Hierophant Nox

FLAME OF WAR : TRANSCENDENCE EastSide Flame of War is the banner under which Polish artists Njord and Strzygon sail, and should be a by-word for stripped-down, stretched-out pagan black metal of the primitive and melancholic variety. Although you’ll find Flame of War listed as ‘Aryan’ metal, at their own insistence I believe, the lyrical [...]

INFERNO : BLACK DEVOTION Agonia Records Inferno have been ravaging the Czech Republic with their bitter and blasting imperious black metal for a good fourteen years or so, and have bothered underground ears with more split releases than should be humanly possible, while their full-lengths have gained momentum over the past decade, culminating this year [...]

Before we’d even got fully into the swing of the yearlist game, the cheating began. Paul sent me a very strict Top 10 of the year, and then tacked on his ‘but also…’ section. Sneaky. Satanic Muttley messaged me in the dead of night (ok, about 10pm, I go to bed early) to ask whether [...]

EAGLE TWIN : THE UNKINDNESS OF CROWS Southern Lord Ah… now here is an album for devotees of Sunn0))), The Melvins, Khanate, Neurosis, Eyehategod, Sleep, Om, and for worshippers at the temple of O’Malley! Two other frames of reference that should help are Iceburn and Ascend. Why? Because fronting both those acts is one Gentry [...]

ALL HAIL THE TRANSCENDING GHOST : ALL HAIL THE TRANSCENDING GHOST Cold Spring If I’d known before pressing ‘play’ that this is the music Nordvargr considers his most frightening, I’d have been a whole lot warier, but as it happens, I came across All Hail the Transcending Ghost – his collaboration with fellow Swede Tim [...]

JESU : OPIATE SUN Caldo Verde Records Cards on the table time, I unashamedly loved Head Of David, Godflesh, Final, and Techno Animal, I even love the lesser known Curse Of The Golden Vampire. His “J2” album with the immortal Jarboe was a consummate thing of beauty, and I have avidly followed Jesu since its [...]

DEUS IGNOTUS : SLAVERY OF THE COSMIC KNOWLEDGE Unsigned It’s been a while since I’ve got to grips with any excellent Greek black metal, so it was a pleasure to discover Deus Ignotus, who released their second demo, “Slavery to the Cosmic Knowledge” early in 2009. While 2008’s “Worship the Fall of Man” was seen [...]

LUPUS GOLEM : MINOTAURE Twilight Luggage Lupus Golem is another act intimately associated with the wonderfully-named Twilight Luggage label, your Norwegian one-stop-shop for everything weird, improvised, droning and devious. Usually my eyes skip over the descriptions that bands conjure for themselves, but Lupus Golem are special when it comes to pinning themselves down, describing their [...]

SCHELMISH : DIE HASSLICHEN KINDER Napalm Records Schelmish are a remarkably strange band, a description which I don’t think they’d deny. They’re rooted in traditional instrumentation – various types of pipe and hand-drums abound – and were ‘unplugged’ until 2006, playing medieval melodies at renaissance fairs and role play events. It’s when Schelmish discovered electricity [...]

THE 11TH HOUR : BURDEN OF GRIEF Napalm Records I don’t want to get into a ‘who loves Ed Warby more than me?’ competition because I know at least two former colleagues to whom I’d lose (comprehensively), but really… we can’t have enough of this career genius in the world, which is why Hail of [...]