CD

THE OMEGA SWARM,
an atmospheric death metal group from Germany, started in 2022, very humble, very secluded.
T., renowned from crafting four fabulous albums to date with Sulphur Aeon, did not have a fully fledged live act in mind when composing early demos and shaping the skeleton of his – at that time – nameless new creature. A true creator at heart, T. embraces the meticulous work on riffs, tones, sounds, the adventurous spirit of building and realizing ideas, experimenting with his much beloved set of guitars and synths to produce astonishing vibes and songs that are meaningful yet extreme, melodic yet harsh and mount in THE OMEGA SWARM’s debut album, a record, a testimony dedicated to the essence of art itself.

As down-to-earth T. is, he is not the type of person to stick with one sonic formula, he looks out for ‘something more’, ‘something different’. Having finalized what Sulphur Aeon wanted to express for the time being on 2023’s monumental “Seven Crowns and Seven Seals”, THE OMEGA SWARM are his main focus right now, and the band’s line-up completed by vocalist Christian Schettler (known from his work in label mates Wound) and drummer Max Scheefeldt (ex Misanthrope Monarch), gels perfectly.
Musically, THE OMEGA SWARM were spawned from T.’s experiments with rhythmic patterns, layers of synths, elaborate leads and slightly more technical riffing structures. Probably, the only obvious parallels to Sulphur Aeon are an emphasis on a dense, captivating atmosphere, epic elements, and an overarching darkness as well as realizing after completing their first recordings that also THE OMEGA SWARM bear the quality to be more than just a ‘bedroom project’.

SARKE continue to exploit their unusual mix of 70`s rock, 80`s speed metal and 90`s black metal, resulting in an album full of heavy-rocking and groovy metal while not forgetting the unique psychedelic, doomy and dwelling passages. A monster of an album by a beast of a line-up ft. (ex) members of Darkthrone, Enslaved and Khold!

“Endo Feight” , the 8th full-length of pioneering Norwegian metal act SARKE, covers everything from SARKE’s lightest parts to the hardest. Prepare for a unique musical journey that breaks barriers within the metal scene, of course featuring Nocturno Culto from the legendary DARKTHRONE on vocals.

“Endo Feight” was recorded and mixed at H10 Productions by Lars-Erik Westby and mastered by Sofia von Hage and Thomas Eberger at Stockholm Mastering. The cover illustration was created by Kjetil Nystuen.

Limited collectors edition in 8 panels digipak, eventual further pressing will be released on jewelcase

French one-man melodic black metal band Inherits The Void is back with the third studio album in four years. Fifteen months after the acclaimed The Impending Fall Of The Stars, multi-instrumentalist A is back with a brand-new studio record.
As introduced by Inherits The Void mastermind A. himself, “Scars Of Yesteryears is a melodic black metal album which embodies the artistic choices initiated with its predecessor. However, Scars Of Yesteryears is more diverse in its musical influences, while wanting to be more direct and incisive in its musical approach. In this, the album draws its inspiration from both the Swedish and French Black Metal scenes with the aim of combining the stylistic visions specific to each universe.
The eight songs that follow one another in the album reflect a now more enterprising crossover between Atmospheric/Melodic Black Metal and early Melodic Death Metal, combining also more epic and doomy parts than in the past.
The theme of the album deals with the legacy left by past and present societies, whether through struggles, revolutions or even through the traces that we ourselves leave and which, themselves, lead to the destruction of our environment”.
Doubtlessly Inherits The Void’s most diverse and mature work to date, Scars Of Yesteryears succeeds in paying homage to the godfathers of the Swedish death and black metal scene, yet keeping a personal, present sound and never giving in to mere nostalgia. 

Remastered and joined together in a single release, the first two Nest EPs see the light again! Fabled Lore and Hidden Stream, originally released in 2000 and 2003, will finally be available on vinyl as part of a comprehensive reissue work via Avantgarde Music!

Nest is an atmospheric folk / acoustic group from Finland, formed in the summer of 1999, mainly focusing on the use of the Kantele, a traditional Finnish instrument. The project, led by multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Aslak Tolonen (also member of Syven and several others), has always kept a shy behaviour, releasing three studio albums along the quarter of a century and playing selected live gigs.

Fabled Lore / Hidden Stream is the first instalment in Nest's vinyl and cd reissue schedule on Avantgarde Music and will be followed by the releases of Woodsmoke, Trail of the Unwary (with bonus) and Mietteita - this last one for the first time ever receiving a physical release.

For something to be “ecstatic,” the feelings and emotions it evokes must transcend what one tends to experience most regularly in their lives. Ecstatic joy isn’t just happiness; it’s a feeling of jubilation which impacts one emotionally and in a metaphysical, arguably spiritual sense too. Although it has long been associated with connotations of the dark and macabre, extreme music has the ability to be a powerful mode of expression for these feelings of absolute bliss, overwhelming love, and awe-inspiring sublimity. Extreme emotions no less and those which black metal quartet Agriculture evokes with its ecstatic subversion of the subgenre’s tropes.

What was initially a meeting and subsequent series of jam sessions between Kern Haug and Daniel Meyer, two musicians in the Los Angeles underground noise scene, would eventually manifest as a shared vision to portray the sublimity of the human experience through the vehicle of heavy music. Following the additions of veteran guitarist Richard Chowenhill and bassist / vocalist Leah Levinson to the band’s lineup, this idea would crystalize into the “ecstatic black metal” backbone of Agriculture’s music, first heard on the band’s 2022 debut EP, The Circle Chant.

With Agriculture’s self-titled record and first full-length LP, it’s abundantly clear that the band’s use of heavy music to showcase the most resplendent emotions and moments of the human experience has a far deeper meaning. Woven between the flurries of soaring tremolo picking, crescendoing guitar harmonies, celebratory screamed vocals, thoughtful improvisation, and meditative atmospheric passages is the record’s mission statement to experience the wonders and joys of both the esoteric and physical world.