• MASSIVE REVIEWING CAPACITY • is our latest short review column focusing on stray quality releases a few times a month, or, roughly every two weeks depending on the current month’s release schedule. In an attempt to be more conversational these are easygoing and casual thoughts for the most part, so relax and think for yourself as I attempt to find something, anything to say about multitudes of new releases relevant to my interests. — If you find a record you dig go tell the band on social media and support them with a purchase. If you’d like your music reviewed, read the FAQ and send promos to: grizzlybutts@hotmail.com

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Four decades on and DARKTHRONE refuse to relent, returning with their proto-extreme meets traditional heavy metal hats on for this 22nd full-length album. Thrashing through Hellhammer (or, ‘Morbid Tales‘ for that matter) inspired numbers isn’t such a bizarre prospect under their name but on ‘Pre-Historic Metal‘ the duo delight in reprising the late 80’s bound spiritus that’d birthed ’em, a salad of black, thrash, doom and heavy metal… eh, sans any of the death metal that’d informed their supreme debut. Call it doom-thrash and/or black heavy metal if you will but expect an intentionally regressive, arcane slugger here which is sloppy yet tensile in its mostly mid-paced action. Some weirdly sophisticated basslines, righteous clean vocals, and a few spurts of glorious synth (see: “They Found One of My Graves”, “So I Marched to the Sunken Empire” esp.) help to detail out some of the better songs on the full listen but you’re still getting a doom heavy experience by any reasonable account.

Despite some hifalutin production credits their work continues to take on an obscure 80’s demo tape sound as aesthetic and this is a real virtue afforded music which already bears plenty enough personality in its delivery. Messy and sparse as some of Darkthrone‘s movement is none of it blemishes the experience, in fact the struggle through the heavy/doom metal stoked mid album (“Deeply Rooted” b/w “The Dry Wells of Hell”) and closer “Eon 4” manages a remarkably immersive form and despite keeping each of the eight songs included under the seven minute mark. I’d have called it ‘Nostalgic Garage Metal‘ but what do I know.

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This relatively short split 12″ between Louisville, Kentucky-based quintet SAVAGE MASTER and St. Petersburg, Russia-borne quartet MYSTIC STORM comes remarkably well-matched and despite each band bearing markedly different signature. The former bring quickly stamped out ~three minute heavy metal anthems of the mid-80’s variety, introspective yet well-powered strikes, whereas the latter provides ~5-6 minute atmospherically rich and dramatic epic heavy/speed metal pieces. While I enjoy both bands quite a bit Mystic Storm have captured my skull within these pieces, particularly the remarkably finessed “Блуждающее время” which I’d left on repeat for an inordinate amount of time upon first listen. Savage Master are by comparison more consistent, direct to throat with each slash at it and in that sense opener “One Step Closer to Love” has all the energy but I think “The Power” is the choice dig per its escalation toward its chorus. All in all I’d found ‘The Power/Wandering Time‘ left me hyped up to Hell for a new Mystic Storm album, especially if the quality of these songs is a suggestion as to what’d be on the table. [Note: Release date pushed back to June 24th]

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This seventh full-length album from Portuguese raw atmospheric black metal project BLACK CILICE arrives four years beyond the last without disturbing their signature cacophonic yet forlorn approach. This time around the four songs included are roughly doubled in length and lean heavily into the immerse available to heavily obscured movements. “Into the Inner Temple” has the most legible riff overall and should provide a natural anchor point for the listener but generally speaking ‘Votive Fire‘ is far more of a drone behind a brick wall than ‘Esoteric Atavism‘ was back in 2022 and I’d had trouble connecting with it beyond the melancholy hanging over each piece. Granted I’ve not been pursuing black metal as readily this year so far but this record was just in one ear, out the other despite the time spent.

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This seventeenth full-length album from Leiden, Netherlands-based black/heavy metal quartet COUNTESS appears to explore Ragnarök and other great battles, mythological or otherwise, per an endtyme themed effort. The esoteric personality of the band, lead by the illustrious Orlok, is upheld once again featuring rawly shouted vocals, prominent keyboards and wandering basslines which frequently venture beyond speed and heavy metal inspired expression. Their approach has always been rooted in heavy rock movement and punkish ruggedness (see: “Slaves Shall Serve”) yet the result is ‘epic’ in a very different way than the Bathory-rooted voice they’d foundered early on. You won’t find impossible darkness in the music here, the majority of their action is pretty damned upbeat in its jaunty heavy metal inspired stride, but the lyrics reflect both fantastical and very real struggle throughout. If you were a fan of their last three or so albums this latest one shouldn’t be a total shock to the system but it has its own moments here and there.

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Athens, Greece-based black metal quintet YOTH IRIA has thus far manifested as the ramping return of key Hellenic black metal figure Jim Mutilator (Medieval Demon, ex-Rotting Christ, et al.) to the conductorial pillar beyond 2019 or so, a vision which appears to muse upon what the future-sighted, biggest possible vision for the niche could be. 2024’s ‘Blazing Inferno‘ presented a viable way forward though it’d refused to release its roots, unavoidably carrying signature most would associate with his previous band(s) but this new album, their first for Metal Blade, doubles down on its ambitions. Though they’ve gone with almost identical troops and curation beyond that previous album ‘Gone With the Devil‘ is markedly cinematic in scope, bombastic and larger than life pieces which give even the shout-along charge of records like ‘Aealo‘ a bit of a charge.

“I Totem” is maybe the most directly familiar piece here to start in terms of style whereas clean-sung vocals and folken muse (re: “Woven Spells of a Demon” and “The Blind Eye of Antichrist” respectively) lend Side A a voice which extends beyond underground Hellenic black metal idyll. The first four songs included are beyond alluring in their path taken and the rest of the album continues to take bigger risks and melodic/gothic metal swings (see: “3AM”) from that foundation. Apart from maybe the ‘Sleep of the Angels‘-esque “Blessed Be He Who Enters” and the trampling push of closer “Harut, Government, Fallen” I don’t know if this record is entirely for me but I’d appreciated the ambition levied, that this record shoots its shot.

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Blackened death dissociation, surrealistic atmosphere and a sort of hodgepodge bedroom metal/solo project feeling amount to a curious if not unique debut EP from VANISHING GRASP the latest ambitions of Minneapolis, Minnesota-based artist Andy Schoengrund (Unsouling, ex-Feral Light) as he aims for something more resolutely death metal inflected. ‘Pang of Phantom Self‘ bears the restless signature of the fellow behind it, always seeking to avoid rote repetition for the sake of an ominous or eerie sense of movement. So, the result is certainly not meat-and-potatoes fare nor is it squarely readable as traditional death metal when gathering the bigger picture but there is some wild fixation available to pieces like “Onward Through the Setting Fire” and “Cyclical Crawl”. The only complaint I’d lodge here is that a formula arises here where an aggressive start eventually fades into an elaborate atmospheric storm and this dynamic repeats for each non-interlude piece.

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From London’s Void to Glasgow’s Ashenspire the Leeds-based folks in septet A FOREST OF STARS‘ve never been fully alone within the United Kingdom’s greater sphere of avant-garde/progressive black metal acts but they’d always appeared as a fairly singular entity with regard for their 2008-2018 five album run. As they return beyond an ~eight year hiatus with a sixth full-length album the landscape has shifted dramatically but their indulgent, high-drama approach still appears intact. I have to admit I’d forgotten who they were beyond the eye-catching ‘Beware the Sword You Cannot See‘ back in 2015 but here they’ve reasserted their path with an ambitious ~74 minute tirade in the anxiety-riddled ‘Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile Interface‘.

Here they’re ranting and raving within longer-form pieces a la ‘Grave Mounds and Grave Mistakes‘ and clipping between manic and melodramatic function in the midst with great intensity, as expected. I think what’d surprised me was the steadily sapping energy within the album’s second half, more of a mood shift if anything where the psychedelic, distressed side of their work (“Sway Draped in Vague”) overtakes into occasionally spastic escapism. Though I’d pushed myself down their pipeline a number of times I’d consistently lost interest beyond the first half hour (three songs) or so and figured impatience and agitation were either the intended result or my own failure to connect.

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