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Atmospheric Black Metal from Finland

Digipack

Awesome finnish Black Metal.digipack

With a past that stretches back to the late '90s and a patient path that began in 2013 with a moniker change, Brazil's THE KRYPTIK burst forth into brilliance when they aligned with PURITY THROUGH FIRE. In the autumn of 2019 came their acclaimed second album, When the Shadows Rise, a startlingly immersive gem of symphonic black metal, and many finally took notice. A year late came the 40-minute Behold Fortress Inferno, which poignantly expanded on their vast canvas despite "only" being a mini-album. Between these two records especially, THE KRYPTIK proved that "symphonic black metal" need not be a dirty word; with no outside influence from the nowadays "black metal" scene, the duo dependably practiced their mystical arts and erected a grand citadel of sound - an atavistic awakening of when all was simply BLACK METAL, heedless of appellations. 

And so it goes with THE KRYPTIK's massive third album, A Journey to the Darkest Kingdom. Truly titled, the seven-track/70-minute A Journey to the Darkest Kingdom reveals the duo's grandest vision yet: neo-ancient symphonic black metal drenched in the dark waters of the cosmos, a castle of crystalline ice whose spires reach into boundless space. The band's ebon flow continually crests and cascades, synths swirling all about and with utterly magickal effect. The production here in this Darkest Kingdom is clear and sharp - all murk excised for maximum immersion, gorgeous swell, and pulsing violence - altogether sounding incredibly vintage and era-authentic yet somehow fresher than most nowadays black metal recordings. But, that magick largely resides in THE KRYPTIK's songwriting, as each song is an epic in its own right and then are all threaded together as one fever dream: melodicism, majesty, and malice in perfect balance. Thus, A Journey to the Darkest Kingdom follows logically in THE KRYPTIK's continuum whilst pushing their creativity to even-more-breathtaking heights. Have they delivered a classic on par with Witchcraft, The Sad Realm of the Stars, or even Stormblåst? Only time shall be the judge...

Since 2005, Greece's SAD have been a madly prolific bastion of pure 'n' cold black metal. Their canon is vast and varied - VERY relatively so, given that this is all-caps BLACK METAL after all - with the longstanding duo of instrumentalist Ungod and vocalist Nadir exploring the darkest corridors of their souls every step of the way. They've did so across a half-dozen albums for such esteemed labels as Drakkar, Obscure Abhorrence, and Old Temple among others as well as a dozen splits, but then joined forces with PURITY THROUGH FIRE in 2020 for the release of their seventh album, Misty Breath of Ancient Forests.

Indeed, that album was aptly titled, for it saw SAD delivering their most ancient work in many moons. But the Greek duo are ever surprising, and nearly four years later do they emerge from the shadows with the fully-fuck-off Black Metal Craft. It's no accident that the album is titled such, as it reasserts the purity at the very heart of the SAD aesthetic and strips it to the fucking bone with ghoulish violence. Raw and rippling, here SAD somehow inject the melancholic melodicism of its Misty predecessor and then stir the maelstrom to a swirling boil, remaining hypnotic and locked-in whilst managing to gallop forth from time to time in a manner most regal. Put another way, Black Metal Craft could serve as a love letter to the late '90s heyday of Sombre Records or the aforementioned Drakkar, so old & cold its aesthetic (and, again, unapologetic its title). PURITY THROUGH FIRE is thus the most fitting stronghold for SAD's eternal black metal craft!

Swedish Black Metal Horde
 

Compilation of the two Demos "Vånnalösa urskepnader" (CD 1) and "Häxbål" (CD 2).

Track 1-3 taken from unreleased EP
Track 4-7, 16 taken from "I stridens era"
Track 8 & 12 unreleased
Track 11 taken from taken from Split with Demstervold
Track 14 & 15 taken from "Flögo de bort" EP
Track 16 previously unreleased
Track 17 taken from scrapped "I nordisk vredelusta rawmix
Track 18 unreleased

And here again another lost treasure of the old and cold 90s Norwegian black metal scene.
MORGUL with their second album from 1998. Old school black metal for fans of the early works of DIMMU BORGIR, OLD MAN’s CHILD and SATYRICON.

Jewel-case CD, 8-page booklet

And here again another lost treasure of the old and cold 90s Norwegian black metal scene.
MORGUL with their debut album from 1997. Old school black metal for fans of the early works of DIMMU BORGIR, OLD MAN’s CHILD and SATYRICON.

Jewel-case CD, 8-page booklet