N.B.B.M.N. is Nothing But Black Metal November, a themed short reviews column which I’ve been doing since 2015 in various venues, initially inspired by friends of mine who’d often spend November only listening to black metal and generally catching up on the releases they’d missed throughout the year. This fourth entry covers new releases from December 2023. // I’ve done my best to showcase the most interesting works that I come across while still presenting some decent variety but choices boil down to what sticks, what inspires or what is worth writing about. These reviews are more easygoing than longform reviews, so relax and think for yourself. — If you make music in this style and would like your music reviewed, read the FAQ and send promos to: grizzlybutts@hotmail.com

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Birmingham, England-based black/doom metal duo Swords of Dis return for a second full-length album ten years beyond the first and I’d say to stunning results, at least a decade’s worth of growth tucked within a 70+ minute album overflowing with its own occult-spiritual nox and unorthodox-tinted ritualistic sounds. While I’d felt the talents of Richard Corvinus‘ compositional interest and dark, oft-dissonant approach to hymnal black metal were impressive enough in the past we get something more potently conceptual in shape and treatment this time around and surely in much more natural concert with vocalist Alice Corvinus. This is yet a considerable improvement even over their breaking the ice again with the 2021 released EP ‘Cor Mundum Crea in Me, Sanctum Ignis‘ and in some sense it comes by way of compromise with more readable elements, specifically some dark metal adjacent rhythms and a clarified doom metallic core beyond the blasting fray which often takes the lead.

Of course this is an emotional and spiritual record, this should be clear enough upon approach but I cannot understate how much the expression available to the duo thrives per making a bit more room for the deeper chest-sung register of the vocalist. This more present, affected vocal lends ‘Melencolia‘ a strong identity which carries with it a serious yet languid feeling, a dynamic which arrives with a surreal touch yet just enough confidence that it all holds together in one unified piece when the pace picks up and less predictable turns are taken. If you are the impatient type no doubt you’ll miss the distraught grace which builds throughout, coming to very satisfying conclusion within the last two pieces. In my experience this was a “just let it play” situation rather than a fixated analysis and this is where Swords of Dis had their best showing.

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Helsinki, Finland-based black metal quartet Korgonthurus are often compared to the bands they’d “grown up” with in the sense that key members featured in Horna, Totalselfhatred, and several others at those projects defining moments and thus this formation tends to be set up as a side project. In fact their discography is more ambitious than expected and each recording carries its own distinct mood and pacing. Their first album ‘Marras‘ (2009) featured two extended pieces which were quite dramatic and stood out at the time whereas their last few have been more abrupt, classic in their 90’s black metal inspired battery yet here on their fourth full-length these aspects combine within four longform ‘epics’ of atmospheric, melodic and dissociative black metal. ‘Jumalhaaska‘ surprises moreso for ability to carry all of this weight together and still manage substantial pieces of it, these folks had pretty well proven their aptitudes over a decade a go, but I’d particularly been impressed by Corvus‘ vocals as there is some real venom and pain in these songs as we push toward the mid point. A demanding release in terms of its initial connection made but a pretty easy, tormented listen once you know what to expect.

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Technically formed back in 1991 and active throughout the 90’s Dethroned weren’t the most widely known force outside of the early German black metal underground but their 1997 demo tape ‘In the Sign of the Pentagram‘ and a demo compilation under the same name they’d release a decade later serves well enough as a primer to the far more sophisticated work they’ve done since reforming in 2007. The inherently melodic, sinister rock fueled gloom at the heart of this second full-length LP from the group quickly differentiates them from the expectations of some manner of early 90’s scented basal form as we step into the deeper pools of “Vinum Creaturae” and “Void”, sentimental and tumultuous pieces which’ve been brilliantly arranged for two guitars. The guitar arrangements for “Ewig Fäulnis” were the peak of my interest here but the full listen is remarkably consistent and easily approached for its dramatic but never grotesquely over the top classic sound.

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Provins, France-based theatric black metal troupe Abduction first caught my ear back in 2018 per their second LP ‘À l’heure du crépuscule‘, and a couple of records later their style frames itself more squarely around lead-driven melodic black metal pieces and progressive/dark metal with a sombre feeling. This particular album concerns itself with the fate of the untended veteran, the way the used and discarded soldier, but from the ever traumatized post-World War state of the sentimental European mind. The album carries a dour sensibility, complicated by its gang-barked vocals and accentuated by the hum of eloquent clean vocals and a strong but never outwardly flashy lead guitar presence and a persistent drummer keeping the pace double what it very well should be. Though this record reads somewhat chaotic at times it has a strange sophistication within all of the off-color choices made, an act of excess rather than pure refinement.

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Azathoth’s Dream is an atmospheric black metal project from Lord Azathoth who is thus far best known for his black metal project Luring, for this follow-up to the 2022 ‘Necromanticism‘ tape little has changed beyond the expected focus on songs beyond establishing the dark ambiance a band in this style relies upon. As was the case when I’d checked out the fellow’s other band earlier this year he has a reasonable knack for disjointed, striding rhythmic threads but this doesn’t flip the switch over to truly impressive riffcraft so readily. A very short album with largely ~3-4 minute pieces dominating the tracklist what we get are easily read vignettes and some are more immediately absorbing than others, these will become obvious up front with “A Millennia Perished”, “Phantasm” and “The Grave”. The listening experience is just fine, bit of a duck squawk on the vocals which is a non-issue, and I suppose my only criticism of the album is that ‘Nocturnal Vampyric Bewitchment‘ is just plain, average naive vampyric stuff without a standout personae. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a great listen, though, and there is some strong immersive value to the otherwise short pieces herein.

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Atmospheric black metal project Burial Moon are described as international and we’re given very little clue as to what they’re all about beyond layout design from the main fellow in Izrod and the fellow from Tomb Veneration doing the mix/master. This self-titled debut mLP doesn’t reveal much in terms of personality up front, a distant and droning sound, bat screams and inhaled horrors might spark up on a couple songs but otherwise this reads as fairly straight forward spooky bedroom black metal to start. There are deeper layers, a sort of raw black metal sense of movement applied to a deeply atmospheric and backgrounded guitar sound and the vocals are, I suppose eerie at the very least between hymnal creeps and such. For my own taste this is a bit too subtle, ghostly black metal without a knack beyond atmosphere which quickly floated out of mind in every case.

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Portuguese black metal project Ginnungagap begin to thaw away the frost of their demo/EP beginnings on this debut full-length, an atmospheric black metal record lead by deep-set parity between the rhythm guitars droning nondescript tone and the hum of their keyboard layers (rendering per Trollhouse Audio) with all of it crashing as majestic waves in the distance with an Inquisition-esque approach to their vocals up front. Most of this album amounts to kicking mid-paced beats, the hum of the rhythms at a horizon level, and seeming endlessly sour rants from the vocalist. Repetitive as this modus quickly becomes as the ecstatic throes of these patterns becomes a self-stirring pot this doesn’t hinder the enjoyment of the spectacle, a warmly arcane approach to atmospheric black metal which barely lifts a finger beyond its whirring motion for the first twenty minutes of this album. “Mysteries of the Primordial Moon” gives us a different variant, something more blasting and rushed in pace without losing the dramatic glow of the experience and from there the rhythms of the album begin to open up slightly. When returning to the ~’97 demo era for black metal this is a sound which resonates more with me than anything attempting to be intentionally throwback and I’d found myself enjoying the surreal drone of this album as it eventually found its variations and nuance while still leaving all interpretations buried.

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Monrovia, California-based quartet Imperialist are back with new EP and this material isn’t drastically different from their work on album number two ‘Zenith‘ (2021) where they’d left behind some of their Immortal-esque take on thrashing black metal and delivered a forward-struck riff driven approach, steadied but in some ways less eventful than their brilliant 2017 debut, ‘Cipher‘. There is a fine line between refinement and simplification and I think these folks have struck a strong balance between coldly cut thrashing black metal pieces of their own design and some tuneful interest though I have to admit this particular set is surprisingly straight forward in its approach. The one piece here that nails that ‘Damned in Black‘-esque ride of their earlier material, “Call of Vulcain”, and I’d only wished they’d return to those textured and progression-obsessed type of riffs as “Quiescent Terror” picks up a similar thread right afterward. I can’t necessarily argue with Imperialist‘s easily read sound and impactful style, they’ve manage to carry on with this and retain a head-banging sort of quality to their work which is easy to pick up and enjoy in every case.

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Sulfuric Hatred is a grinding bestial blackened death metal project which pairs Undeath vocalist Alex Jones with Liam McMahon (Vile Ritual, Ninth Realm) and I’m not sure if he plays on this album but I believe the drummer from Stabbed is also a member of the band. As was the case with McMahon‘s other black/death metal project the strain of relatively atmospheric death metal dominates this experience and the pacing of these eleven pieces represents a mostly irregular set of spasms with a hardcorish approach to presentation and songcraft. “Fall Upon Lesser Armies” is probably the maximum strength piece of the lot in terms of getting a halfway catchy riff idea out there and delivering it. Otherwise the black metal side of the experience is slim, reserved for war metal space filling movements and militaristic blasts which step outside the deathgrind wheelhouse long enough to hit. The vocals are a bit buried and sound kinda along for the ride as the whipping chaos fed from pieces like “World Fucking Collapse” (the best of the lot, in my opinion) doesn’t provide many openings for the vocals to overtake any one given feature. Album art is sharp, sound design fairly average, overall not the most memorable record in this style out this year but they’ve got riffs to throw around here and there.

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Bergrizen is a black metal band from Ukrainian artist Myrd’raal back in 2007 who has focused primarily on the traditional sensibilities of atmospheric black metal over the years, often inciting comparisons to country mates such as Drudkh as well as the post-1999 Finnish black metal zeitgeist depending on the album. Earlier this year we’d gotten a wartime effort from the band (‘Orathania‘) largely composed by their drummer in a dark folk/ambient style and now we get this dramatic and obviously very inspired black metal release just a few months later. Sentimental, depressive, yearning there are many ways we could describe the solitary art of Bergrizen on their first few albums but in 2017 and beyond the main songwriter would collaborate with drummer R. to much elevated results and this particular album feels urgent as it does devastated, making for an experience which is rich in its production values but still displaying a loud emotional core as one’d expect from this realm of black metal. Very approachable and expressive record without sounding pandering or too glossy.

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Reykjavík, Iceland-based quintet Nyrst caught my ear a few years ago per their imaginative vocalist and uniquely stated form of modern dramatic black metal and now they return a changed band, refining those vocal tirades while presenting a darker yet still melodic second LP. ‘Völd‘ concerns itself with the forces of nature and of course anyone from their region would naturally associate volcanic activity with this symbolism and, I suppose as cliche as it might sound it does appear they’ve built this album on a more molten, fiery foundation and in turn given a more compelling face to their work. Granted the grandeur available to the full listen arrives with a bit of patience getting there as these folks still have a knack for filling a ~5-6 minute song with its paces though the payoff is usually worthwhile, or, at least always something different than the prior peak. From my point of view we do almost immediately stray from any sort of traditional form of black metal and instead find a menacing form of “dark metal” (see: Aeternus) and a different shade of black metal stride explored herein.

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