Opening with a swarm of discordant riffs on “Primaeval Sacrifice”, the listener must adapt to Halios’ rapidly advancing tide or give in to the swallow of the maelstrom. Formerly a duo, Ceremony of Silence has now become a trio. And combined with a sleeker, fuller production, Halios sounds a lot more polished and a lot more mean than 2019’s Outis ever could.
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Octoploid – Beyond the Aeons Review
Somewhere deep in a Finish archipelago on a breezy and mild summer’s day a smorgasbord is taking place. At a wooden table surrounded by many Finns sits a metal loving bat. Looking more closely he has a huge grin on his face as 70s aesthetic sauce is dripping all over his chicken parm sandwich. Will you join him? Is this the sauce of the summer?
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Malconfort – Humanism Review
The term “avant-garde” gets thrown around a lot in music whenever a band releases something even slightly off-kilter. The reality is, however, that only a handful of bands actually meet that mark, and do it well — but do newcomers Malconfort have the necessary skills?
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Ulcerate – Cutting the Throat of God Review
Stylistic shifts present issues for bands and can be great when they work. Unfortunately, some bands miss the mark entirely. Ulcerate is one such band who had a drastic style change. But you know what they say, if you’ve tempted the Gods with change, all you gotta do is cut their throats.
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Árstíðir Lífsins – Aldrlok Review
Aldrlok, by epic pagan black metal band Árstíðir Lífsins, is a true gem, and I have not been gripped by anything this hard in a long time. After last year’s substantial 44 minute “EP” Hermalausaz (intended as a precursor) the band are serving us the real monolith they’ve been crafting since 2021 – Aldrlok. With both releases being recorded, mixed, and mastered at around the same time it was only natural that we would see Aldrlok sooner or later, and it could not have come at a better time.
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Incipient Chaos – Incipient Chaos Review
Playing a no-frills approach to black metal, Incipient Chaos has the potential to become a refreshing, venerable force in the scene beset by cheap, middling melodic black metal and bad raw black metal that people attempt to convince others is good. And, thankfully, their eponymous debut delivers the goods and brings a fresh batch of fast, mean black metal. Well, so says the Cosmo anyway…
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Adversarial – Solitude with the Eternal… Review
It’s a great year to be a blackened death metal fan. There’s been an embarrassment of riches within this microgenre so far — Diabolic Oath, Endless Loss, Heresiarch, to name a few — and we haven’t reached the halfway point of the year yet. So how will Adversarial’s new album Solitude with the Eternal… fare in this blackened treasure trove?
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Vale of Pnath – Between the Worlds of Life and Death Review
The band that pops your metaphorical cherry on a genre and introduces you to the pleasures it can offer is a special one. Vale of Pnath is that band for me, being the ones to get me into technical death metal. Now they return with their third album Between the Worlds of Life and Death. Has the cherry stayed sweet, or have Vale of Pnath fallen into the pits of mediocrity?
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Moisson Livide – Sent Empèri Gascon Review
Folk metal is typically one of the more repellent genres of metal according to Cosmo’s tastes. But will Moisson Livide, with their more extreme edge to what is normally very power metal-forward folk metal be able to melt his blackened bat heart?
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Crypts of the Unknown: Loss – Horizonless
