Icelandic post-black/rock metallers Sólstafir have released a brand new video for their song ‘Miðaftann’ to celebrate their recently-announced tour dates for May 2016.

‘Miðaftann’ is lifted from their record album ‘Ótta’, which was released in 2014.

Directed by Harri Haataja and Vesa Ranta (from Finnish gothic/death metal legends Sentenced) and shot with renowned actor Gudmundur Ingi Thorvaldsson, at the famous black sand beach which inspired the band’s ‘Svartir Sandar’ album in 2011.

Frontman Aðalbjörn Tryggvason comments on the video: “The track is about wandering in darkness. Playing chess with Death, getting burned by salt, drowning in the ultimate wave of sin and returning back home by using moonlight as navigation.”

Directors Harri Haataja and Vesa Ranta further elaborate: “They told us a real-life story about a sailor, who lost his crew at sea and was stranded to shore as the only survivor. He proceeded to find his way to town and en route he found a barrel filled with water. Yet the water was frozen, so he had to punch through the ice with his bare hands to fight dehydration. Eventually, after a long journey, he reached the town and survived.”

Sólstafir have confirmed they will hit the road in 2016, performing their latest album ‘Ótta’ … Read More

Distinguishing yourself from the glut of occult black metal in the current musical climate can be a difficult task; recycled sounds and copycat presentation bury many bands in a quagmire of stagnation and indifference. Rarely do bands show a passion and creativity that holds them apart from the herd, even rarer still do they have the talent to translate this drive in actual quality heavy metal that holds its head above the crowd – Inconcessus Lux Lucis deserve this accolade. Wrapped up in saturnian black magick, Inconcessus Lux Lucis conjure black metal in the veins of masters Bathory, Celtic Frost and Venom – comparisons bearing as much to the spirit and atmosphere created by their winding song structures rather than a straight up tribute. Augmented by the raw energy of Motörhead and 70’s proto-punk of The Stooges, live shows are a tribute to death and disembodiment of the band and crowd. Inconcessus Lux Lucis have been sharpening their steel since 2009’s demo ‘Part 1. The Awakening Of Him’, joining forces with Russia’s Nomos Dei Productions to release their first EP ‘Severed From Sephiroth’ and full length ‘Disintegration: Psalms of Veneration for the Nefarious Elite’. Allowing their craft to develop with the recording … Read More

Wolverhampton’s Funeral Throne – a snarling, blood-covered wolfpack of blackened death misfits – have finally had their long-coming sophomore full-length vomited forth by Blut & Eisen Productions, but we spoke about the album as far back as Iron Fist #2. Here is that article, in full, re-printed online to celebrate the long, ugly, painful birth of this UKBM gospel

All the email said was: “THIS is heavy metal blackened by death from the UK. Black metal doesn’t need ‘saving’. It needs resurrecting.” And attached two simple, unmastered MP3s that, despite their lo-fi quality ignited something deep inside. At once notes of Watain and Marduk, second wave buzzing, and, yes, an ambitious yearning to “resurrect” the flame weaved its way around a dank, decrepit atmosphere. Something Winterfylleth said in Iron Fist #1 about black metal in the UK failing in its early promise to create some of the world’s most innovative and sinister music awakened the rage in the sender enough for them to send me such an email. And in return his music made me want to dig deeper. The anguished scream at the end of the song ‘Through Transforming Fire’ was enough to entice me to open the portal into the world of … Read More

From the primitive scars carved out of early material Secrets Of The Moon have flourished and blossomed, never stagnating and always exploring new ground. One thing that was probably never expected though was the German troupe going conceptually in search of the sun. After all their last opus ‘Seven Bells’ was full of obsidian blackness owing not a small amount to the comparable nightmarish visions of Lars Van Trier’s ‘Antichrist’. Rest assured though, there is no case of lazy sunbathing going on here. Founding member sG illuminates us on the origins of the album and explains it comes from a very dark place indeed. “When we finished the ‘Seven Bells’ album/touring cycle our former bass player and close relative [LSK] committed suicide, our long-time drummer Thelemnar left the band and my mother died of cancer only one month before my daughter was born. I experienced the mysteries of farewell, death, life and birth to an extent I haven’t ever done before. That’s why the album was such a relief to write because I was unable to speak for a long period of time. It showed me how much I needed to make music to survive. The actual title ‘SUN’ is taken … Read More

When we last spoke to black metal solo artist, Myrkur, it was towards the end of last year and she’d just released her self-titled debut. In that time the secret identity behind the music has created a whirlwind of controversy, while the songs themselves have divided opinion across the metal community, citing likenesses in everything from Xasthur to Dissection. Less than a year later the Danish musician is set to bestow sophomore effort ‘M’ upon the world, with Kristoffer Rygg (Ulver) at the helm of production. “We have a lot in common and he mentored me a lot,” reflects Myrkur. “It was very much a collaboration. It’s exciting for me to work with that level of talent and we share the same vision.” Myrkur’s collaboration with Rygg isn’t the only thing stirring up excitement about this record; the artist is lifting the shroud of mystery surrounding her identity and finally letting the world glimpse her face. “Sometimes I feel like I’m being forced to show more than I really want to,” she sighs, “but it’s also nice to have the freedom to be open about who I am and speak freely about what I want, and to connect with people.” And … Read More

“When you look at death from death’s perspective, you realise the pettiness of humanity. death cares not for your grievances or troubles, it comes to take you when you least expect. It is the power that supersedes our human creations: religion, politics, philosophy,” offers Todd Burdette, he of Tragedy/His Hero Is Gone fame and now one half of Nighfell, the band he formed two years ago with Tim Call (Aldebaran, The Howling Wind). The power of death casts a grim shadow over Nightfell’s stunning debut for Southern Lord, ‘The Living Ever Mourn’. “Envisioned and executed in a period of grief, delirium, and loss of life,” according to Burdette the creation of ‘The Living Ever Mourn’ was a cathartic experience, telling us “Catharsis is the primary force, death is close behind. We lament the lost, but we still breathe.” This defiant statement defines their debut album in its entirety, as even though death is laid bare in all its stark reality, there is hope and strength to be taken from ‘The Living Ever Mourn’. In terms of sound, it is an open-ended album, one which spans doom, death and black metal – but not exclusively so, as there’s plenty of punk aggression, … Read More

“Infant Death was formed by me and Knegge in October 2012. We both made songs and rehearsed them with me on drums and him on guitar, here in Trondheim, Norway. We got our bassist Udyr in spring last year, right after we had finished recording our debut ‘War’. He was the scariest guy we could think of and he plays a Rickenbacker. We rehearse nearly every day in a World War II-bunker.”

Whoa. A World War-II era bunker? Hellhammer/early Celtic Frost practiced in a bunker rehearsal room too. “Our basic influence is early stuff from old bands that play over ability: Venom, Exodus, Razor, etc,” Kim Kane muses. “An obscure influence might be Tina Turner. Chew on that.” What would Mrs Turner think of a moniker like Infant Death? “We needed something that we thought the common person would be disgusted by. None were though. It seems like people in general don’t know what Infant Death means here. An attitude with a naive madness is what it means to us.” This might explain Infant Death’s wonderfully antagonistic style that Kim describes as, “deadly thrash metal with black metal and grind influences. Right now we’re in the early stages of composing our third album. We will record … Read More

Dreams and visions have long inspired creative expression for ancient civilisations. The ritual trance, dance and journey to the underworld in all cultures was once deeply revered. Allowing oneself to become intoxicated by sensation to the point that it truly becomes the vessel of creativity is a bold and dangerous move.

Narcotics can open our eyes, break down barriers and allow us to melt into our own matter. I remember a night in Berlin watching a man so absorbed in ritual all I could see under the black hood were the whites of his eyes. 
Many musicians begin the shamanic dance, embracing drugs as a gateway to perception. However few manage to master the tempests of oblivion without becoming fucked.

 From his grandmother’s piano and the isolation of distant Auckland to the cemetery of Ross Bay… one voice has always been his guiding light… Vassafor!

What is the Vassafor demon made of, what is the space between the stars?

“It is dark matter… śūnya. The idea of anti-matter. Unlife. Bleached white sterility. The affinity with bones is the symbolism of not living inside time. We want to exist outside time… we want to transcend.”

Rites of ascension… in a dream… a robed figure on … Read More

“Through repetition and space, we have a tendency to create anticipation for a climax that never arrives,” says Taurus of the sickening unease that permeates the entirety of their full-length debut, ‘No/Thing’. Cut to two-inch tape by Billy Anderson and self-released in a number of unique physical guises, the psychoactive terror trip of ‘No/Thing’ is, according to the Portland-based duo of Stevie Floyd and Ashley Spungin, a means of “translating a live ritual to a recording rather than a recording to live.”

The band ritualise experimental doom/black/death metal along with Arabic scales, spoken-word samples of inspirational women to Taurus (which includes Gangaji, Delia Derbyshire, Yayoi Kusama, and Lisa Gerrard), and lysergic Krautrock-inspired loops created to pierce your third eye. “The goal is to create music that challenges and stimulates our mind and body in a new way,” says Taurus. “Our inspirations stem from where science and nature meet, traditional music, Kahlil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’, the Kabbalah, the present moment… as well as Death, Immolation, Blut Aus Nord, Tangerine Dream, Dead Can Dance, Goblin, Swans, Leviathan… the list goes on.”

Speaking of Leviathan, Wrest guests on album closer ‘Receed’, a freeform piece written in the studio and heavy on the horror-thump of a … Read More

Bestial Devastation (no, we don’t know his real name either) doesn’t like being in the limelight, at all. Luckily, with his prime band Negative Plane he doesn’t have to be, since he’s “just” the drummer. But since he’s responsible for basically everything, from recording to performing all the instruments, on Funereal Presence’s first real full-length and since said album is one of the best damn proper black-metal albums of this spring, we had to ask him about it, even if, to his own admission, he doesn’t like doing interviews, thus rarely does any nor agreed to have any form of promo pictures taken; “I don’t think that any of this adds anything to my music or that I have many interesting things to say that the music doesn’t… I also prefer concise and esoteric album layouts immensely and some boring picture of myself would only interfere with letting one’s imagination run freely.”

Clocking in at 48 minutes yet featuring only four tracks, three of them being over 12 minutes long, ‘The Archer Takes Aim’s force is to (re)capture that Darkthrone dirty guitar tone and vibe circa ‘Total Death’ (even if the artist would rather cite the old German extreme pioneers Poison … Read More