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With his second official full-length, "The Funeral of Being" (2003), XASTHUR mastermind, multi-instrumentalist, and singer Scott Conner aka Malefic walked further down the harsh, raw, frightening, and yet also melancholic path that set his band apart from most of the US black metal scene. Despite its unique and solitary approach, "The Funeral of Being" is still widely held to constitute a cornerstone and classic of the American underground. XASTHUR were originally conceived by Scott Conner in California, USA in the year 1995. The project started out in the vein of bleak black metal in the tradition of the Nordic second wave. Over the course of nine albums and a host of split-singles, EPs, and occasional demos, XASTHUR's individual, particularly depressive style became highly regarded within the extreme genre. In 2010, Scott announced the end of XASTHUR and returned with an acoustic dark folk project under the banner of NOCTURNAL POISONING. In 2015, the American artist returned to the name XASTHUR, but insisted that his black metal days were over. On his so far latest album, "Inevitably Dark", XASTHUR have partly lifted the self-imposed ban on black metal, simply because Conner felt like it and therefore did it.

UNREQVITED mastermind 鬼 (Ghost) has a penchant for beautiful musical creations that reveal their claws and fangs only at closer inspection after spending some time on them. This solo project is firmly rooted in blackgaze sonic soil but has also sent out tendrils into ambient, post-rock, post-black metal, and other related stylistic strata. The seventh album, "A Pathway to the Moon", is taking an impressive evolutionary leap. One element of this significant sonic development of UNREQVITED is the novel exploration into a predominantly lyrical realm. This step away from mostly expansive soundscapes towards more singing is also due to the transition of UNREQVITED into a touring band. 鬼 carefully crafted "A Pathway to the Moon" with live performances in his mind. The result is an album that resembles a blackgaze soundtrack – a legacy further underlined by the artbook bonus track, which features a cover of the Hans Zimmer "Interstellar" composition 'Cornfield Chase'. Despite the divergence into more lyrical dimensions, "A Pathway to the Moon" keeps the use of lighter and more uplifting passages that were increasingly employed among the expected dark twists on "Beautiful Ghosts" (2021). The significant use of clean vocals throughout the album turns out in hindsight as writing on the wall about developments to come. The core elements that have shaped UNREQVITED in the past remain in active service as well: Thus, the massive anthemic refrains from "Mosaic I: l'amour et l'ardeur" (2018) are equally present as the simple melancholic melodies from the 2016 debut album "Disquiet" and the orchestral grandeur of "Empathica" (2020). Ever since 鬼 conceived UNREQVITED as the musical vehicle for his multi-faceted creative output and brought it to light in 2016, his project has been a constantly shape-shifting and stylistically wide roaming beast. With "A Pathway to the Moon", the Canadian has once again gathered the strands of his previous works but he has also taken a creative leap of faith. "A Pathway to the Moon" takes UNREQVITED closer to a traditional rock and metal album based on songs than ever before – yet it is also the soundtrack of a most fascinating sonic journey.

Canada's Unreqvited has been a musical proving ground that defied categorization right away, thus being a perfect addition to our roster. With a highly acclaimed back catalog that was assembled only within the last few years, it is easy to imagine that this prodigious artist will get very far in the future. Two years after his 2016 debut "Disquiet", which had married black melancholy with electronic opulence, both "Stars Wept To The Sea" and "Mosaic I" showed different tacks, delving into the cosmos and orchestra pit respectively.

Depressive and uplifting; a journey of massive peaks and bottomless caves. Unreqvited’s take on post black metal is one that paints a canvas of musical diversity, with elements of expansive post-rock, tortured dsbm vocals, shimmering blackgaze melodies and grandiose orchestral segments.

With their debut LP “Disquiet”, Unreqvited lays down the foundation for their somber, melancholic sound by using hallmark principles of black metal like torrential blast beats and tremolo sparingly. Instead, opting for emphasis on melodies and synthesizers to invoke thoughts of frozen woodlands and a troubled internal state.
 

THE VISION BLEAK return in grand style: The German duo's seventh full-length "Weird Tales" constitutes a monumental tribute to the eponymous American pulp magazine and other tales of mystery and dark imagination. The album consists of a single track that is divided into internal chapters, which are each inspired by weird tales, poems, and other literature of horror and the macabre. On "Weird Tales", THE VISION BLEAK are referring to eminent writers of the legendary magazine such as H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, but also allude to authors that were never featured in the magazine, for example Edgar Allen Poe and Lafcadio Hearn, whose "Fantastics and Other Fancies" was very influential for this album. THE VISION BLEAK are pulling every register of their enormous musical prowess. The chapters range stylistically from flamboyant gothic rock via dark doom to harsh black and death metal parts – and about everything in between. All the thrilling elements that the following of the duo has come to expect and love is present on this record: the dramatic and theatrical, the harsh and heavy, the melancholic and eerie, and also catchy and symphonic moments. All of this is woven into a dense sonic tapestry, which is held together by a recurring ebb and flow that is reminiscent of classical composition. THE VISION BLEAK were born out of the friendship between guitarist, bass-player and harsh vocalist Markus Stock aka Ulf Theodor Schwadorf and drummer and singer Tobias Schönemann alias Allen B. Konstanz. After first experimenting with a more gothic rock formula, THE VISION BLEAK shaped up when the duo began to involve their mutual love for the horror genre. Already their debut album, "The Deathship Has a New Captain" (2004) became an instant success in both gothic and metal circles and is by now regarded as a classic. As the debut album's theme was based on classical horror movies, the Germans aptly dubbed their style: horror metal. With the following albums, THE VISION BLEAK cemented their reputation as purveyors of classy and quality music. Each full-length revolves around themes from the horror genre that can easily be deduced from their respective titles. "Carpathia" (2005) was followed by "The Wolves Go Hunt Their Prey (2007) and "Set Sail to Mystery (2010), "Witching Hour" (2013), and "The Unknown" (2016). THE VISION BLEAK, the masters of horror metal, are finally ready to gift the world their most ambitious song so far: "Weird Tales" is a beautiful and heartfelt homage to a poetic golden age of horror and mystery literature. Listen with care, but always be wary of the eldritch and forbidding sounds that lurk within this song!

Kentuckian living in Minnesota returns with his most sorrowful, introspective album yet. A search for hope in a bleak world. Easily the darkest and heaviest record of his entire career. 

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It's a rare occasion to hear a cooperative work between two artists that fits so well together as this creation lets us experience. On this split album Panopticon and Waldgefluster really transcends into a single musical entity. A musical entity that sparks of excellent artistry which offers us a moving atmospheric journey, an adventure where the music itself becomes a soundtrack for true friendship and brotherhood.
You will be stuck in a whirlwind of melancholic metal and suddenly thrown into beautiful acoustic passages, reminiscent of an old man sitting in his rocking chair playing his banjo.
 

Lifelover's fourth and last album "Sjukdom" (English: disease) is a dark and challenging record. Following their critical acclaim-afforded and cathartic "Konkurs" in 2008, these elusive and mysterious misanthropes venture down an even more daring path with "Sjukdom" where the extremes of the characteristically idiosyncratic Lifelover sound are pushed to their utmost limit: the bittersweet melodies become more beautiful whilst the pulsing, coal-black heaviness becomes uglier. After the tragic death of B in September 2011, this is Lifelover's final studio album.

On "The Dead Light," Fen explore the beauty that comes from destruction. Representing the vanguard of contemporary UK post black metal, the band offers its heaviest, most direct album to date. It is the sixth full-length in a career of less than 15 years and marks another recalibration for the three-piece that, while always daring to use unconventional structures, found that the predecessor "Winter" (2017) was the apex in this respect

The colour of every FEN album points towards its lyrical and musical content. For the first time in their career, the East Anglian post-black metal trio has used the colour red on the cover artwork of their seventh full-length "Monuments to Absence". FEN describe the album as an expression of anger, hopelessness and despair – anger at the desperate futility of a human species hell-bent on self-destruction. This is reflected in the decidedly harsh and black sound of "Monuments to Absence", which is undoubtedly FEN's most extreme recording to date, even though there are still moments of atmospheric glory, spatial clean sections, heaving doom, and full-blown riffs, which augment the furious expression of rage. FEN took their name from the Fens of East Anglia when the trio formed in 2006. These desolate and bleak landscapes have left a deep mark in the post-black metal sound, which the band pioneered in the UK when the English scene revitalised in the wake of forerunners FOREFATHER with bands such as FEN, WINTERFYLLETH, and WODENSTHRONE coming to the fore. When FEN released their debut full-length "The Malediction Fields" (2009), the band made good on the huge promise of their previous EP "Ancient Sorrow" (2007) by delivering a first album that already combined the black metal tradition elegantly with a dedicated atmospheric twist and gentle experimentation beyond the perceived narrow confines of their genre. With each following full-length, from "Epoch" (2011), via "Dustwalker" (2012), "Carrion Skies" (2014), "Winter" (2017) to "The Dead Light" (2019), FEN have expanded both their musical range and following, while also perfecting their recognisable and unmistakable sound. "Monuments to Absence" marks FEN's welcome return to a dark and fierce sound.

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