THE TOP 10 ALBUMS OF THE MONTH should be self-explanatory, an ordered ranking of ten albums that’d resonated most throughout this month. If you’re new to the site, the tendency is heavy and/or surreal music. Choices are selected based on temporal immersion, personal connection, impressive style, point of view, aesthetics and with consideration for the lasting value of each selection. All choices are ultimately personal and come without consideration for populism, nepotism, cronyism, or any outside factors including perceived “relevance”. Writing about music is a passion I afford as much time as is manageable and I am grateful to have so much to choose from. Thank you.

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I. This month on MystificationZine.com included 29 longform album reviews, 32+ video reviews/features, 14 short album reviews, and I swear I’ve been working on written interviews this last week… As much as I try to cover there is a vast, vast number of overlooked releases that are yet worth seeking out. Go forth and find them, tell me what I missed, and take the time to form your own goddamned opinions.

II. In 2025 (most all) written reviews will now have a video component which will post at the bottom of each review or feature at the end of each week (Thursday or Friday) If you enjoy these please consider following on YouTube. We are hovering around 1195+ subscribers and hoping to reach the 2,000 mark in 2025.

III. As always I’d like to express my gratitude for the bands, labels and PR firms who choose to work with me. Thank you.

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20. IZROD – Ulica, trnje i kamenje (2025) | REVIEW
19. RUINOUS POWER – Extreme Danger: Prototype Weaponry [Short Review]
18. FIELDS OF MILDEW – IV [Nordvis Produktion]
17. DYSANGELIUM – Exxekratus (2025) | REVIEW
16. INBORN SUFFERING – Pale Grey Monochrome (2025) | REVIEW
15. SACRIFICE – Volume Six [Short Review]
14. HAVUKRUUNU – Tavastland (2025) | REVIEW
13. PISSGRAVE – Malignant Worthlessness (2025) | REVIEW
12. FRIGHTFUL – What Lies Ahead (2025) | REVIEW
11. DÉLIRANT – Thoughteater (2025) | REVIEW

#10
ARTIST:	TOUGHNESS
TITLE:	Black Respite of Oblivion
RECORD LABEL(S):	Godz ov War Productions

At one point I was looking through the comments on a song from Toughness and auto-translating some of the Polish comments, a few of which called the band “Lubilich” as in Lublin’s Demilich. Since then I’ve been thinking of the old Baldur’s Gate symbol from the first game’s PC box with the demilich skull and the water droplets around it. Anyhow, this album does what many have done before in addressing the face value qualities of ‘Nespithe‘ and translating their repetitious linearity toward shocks of ‘old school’ grinding brutality. This time around we find quite a bit less of the Florida death metal ideal ingrained into their riffcraft and that’d limited the number of times I’d returned for their wild and weird-traditional work.

“Mentally masticated by the gnawing shadows of your portal-severed limbs, their tooth-like pressure emanating from the eye-slits of Nyarlathotep who’d teleport thoroughly (but not completely) the flesh to the Dreamlands and the psyche to the final void. All is not chaos in the Demilichian realm detailed on this sophomore full-length album from Puławy, Poland-based death metal quartet TOUGHNESS in fact we are seated at a court reserved to temper away all energy into torpor and dismay. Once again taking their time to develop tribute and temperament fitting for the old outrage of the ancient ones, these ‘old school’ avant-garde death metal students can mark ‘Black Respite of Oblivion‘ as successful push for a biggest-yet vision from beyond their core inspiration, far more than what’d been achieved by the debut. Here they provide more flesh to adorn their volatile alien grooved landscapes and more psychic shock from the mouth of the unknown to derail and disturb the modernist ear.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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#9
ARTIST:	HIRAX
TITLE:	Faster Than Death
RECORD LABEL(S):	Armageddon Label, Doomentia Records

I’ll never forget the first time I heard Hirax and while I have memory enough to say that about thousands upon thousands of bands it is so rarely just for the sake of the raw personality leaping from the boom box in hand, I actually had a huge silver dual-cassette (RCA?) boom box that a house painter left at our house in the early 90’s, and I used it to record a few songs from this band off the local college radio in Oregon at the time. I’d probably called in to request something off of ‘Money Talks‘ and “Lightning Thunder” was a value-add from the DJ. Anyhow, Hirax return here with a carefully crafted study of the original 1980’s appeal of the band here and it makes for a damn good spin in their classic style.

“With the gates of Hell having blown open and the flamethrower set upon humanity consistently refueling year over year there’ll be no better suited clarion call than that of Buena Park, California-borne heavy/speed metal quartet (trio on record) HIRAX who’ve returned for a sixth full-length album with a clear-as-day understanding of what the thrash metal hordes hunger for and where to point ’em. Authenticity, bold musical personage and a signpost for where it all began follow their name wherever they go and this time around ‘Faster Than Death‘ takes us to the original impact of their name, the quicker killer stuff that strikes and demolishes with precision impact. They’ve left little for the fan to fuss over here with this latest set of songs, a characteristic work which does well to showcase the fire they’re known for without venturing into self-parody or lesser-than ideas.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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#8
ARTIST:	VOODUS
TITLE:	Emanating Sparks
RECORD LABEL(S):	Shadow Records

Many promising melodic black metal bands’ve come and gone in the last decade any few (very few) seem to have both respect for the origin of the species -and- their own take on it which amounts to any real musical value of their own. I would suggest here that Voodus have first forged a connection with this music and then worked to make it their own, creating familiar ascendant and diabolic melodic pieces which have their own personal invocation in mind. I’d never paid that much attention to the Bardo Methodology interview from the band’s first album cycle and in returning to it now I feel like I “get” and completely respect what they’ve done with ‘Emanating Sparks‘ in moving away from the longer form pieces and striking closer to the ‘old school’ sound in some sense.

“Repeatedly opening the door to the past and what legendary greatness was achieved in storied times creates a dilation of past properties which is grotesquely revisional in nature yet ideally romanticist at the same time. Recreating the peaks and not the valleys of inspirational melodicism is not such a crime in the ever-shitting stream of moderne extreme metal’s anything goes, meaning-void realms of today yet in the process of modernization we often lose the “work” of iterative design. In the case of Kungälv, Sweden-based melodic black metal quartet VOODUS those greater shapes allow for facial recognition, a bump-mapped placard of fealty and a mark of traditional craftsmanship. Few would argue for wild originality fuming around the band’s sophomore full-length album outright though ‘Emanating Sparks‘ is admirably a product of devout fandom, a secured hearth which they’ve built their castle around here in refinement of a core ideal. Less patiently sprawling and now condensed down to prime efficacy this is a devout melodic black metal album inserted into modern times rather than a “modern” example, one which’d toy with pace and atmosphere just enough to enlarge the canvas rather than rethink the craft altogether.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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#7
ARTIST:	GRAVE INFESTATION
TITLE:	Carnage Gathers
RECORD LABEL(S):	Dark Descent Records, Invictus Productions

From my point of view there are thousands of death metal bands I absolutely love to experience on record and there are the rare garage-burnt real deal kickers like Grave Infestation who I actually want to see live and feel the riffs hit. Not for the sake of catchy music, mind you, this second LP is boppin’ but not writing hooks in any sense but more for the sense that a record like ‘Carnage Gathers‘ comes from a real band, imperfect and raw but class as fuck when it comes time to tear up a riff or two, or ten. Morbid, fucked up death metal that crawls in line with the earliest and bloodiest traditions.

“Slashed and bitten, strangled and clawed into shocked and bleeding muss, they were hacked into human shanks for feeding after their hunger-maddened assailant had his fill of gut-and-haunches. For the “werewolf of Dole” death was a necessity, nourishment for the desperation of providership and the disturbing gore resultant was animal butchery in his mind. Themed after real and unreal relationships with death this sophomore full-length album from Vancouver, British Colombia-based death metal quartet GRAVE INFESTATION muses over murderers and outrageous histories of human savagery as they pull together another grip of late 80’s inspired ‘old school’ death metal horror. ‘Carnage Gathers‘ is a traditional follow-up, a push toward more exaggerated extremes in most every regard, but as the band suggests it quickly begins to feel like tirade back to an even more feral, obsessed version of themselves.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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#6
ARTIST:	SEPULCHRAL CURSE
TITLE:	Crimson Moon Evocations
RECORD LABEL(S):	Dark Descent Records

I get the impression that Sepulchral Curse want to be as loud, maximal, colorful and extreme as possible and of course based on the everything-in attack of their first couple of records. So, when ‘Crimson Moon Evocations‘ showed “restraint” it wasn’t a soft-assed retreat but a heavy dose of Adderall chugged and a more potent evolution of their sound born. While I think it’d be awesome to see them take on the “dance” of earlier melodic black/death metal in some sense I’m almost more intrigued to see where the crushingly heavy but melodic clash of their sound goes in the future. Also, the band need a way cooler logo at this point.

“Calling to the upcoming blood moon for its redirection of power Turku, Finland-based blackened death metal quintet SEPULCHRAL CURSE unveil a next-dimensional version of their act with this inspired third full-length album. Built upon a body of violently struck precision death metal and given limbs and breath by way of melodic blackened death ‘Crimson Moon Evocations‘ is a molten fire-charged hammer, a two-handed beast of intelligent design built to crush and cauterize all that its wielder strikes. In taking increasingly bold steps beyond their beginnings these folks now find a most clear and directly stated voice, a work of brutality and high-grade melodicism which bears meaningful connection to what’d been developed on their previous two full-lengths. Poised as a monolithic fusion of niche specific ideation unto its own the band’s latest work manages this bold strike without leaving behind the admirable classics-minded locus that’d lead them down this decade-long path.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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#5
ARTIST:	RITUAL ASCENSION
TITLE:	Profanation of the Adamic Covenant
RECORD LABEL(S):	Sentient Ruin Laboratories

Was I going to miss a project that featured members of Void Rot and Suffering Hour? No goddamn way, but there was no real expectation that ‘Profanation of the Adamic Covenant‘ would be anywhere near as cool as their related projects of which there are a fair deal of at this point. Nonetheless Ritual Ascension smokes as an imaginatively voiced and devastatingly heavy golem of cryptic atmospheric death noise. While they don’t necessarily whip it old school a la Disembowelment, probably closer to Grave Upheaval, there is an ancient entombed and ritualistic feeling to the droning and buzzing sphere this album summons. Its possession runs deeper with every listen.

“A rite which smokes through the air from the abysm-eyed godhede’s black tongue speaks to majesty in praise of the serpentine path, roaring within the eternal dark in conveyance of mythic emanations from below. As dictated by Minneapolis, Minnesota-based surrealistic avant-death/doom metal trio RITUAL ASCENSION this debut full-length album seeks to suffocate and deny the listener eden, any satiation or comfort within the piercing cold and eye-dotted landscape of nihil, they tank and seethe through. A soul-crushing hallucination conjured by weary minds, ‘Profanation of the Adamic Covenant‘ is a sinister echo chamber for the howling souls of the dead and lost, a cryptic spell of doom set to bewilder and debilitate anyone in earshot of its slow-burnt and callous exaggerations of dread. These folks’ve found a deeply unsettling trail through death-doom metal’s most funereal haze, a disturbingly callous yet captivating trip through the bestial and avant-garde, a trip in its own right.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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#4
ARTIST:	METAPHOBIC
TITLE:	Deranged Excruciations
RECORD LABEL(S):	Everlasting Spew Records

These folks had impressed with thier demo CD a handful of years ago but without giving any clear hints as to how much they’d expand that ouevre, putting some serious work into this debut LP. ‘Deranged Excruciations‘ is an erratic and sometimes ‘old school’ fumed death metal record which pulls from the upper-tier of circa ’94-’96 death metal at its foundation and delivers riffs, brutality, and restless murderous energy throughout. This year I am trying to step away from the meaningless, thoughtless side of death metal and focus on folks who are doing their best and care about what the fuck they are doing and no doubt Metaphobic should be included in those ranks.

“Eye-wateringly nauseous in their gut-gathered indignance the long road trudged toward grand introductions finds Atlanta, Georgia-based death metal quintet METAPHOBIC weathered, honed into a whorl of inward-echoic torment as their debut full-length album arrives channeling fear, wrath and possessed uncertainty. ‘Deranged Excruciations‘ is the product of careful consideration wherein the weight of years has pressed and collapsed their vision into a dense and selectively writ gem sporting a fusion of old, new and older school death metal sensibilities. Though their demo tape that’d hit a handful of years ago was obviate enough signifier of their potential this one’ll surprise folks seeking ingenious points of riffcraft and brutally struck death metal aggression. Expressed via a seeming veteran force this debut album is far from green indecision as possible, these folks present work which is well above average in form and terrifyingly memorable in its thoughtful, destructive scourge.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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#3
ARTIST:	DECLINE OF THE I
TITLE:	Wilhelm
RECORD LABEL(S):	Agonia Records

This unique French avant-garde/post-black metal project hasn’t evolved drastically over time but with their last two LPs an admirably high standard and dare I suggest some manner of original sound has formed beyond the noisome, noxious trio that’d kicked off their career. ‘Wilhelm‘ does a great job of making simple movements feel profound per their performance and arrangement. Exceptional work and an album I’d be surprised if they’d ever topped for my own taste.

“What angst is extracted from ethical steadfastness speaks to an inherently nauseating codec, an implanted rule over the willpower which’d channel away the hardened lines of perception into uncertainty of purpose, dread. Paris, France-based avant-garde/post-black metal quartet DECLINE OF THE I depict a lifetime of this accumulation crashing upon the cathedral nave as their fifth full-length album reconfigures their signature sound(s) for the sake of its high conceptual vision. In this sense ‘Wilhelm‘ is intractable, an extraction which reveals deeper sophistication and insight which should not be buried or shied away from for its overwhelming presence. As a talisman of themed ulterior black metal worn loudly the affectation here is maximal yet not wasteful of its fixation, an experience which rewards with easily parsed grandeur up front yet carries deeper nuanced meaning and arrangement when addressed by a mind readied to chisel and scrape away in pursuit of formative existential theorem.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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#2
ARTIST:	PHRENELITH
TITLE:	Ashen Womb
RECORD LABEL(S):	Dark Descent Records, Me Saco Un Ojo

For this third LP Phrenelith go more atmospheric, more ‘Here in After‘ even, and generally pile on heavier layers for this third LP, retain the throne taken by their debut without dropping the more direct-to-skull riffcraft of their second record. I was already a big fan from the start but I felt like this album raised expectations, changed lanes to some degree and found an even more refined knack for curating a full album experience. A long winded way to say this record just kind of rules and despite a familiar sound and some obvious influences floating around in their stew.

“With the maw of the end cracked open and our monstrous apocalyptic herald-beast in flight so erupts the din of unholiest armageddon, a funereal downpour from nine molten-headed hammers upon the land. The third in an order of increasingly bleak, charred-and-choked out prophecies this third full-length album from Copenhagen, Denmark-based death metal quartet PHRENELITH gapes before us having birthed a bleakest yet writ of eschaton at peaking cataclysmic stages. Shapely in its corroded grooves and increasingly dark, suffocating pummel and volatile atmosphere ‘Ashen Womb‘ speaks to new visions of auld temperaments, exaggerated and plumed into headier increasingly psychotic adulation for the gears that’d turn the dial faster toward the cessation of all life. In this sense we are treated to a brilliant standard for death metal of any age (ancient or otherwise) as these folks once again wield prognostication, punishment and billowing movement into unforgettable finalitas.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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#1	Album of the Month
ARTIST:	CHAOS INCEPTION
TITLE:	Vengeance Evangel
RECORD LABEL(S):	Lavadome Productions

The long-storied and unsurprisingly goddamned great return of Chaos Inception yields riff-after-riff, tension wracked and precise in its conflagration of the lazing arm of modern death metal. ‘Vengeance Evangel‘ is an assault, a battle, and a triumph in its intended arc and the level of craft here focuses where the best death metal always has: in delivery of eruptive and smartly writ riffcraft. If you like to sit down and hit at least one or two riffs on your guitar every day these are your type of folks and for my taste these are some of the best riffs in this style I’ve heard since ‘Ixaxaar‘ released.

“Consolidated down to skeletal necessity and unbroken by the passage of time Huntsville, Alabama-based duo CHAOS INCEPTION return for a third full-length album intending to reprise their role as keepers and triumphal innovators within the strictures of infernal pure death metal craft. With ‘Vengeance Evangel‘ their temperament is one of morbid terror-stricken accost, a violent avenger and narrator for their trip through fiery but never too labyrinthine realms. Best known as brutally struck, technically steep and thrillingly set masters of riffcraft of the canonical death metal lineage, the band aren’t only returning to keep the faith so to speak but to distort expectations and insert more of their own hand. Here they’ve added their own deeper touch upon the best traditions of the sub-genre while upholding the ruthless standards that’d birthed their own initial escalation of the form.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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