MORGUE - Herald the Dawn review

MORGUE - Herald the Dawn

Godz ov War Productions

This is the sixth full length by France's MORGUE. I first got into this two piece Death Metal act back in 2022 with their fourth album, Lowest Depths of Misery. Since then they've been consistent with releasing a new album every two years. That's pretty good considering the fact that the band first started out in 1997 and had a sporadic timeline on releases. 

Be that as it may when it comes to Extreme Metal I consider MORGUE to be France's best export since their nation's 1990's era of Black Metal. And they've just gotten better with each album. This latest one just takes what MORGUE has done before and pushes it to a better level. The band is still Max Lobier on vocals, guitars and drums with Jerome Blandino on bass. On here they've got a couple of guests on vocals and a guitarist supplying some lead work. 

Musically I've always called MORGUE's sound a cavern of hate. You've got your brutal beat-downs plus atmospheric touches. It's like Blackened Death Grind with creep filled horror movie touches. Add to that the band kicks in melody which ends up falling into a fuckin diabolical pit of disgusting Blackened hate. 

Max Lobier's vocals are a combination of having a burnt Satanic throat and smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. The guy is an amazing drummer to say the least. Plus the way he kicks in with the riffs makes him more of a composer than a simple musician. 

Many years ago I said Black Metal musicians were the present day composers as in classical music. So you listen to a band like MORGUE (yes they're Death Metal but with some blackened touches) and think it's more than quality Extreme Metal. It's more of a grand experience going on while listening to this release. For me MORGUE are just getting better over time which makes this latest release a winner. 

http://godzovwar.com/

LISTEN HERE:

https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/herald-the-dawn

THRONEUM - Love Is the Law But Death Is the Frame review

 

THRONEUM - Love Is the Law But Death Is the Frame

Godz ov War Productions

Here we have the eleventh full length by Poland's THRONEUM. This Black Metal act released their first demo in 1998. For some of you reading this that was when your parents were into Black Metal. Of course that's if you had cool parents. I know my son told his friends years ago that his dad was into Black Metal, Death Metal, etc.They all thought that was cool.  

Anyways when it comes to Black Metal, THRONEUM are weird. Seriously decades ago I thought ABRUPTUM from Sweden were the weirdest act in Black Metal. But no THRONEUM has em beat. I learned that back in 2020 with their last album, Oh Death Oh Death Determinate, Preach and Lead Us Astray. I was gonna go back and find some of their earlier material but that never happened.

So why is this album weird? Well first off it all sounds like a sick sermon. I mean mainman and vocalist Tomasz Hanuszkiewicz (aka: The Great Executor) sounds like a drunken priest who's given up the faith. Oddly enough he's joined by a guest female vocalist who sounds like a nun who got into the wine as well.

Sound-wise this album sounds like a blackened musical ritual. I mean should go out back into the yard, kill a goat and toss it into a burning pit of fire? I can't wait for my neighbors seeing me do that. Which is all of what you got here musically. Given all of that there's creepy sounds, some cool Black Metal stuff and a touch of Death Metal. 

Like I said earlier THRONEUM are weird and for fans only.  

http://godzovwar.com/

LISTEN HERE:

https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/love-is-the-law-but-death-is-the-frame

STRICKEN - From Dark Dimensions An Unspeakable Presence Awakens review

 

STRICKEN - From Dark Dimensions An Unspeakable Presence Awakens

Horror Pain Gore Death Productions

While listening to this release I was checking out the band line-up. So I see that their drummer is Chris Wozniak who's also in LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR from Chicago, Illinois. Just for the record I'm a huge fan of LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR's early albums. But their comeback album this year was not that good in my not so humble opinion. . 

So getting into this release was at first like thinking it's gonna be LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR minus one. And it's something different. STRICKEN are a Sludge Metal band hailing from Seattle, Washington. And what they are doing is not YOB or anything from the NOLA side of the genre. 

A few months ago I was checking out a local NC band who were Sludge Metal but were pushing a more sonic approach to the sound. I mean the old school is there to like but the genre needs to be improved not in a stupid way but in a Metal way. And this local band was doing so.

STRICKEN are doing the same thing and I like it a lot.

https://www.horrorpaingoredeath.com/

LISTEN HERE:

https://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/from-dark-dimensions-an-unspeakable-presence-awakens

BEHEMOTH - I, Scvlptor review

 

BEHEMOTH - I, Scvlptor

Massacre Records

Before I even touch an opinion upon this release I'll just point out the obvious. Most modern BEHEMOTH fans were once GHOST fans because BEHEMOTH has better videos. Look if you're a modern day BEHEMOTH fan then I doubt you ever heard "Wolves Guard My Coffin" or "From the Pagan Vastlands". Hell the first album I got into em was Grom from 1996 and it took years to get into all of their previous material while the band was putting out new material. 

Be all of that as it may yeah I'm a BEHEMOTH fan and own all of their full lengths plus other stuff. So I look back on all of their releases as fuckin amazing, damm good or decent. Their last one, The Shit ov God, was decent. In other words that CD will gather dust upon it before I play it again. So it's not a big surprise that this EP came out. Hey let's keep old fans like myself interested. OK ya got me so what's on here.

First off you've got two cuts from The Shit ov God album which are outtakes but still are not that good. "Lord of the Horizons" is supposedly a new track but I doubt that. It's a throwaway cut from their last sessions. The good stuff comes next when the band brings back demo songs from their Black Metal days. We're talking about "The Return of the Northern Moon" from a 1993 demo. "Pandemonic Incantations" from 1998 is not so good. 

That brings us to the cover songs.Yeah BEHEMOTH were so cool to do a bad version of a VENOM cover that they invited Shagrath from DIMMU BORGIR to sing on it. At least their live version of BATHORY's "The Return of Darkness and Evil" sounds great. It's my favorite cut on here. The final cut, a rough mix of "Lord ov the Horizons" is forgettable. 

In the end this release, like previous EPs and live albums by BEHEMOTH, are for completists only. 

https://massacre-records.com/

LISTEN HERE:

https://behemoth.bandcamp.com/album/i-scvlptor

MISOTHEIST - De Pinte review

 

MISOTHEIST - De Pinte

Terratur Possessions

So here we have the fourth full length by Norway's MISOTHEIST. This is a one man Black Metal act. The one man is Brage Krabol who sings and performs everything. Although there are reports that it's actually a real band but until I see evidence then I'll go with what I know. Brage Krabol also has a one man BM act called ENEVELDE. As far as opinions go ENEVELDE put out a killer full length in 2024 titled Pandemonium. The CD version came out in 2025 and on this label. I highly recommend you check that one out.

As far as my experience with MISOTHEIST goes I didn't care for the self titled debut from 2018 nor did I like the follow up, For the Glory of Your Redeemer, from 2021. Which is probably why I never bothered checking out the third album, Vessels by Which the Devil Is Made Flesh, from 2024. But I do like this release. On this album MISOTHEIST can best be described musically as a Black Metal act with one foot firmly planted in BM's 2000 era with the other in the modern day. 

De Pinte is just four cuts with the first three being of average length while the fourth one is a twenty-plus minute opus. I'm gonna start with the opus which is also the title cut. To me this is Brage Krabol's laying open his soul to Black Metal. The influences are all there. You've got the creepy ambiance, the haunting atmosphere and then comes the blitzkrieg of fury via guitar and drum work. Yes the great wall of blackened noise from Norway in all it's tormented beauty. I've said for years that Black Metal is the only Metal genre that can project beauty and rage in the same vein and here it is in one amazing track.

Going back to this album's beginning the first two tracks on here, "Unanswered Thrice" and "Blinded and Revealed" are the best material MISOTHEIST has ever done. First off Brage Krabol is an amazing BM vocalist. He's got that bestial barritone working for him which works perfectly in this recorded in a cavern sound. Take away the atmospheric parts which come through these songs. And just concentrate on the BM fury, especially on "Blinded and Revealed". The third track, "Kjetterdom" is more like a bridge to the final cut which comes across as blackened doom with Brage Krabol sounding like a drunk priest denouncing his faith.

If you're an old school fucker who believes over the past bunch of years Black Metal has been on zombie land status, corrupted by hiptards or just can't achieve greatness in this modern era. Well every once in a while a release will come out that will change your mind. I know they're few of em out there but hey this is one of em.    

https://terraturpossessions.com/

LISTEN HERE:

https://terraturpossessions.bandcamp.com/album/de-pinte

COSCRADH - Carving the Causeway to the Otherworld review

 

COSCRADH - Carving the Causeway to the Otherworld

20 Buck Spin

COSCRADH are an Irish four piece Blackened Death Metal act who I've been into ever since I checked out their self titled demo from 2016. That release came out on Invictus Productions out of Ireland. The band followed that up with a couple of EPs. But in 2022 the band finally released their full length debut Nahanagan Stadial which also came out on Invictus Productions. 

So here we are a few years later on a different label but the band's sound is far more ferocious. COSCRADH are standouts when it comes to modern day Blackened Death Metal. First off the vocals are chaotic as in they run the gambit of being every type of hate filled vocal style in Extreme Metal. 

That's works perfectly well since the song structures are violent guitar passages with amazing drum fills and power blasts. To me it's like Hell's version of blitzkrieg with a possessed guy on vocals and a horned demon ripping out guitar solos. This is what you want to hear after a hard night's work especially if you've been subjected to crappy music at your place of business. 

All in all what COSCRADH did on their first full length was just a taste on how insanely corrupt they could be. I've said many times that the modern day sound of Blackened Death Metal is generic. COSCRADH are far from that which may be why they're on this record label as opposed to another one who puts out generic sounding shit these past years. 

Anyways this might be one of my favorite listening experiences of the year. I mean the name coscradh is  translated into “triumph in slaughter”. So hell fuckin yeah!

https://www.20buckspin.com/

LISTEN HERE:

https://coscradh.bandcamp.com/album/carving-the-causeway-to-the-otherworld

HECATE ENTHRONED - The Corpse of a Titan, a Lament Long Buried review

 

HECATE ENTHRONED - The Corpse of a Titan, a Lament Long Buried

M-Theory Audio

Here we have the seventh full length by this English Symphonic Black Metal act. I don't want to get too bogged down in this band's history. I'll just say that bassist Dylan Hughes and guitarist Nigel Dennan have kept this band going since 1995. I also give credit to guitarist Andy Milnes who joined in 1997. Other than those three this act has gone through plenty of members especially when it comes to vocalists. 

The skinny on HECATE ENTHRONED has always been that they are CRADLE OF FILTH's better or worse twin. Since I only owned two full lengths by em my opinion on that point doesn't matter. I have the band's 1997 debut, The Slaughter of Innocence, a Requiem for the Mighty, because you have to. It's part of black Metal history so you have to own the originals. The other HECATE ENTHRONED full length I have is 2019's Embrace of the Godless Aeon. 

Present vocalist Joe Stamps (who joined the band in 2015) debuted on Embrace of the Godless Aeon. I really like this guy's vocals as far as Symphonic Black Metal goes. He's got the harsh screams down as well as the baritone vocals and that whispering thing really nails it. I think he's more influenced by Ihsahn as opposed to Dani Filth. In the end he does this band well.

Something else I like about this album is that the compositions are pretty cool. I mean if you go back twenty years ago Symphonic Black Metal was kind of a joke. I'm not pointing fingers but when DIMMU BORGIR got big you had plenty of copycats following their lead. Thankfully this album is not like that. 

I liked 2019's Embrace of the Godless Aeon but it needed to be better. Half a decade later we have that type of release which is harsh as fuck but also melodic as well as majestic for a cool late night blast. HECATE ENTHRONED just put out a decent album which Black Metal fans should like. Hey HECATE ENTHRONED don't wait half a decade or change your line-up before you release your next album. 

https://www.m-theoryaudio.com/

LISTEN HERE:

https://hecateenthroned.bandcamp.com/album/the-corpse-of-a-titan-a-lament-long-buried