy and self-loathing are taken to their extremes and weaponized into an abstract white-wall representation of absolute nihilism and self-destruction that ultimately evokes the grim soul-tearing lineaments of pure noise. Limited edition silkscreened single-sided black vinyl inside a matte laminated sleeve with black flood inside the pocket, xeroxed insert and download card.