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.

---

I. This month on MystificationZine.com was once again dominated by death metal but you’ll find some choice traditional doom metal, melodic black metal, and bestial craft otherwise. The latest album from Aurora Borealis is worth buying, full support for the band, consider it #11 on this list. Similar accolades for Devoid of Thought and a number of other stellar records I’ve reviewed this month, I used to do twenty items and that may return at some point in the future. You might also notice that I’ve not included At the Gates likely final album ‘Ghost of a Future Dead‘, you should definitely buy/stream the album and support but I haven’t spent enough time with it yet to rank it beyond nostalgia/parasocial grief.

II. Consider following on YouTube. Beyond talking about new releases from time to time I am working on a shorter form video series + written feature from my ongoing An Exhaustive Study series which is set to debut in late summer.

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.

---

This troupe of familiar folks from the always high-grade Costa Rican scenery bring a pure, brutally slugged form of death metal to their debut and they do well to keep it straight forward for the most part. The thing about ‘Trepanación‘ is that it develops over the course, packs a lot of extra interest into the second half and entertains well beyond the whipped-out first impression it provides. In simpler terms I’d found this one a refreshingly direct gore hammer.

“Brutalized upon the slab, racked into burr hole apparatus and tapped into skull-first the fellowes behind San José, Costa Rica-based death metal quartet CANDARIAN intend to release the pressures of insanity, to relinquish the grip of the possessor through this monstrous but measured debut full-length album. Though ‘Trepanación‘ appears to intend outright brutality as it fires up there is yet relief offered within its succinct cut through ‘old school’ death metal ideation. Groove-driven up front, ruthless in the middle and doomed in its final third the occasionally infectious arc of this choice debut leaves the dura mater foaming with pus and the brain damaged far beyond salvation.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

---

Symphonic black metal was at one time one of the most hated “poser” havens on this metal planet and if we’re being honest it still kinda is in a brazenly nostalgic sense… but the niche always had its choice options, mutilators and innovators. Vargrav arrived some years ago as a seeming celebration of the real thing and they’ve proven both ambitious and steadfast beyond a lot of the embarrassing trend hoppers who’ve come and gone in the last half-decade. ‘Dimension: Daemonium‘ isn’t as ambitious and bombastic as their quartet pressed previous LP yet it held my attention even better, a focused and noxiously flowing experience I’ve continued to enjoy.

“Returned from a portal to massive high fantasy opus and now gazing upwards into the emerald-lit starry skies of another dimension entirely Hyvinkää, Finland-based symphonic black metal duo VARGRAV achieve freshly diabolic grandeur within this dramatically stated fourth full-length album. ‘Dimension: Daemonium‘ doesn’t rescind the ambitions of the band so much as it acts as a pivot of subject as they rejigger their collaborative stance into cosm-sourced eerie and fantastical aggression. Steeped in the spiritus of decades auld pomp yet far from idiotic pop-metal groveling typically associated with the niche their work here is once again worthy of reverence per its engaging, nuanced wield of classic sounds.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

---

Though there is no actual shortage of melodic black metal inspired acts seeking to fuse post-black/atmospheric black leanings into dramatic fare today Archaic Oath generally focus on and specialize in the first half of that equation. ‘Determined to Death and Beyond‘ may be highly referential of well-known works in some sense and doesn’t capture the hardlined, ex-death metal punish of the early 90’s movement but when considered under the current standard for “modern” melodic black metal their Dissection-meets-Emperor handed craft is superior to most. It’ll be interesting to see where they take it in the future but for now I’d felt they’d nailed this one as a debut.

“Enlightened by the silvery blue glow infiltrating the edges of the shadows in surround Belgium-based melodic black metal duo ARCHAIC OATH stand at their own forge of ancient darkness having satiated the will to create classicist informed craft on this richly realized debut full-length album. Though its entirety is informed heavily by the grandiose past of Scandinavian black metal’s melodic and most dramatic highs ‘Determined to Death and Beyond‘ errs on the side of modern black metal implement rather than authenticity-obsessed “retro” musings, making for a familiar and referential experience which fleshes the dramatic atmospheric idyll intended. For the niche obsessed their efforts should provide a pleasantly cross-eyed vision of both past revision and present standards where some remarkable ideas are forged in the midst.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

---

There is a shockingly dark vibrancy shaken throughout this blasting and braying, kinda grinding bestial death metal record as the folks in Ignobleth pivot off their earlier war metal beginnings into something viably ‘old school’ death metal inspired. This one has been brutally underrated for how hard it goes, where it goes and how much of a stunning leap their work has taken into the full-length realm. Totally stoked on anything they do in the future.

“Inverting all neural tube derived lifeforms into primeval abominant ghouls through a vortex of arcane magickry amidst the hurtling remains of their temples the usurpers of unholy bestial craft in Modena, Italy-based black/death metal trio IGNOBLETH act as unheard-of extinction level conjurors on this shockingly mayhemic debut full-length album. Pulling from occult literati traditions of orientalism for their vision of the primordial ‘Manor of Primitive Anticreation‘ places the listener in a black-blooded realm of Mesopotamian horrors, a reversion which serves their bestial blackened death triskelion its saw-like carve through unpredictive spine-whipping channel. Though it’d have been fair to say the band weren’t likely ready for a longplayer a couple of years ago they’ve hammered flat and desecrated that thought with the inspired maul of this debut.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

---

Fans of 90’s Solstice, Reverend Bizarre and earlier Rise Above doom releases should appreciate the approach of this German crew who’ve focused on longform 80’s doom stoked sounds and moved away from some of the epic heavy metal inspired stuff found on their previous LP. The first several songs bring enormous impact here and the final two kinda won me over for the Saint Vitus tribute applied. Theirs might be a pretty familiar sound but more importantly it convey something and strikes right at the core of what doom metal is (existential dread catharsis) and why sincerity/vulnerability in a dark headspace makes for a superior expression of it.

“The seeds of our ruination have been planted for the sake of cruelest self-destructive humours, a greed for power and hatred rising in the blood, which spreads across the senses in tar-like suffocating mass despair. For their sophomore full-length album German doom metal quartet BLACK REVELATION raise the obsidian mirror of fate upon the doom-afflicted masses one towering piece after another and in the process reveal the face of death as the great equalizer. A work of cursed catharsis purporting universal damnation within intimate yet exaggerative narrative ‘No Light Upon Us All‘ crosses many generational lines in sourcing its impressive, now doubly refined classics-minded craft.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

---

Hrob‘s debut album is one of the more pure approximations of mid-90’s death/doom metal we’ve heard in some time, fixated and riff-oriented but given to dramatically surreal rifts along the way. Part of this is a brilliantly authentic sound, some Disembowelment-esque choices in particular, but moreso the ratio of aggression to gloom afforded. If you are a fan of the best of everything from Ceremonium to Gorement you’ll appreciate the style of these folks.

“Beyond the cracking open of a coffin lid an arcing spray of frost follows the first breath of the entombed, heated fumes that’d reveal portal to once dormant primitive doom and subterranean death as the travelers-within-the-tomb behind Bratislava, Slovakia-based death metal quartet HROB author this well-stylized debut full-length album. Rooted in admirable study of early 90’s death/doom metal attack ‘Brána Chladu‘ carries the tradition of the atmospheric and eerie underground classics into an appropriately surreal n’ shambling sojourn. Though the status quo within death/doom today is primarily simplistic, mindless froth-and-flash these fellowes illustrate mysterious, impossibly dark and unpredictable pathways within their craft and notably do not skimp on the maniac assail essential to the inherent sub-genre hybridization inferred.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

---

Necroccultus arrived as an ‘old school’ minded crew assaulting the greater underground consciousness at a time when brutality was the norm and their original efforts infamously represented both that new wave of brutality as much as it did the late 80’s/early 90’s. A couple of decades later ‘The Afterdeath Blackness‘ focuses more resolutely on the ‘old school’ but still expresses brutal aggression sans the hollow rapping of early 2000’s production values. Otherwise I’d found nothing but inspiration in their riff-after-riff approach sure to stoke fans of everything from Sadistic Intent to Drawn and Quartered.

“Locked in an enduring cycle of death and zombified rebirth yet enduring with a mind for the eternal scourge that’d inspired their action Guanajuato, Mexico-based death metal quintet NECROCCULTUS return once more yielding an impressive milestone under-wing. While there are few guarantees when a band returns for a sophomore full-length album two decades beyond the last ‘The Afterdeath Blackness‘ quickly proves itself ruthlessly dark, authentic to a point of possession and somehow entirely fitting as a title under their cult-storied name. Rooted in the still-thrashing crack of the whip beyond the late 80’s yet mildly evocative of the era of pummel they’d borne from in the new millennium the echoic, riff-obsessed sound achieved here is the best-yet ideal conjured under their name.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

---

Immolation are my favorite (active) death metal band and have been since at least 1993. With twelve full-length albums under their belt and an original sound/ouevre pretty damned well-known my only expectation for a new record is that they sound like themselves and find a unique path within any given release. I don’t know if I’d say ‘Descent‘ is one of their all-time best, there isn’t a single turd in their discography anyhow, but it sounds the part and ultimately it pays off that every aspect of this record feels like ramping improvement on form beyond the last few.

“Too specialized to adapt to endless pursuit of growth, too hungered for resources to see their end coming, too blinded by division to see the powers that be much less demolish their control, too disengaged from the biosphere to see it failing in real-time, and already engaging in waves of mass-death via catastrophic weather and pandemia… all signs point to assured extinction of hubris-prone mankind at present. In pulling from ‘ready apparent world downfall, apocryphal prophecies, and their own ~four decade built endurance Yonkers, New York-based death metal quartet IMMOLATION signal the end of days as immediate and observable here on their thrillingly characteristic twelfth full-length album. ‘Descent‘ offers a vision of Hell on Earth which accosts all that it illustrates, stamping down upon the failures of civilization with long-held disdain for cult(s) of mind and systems of unchecked control. Beyond the themes on offer they’ve crafted yet another fine death metal release in signature style, a familiar and steeling record which admittedly fits the mold they’d carved long ago but what a glorious mold it is.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

---

This split LP between two dark ‘old school’ death metal acts is expertly paired as each group compliments rather than outright resembles one another while both serve unique adaptation of ancient sounds and modus. I’m a huge fan of Exhumation‘s work and that’d gotten me in the door but have nothing but enthusiasm for Funeral Chant after revisiting their discography and new stuff on here. Easily one of my most listened records of the month and the rare case where a split hits on all fronts.

“Compatriots per their enduring meditations upon death and the unlimited dark beyond now stand arm-to-arm in avowal as Indonesian duo EXHUMATION and Oaklanders FUNERAL CHANT coalesce for an inspired split album showcase. A display of ruthless esotericism and smoldering blackened death aggression ‘Sacred Oath: Temple of Death‘ captures each band at their own respective points of self-expansion, arriving upon fresh plateaus of exploratory idealism which yield darker-than-thou results beyond the norm and away from trend-hopping modernisms. Beyond a well-paired showing and strongly curated/designed gig the material here is equally praiseworthy as each band here delivers work which is evolutionarily representative rather than interstitial.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

---

Folks previously or currently involved in progressive sludge rarely pick up ‘old school’ death metal inspired sounds and produce anything nearly as dialed into its own realm as Ordh‘s debut, a uniquely atmospheric progressive death metal album which darkens and intensifies as it spirals within. Judged solely on the merits of the experience offered ‘Blind in Abyssal Realms‘ feels singular enough in its frothing and shredding movements unto sublime immersion. It is a unique outlier amongst ‘new-old school’ mutations which offers a different verve with roots in taste that span the 90’s through the 2010’s in what it sources. A real standout for the month and a remarkable debut in any case.

“Presented in marvelously chasmic horizonless array and carefully bent, curved into death’s spiral a host of monstrosities collude as this beauteous and beastly debut full-length album from Brattleboro, Vermont-based death metal quartet ORDH introduces their warped idyll in glorious descent. A hypnotic event given a reasonably consistent guide-hand to ensure passage ‘Blind in Abyssal Realms‘ may ultimately read as a vortex of myriad thoughts in succession but one which does well to lend shape and direction to each scene depicted, implying a progression which holds up within reverent observance. As a debut album from an unknown progressive death metal band it is well above-average in both authorship and expression where niche tastes and auld tendencies make for an engrossing, addictive saunter into the abysm.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

---