As metal subgenre hybrids go, mixing up black and death metal is one of the most natural and challenging pairings out there. It’s natural in that musicians gravitate towards taking the more extreme genres and blurring the boundaries between them to try and push things further, but therein lies the challenge too. If you do too little, you don’t stand out in a crowded field; do too much and it just becomes over-dense and loses its edge. Anti-Peat might just be telling you to edge into the kraken’s butthole with Skaphos though. Dive in!
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Contemplation – Au Bord Du Précipice Review
Once upon a time, Anti-Peat found a great life hack in a restaurant review, and that hack is pick the weirdest thing on the menu. Either the restaurant can deliver and you have picked something truly special, or they can’t and you’ve got a good story out of it. Now serving King Tubby’s favorite snack: fat fucking riffs.
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Belnejoum – Dark Tales of Zarathustra Review
What happens when a bear tries to widen his palate with some symphonic black metal? Will it be perfectly charred or will it make him wish for death?
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HØLLS – ILL
Inksterium has entered a stage in life where every album she takes a keen interest in doubles as a personality test. Case in point: she has recently discovered she doesn’t enjoy being teased. Here at The Goat Review, we serve full frontal postitude. Can you dig it?
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Ataraxie – Le Declín Review
Extreme metal can take many forms. But in this time of ours where acts try to out-Flanderize each other — essentially extremity fitting into the mold of extremity to be extreme — there is less and less that can actually be considered extreme. Ataraxie present their vision of funeral doom as a no-frills, heavily death metal inspired affair. It may be slow, but will it rush to the top of you doom metal essentials?
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Esoctrilihum – Döth-Derniàlh Review
Another year, another new Esoctrilihum album. At this point, it could be considered an annual occurrence, since Asthâghul, the only person behind this project, has released an album every year since 2017, sometimes pumping out two a year. Esocthrilledium?
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Seth – La France des Maudits
To get me interested in a black metal album at all, it has to offer something more than just grating tremolo riffs topped by questionable production. And when it does, it has to be done very well. Luckily, Seth slay this bear’s high standards. Find out why.
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Matrass – Cathedrals Review
Believe me when I say that I approached Matrass initially with trepidation as the promo text declared that oft tricky “modern” goal. But Matrass then also declared that with this full-length debut, Cathedrals, they aimed to shed groove from their sound and lean heavier into post waters. So which direction are they bedding down after all?
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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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Crypts of the Unknown: Loss – Horizonless
