Hierophant Nox

PROFANE PRAYER Profane Prayer burst into my consciousness through a medium for which I have a lot of affection and respect – Misantrof Antirecords. This organisation’s re-release of the band’s debut demo, “Bloodred Fullmoon”, which first saw the unlight of existence in 2006, will hopefully spark a hunger to hear more, as Profane Prayer have [...]

NDE : KRIEG BLUT EHRE ASCHE Cold Spring Justin Mitchell (Head Honcho of Cold Spring) is a diamond geezer, unleashing wave after wave of hateful, underground, filthy, noisy, nasty, virulent extremity upon us… which (by the way) is a very good thing. Do you here a ‘but’… because here is a ‘but’. Sometimes the nihilistic [...]

CRUCIFIST : DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD Profound Lore Now here’s an album I’ve been waiting for with no little expectation. Why? Well its an ‘extreme (mini) supergroup’ of sorts. Most ‘importantly’ I guess is that this is yet another ‘side project’ for Danny Lilker (Brutal Truth/Nuclear Assault/ex-Anthrax/SOD/ Venomous Concept etc). This time he’s joined by guitarist John [...]

H.E.R.R. : XII CAESARS Cold Spring We all have our eclectic interests and obsessions, but the neoclassical dream-spinners H.E.R.R. easily trump the majority of us with both the scope and depth of their fascinations. Founder Michiel Spape, flanked by an impressive vocalist task-force in the form of Troy Southgate and Miklos Hoffer, has elected this [...]

IHSAHN : AFTER Candlelight Records Simply extraordinary… genuinely remarkable… a masterclass in extremity! How does he do it? I would love to get inside the mind of the man born Vegard Sverre Tveitan, to be touched by just a miniscule sum of his genius… what is the limit of his inventiveness? Has he even truly [...]

MEGASUS : MEGASUS 20 Buck Spin Maybe the vein that they’re digging is just new to my Euro-centric ears, but I’m a little bit in danger of falling in love with the glittering goods that 20 Buck Spin have been hauling to the surface recently. Fresh to the roster are Rhode Islanders Megasus, who have [...]

One of 2009’s highlights for the Hierophant Nox crew was meeting up with Spanish black metallers Foscor at the Infernal Damnation festival in London; having crafted their distinct, rich art for nearly a decade, this is a band with a real vision, and the musicianship to match. Last year also saw the release of “Groans [...]

SALTATIO MORTIS : WER WIND SAET Napalm Records Germany’s Saltatio Mortis have been pushing their own particular brand of epic folk metal for a whole decade now, giving creating life to six previous full-length releases. Their membership is populous enough that they could nearly field a team in a number of professional sports, should the [...]

PROXENUS : AGE OF CHAOS – CAST INTO OBLIVION Panzerfaust Productions The track contributed by Proxenus to the “UK Black Metal Volume Two” compilation which landed here recently stood out from the teeth-gnashing hoard to such an extent that I was extremely interested in hearing more – debut “Age of Chaos: Cast Into Oblivion” gives [...]

ENSIFERUM : FROM AFAR Spinefarm It could easily be argued that Finland’s premier epic-heroic metallers Ensiferum packed such a powerful Viking punch with 2007’s “Victory Songs” that they cemented Petri Lindroos as their vocalist of choice and obliterated all opposition in one fell swoop. A lesser band would be tempted to rest on its laurels [...]