( 0 4 ) is the first full-length by [ B O L T ] as a trio. In comparison to their earlier output the sound is more propulsive and structured. Emerging out of oppressive silence and ending up in ecstatic noise and drone, [ B O L T ] create waving sounds and crushing riffs. The trio presents a set in between the genres of drone, doom and metal. The album was written and recorded in the end of 2016. Mastering was done by Tobias Stieler (Kokomo). 

ABSENT IN BODY make their Relapse Records debut with the terrifying new album Plague God. Featuring current and former members of AMENRA, NEUROSIS, and SEPULTURA, Plague God is bound by the same ideals of unity and fearlessly uncompromising honesty of expression that have driven their respective bands to imperious heights of reverence and groundbreaking sonic deliverance. Plague God is by turns devastating and sublime, drawn from musicians for whom life and art are inextricably bound.Initially the brainchild of AMENRA guitarist Mathieu J. Vandekerckhove, and NEUROSIS vocalist/guitarist Scott Kelly, ABSENT IN BODY formed in 2017. Immediately recognising their kinship, and with AMENRA frontman Colin H. Van Eeckhout brought in on vocals and bass, what emerged is a reflection of the intervening years of turbulence, extending it's scope as it navigates across five stretches of unstable terrain. From the opening Rise From Ruins with Sepultura drummer, Igor Cavelera’s tribal beat emerging from foreboding, near-subsonic oscillations to explode in a tide of corrosive riffs and feral howls, through Sarin’s steadfast, procession-through-purgatory groove, to The Half Rising Man’s matrix of organic/mechanic evolution, it’s an album in constant dialogue between the animalistic, the human and the industrial, and a hunger to distill a truth, something unpolluted from the fray.  Plague God doesn’t just give voice to these moments of truth, but in the band’s deep kinship integral to every claustrophobic judder, every stretch of atmospheric dread and helpless alias assumed, lies a freedom we both forget and attain at our peril.

Aesthesys is an instrumental progressive band hailing from Moscow, Russia. Their melody-driven post-rock music featuring violin and lots of different rare instruments has taken them across the Old World with live shows from Paris to Shanghai. Aesthesys plays beautiful and powerful post-rock with some ambient and progressive sounds.

This is the third album from Danish one-man black metal band Afsky. Following on from 2018’s Sorg, 2020’s Ofte Jeg Drømmer Mig Død, and 2022’s I Stilhed, Om Hundrede År contains 43 minutes of new material and is eagerly anticipated by many fans of atmospheric black metal.Tastefully mixing together elements of the folk, depressive, second wave, and atmospheric black metal styles into an emotive whole, Om Hundrede År is an engaging and affecting work. Blending its various influences into a slice of evocative black metal that somehow doesn’t feel restricted to its parent styles, despite obviously being of the genre, this is an album that is really something quite special. Om Hundrede År is a textured release, frequently crafting immersive atmosphere through melancholic acoustic elements, moody blackened worldbuilding, and rich melodic presence. It’s an affecting journey into light and dark, effortlessly treating its black metal as if it was more than just a vessel for negative energies. The artist behind Afsky paints with a full palette and is adept and creating music with potent impact, both initially and over time as the music seeps into your heart.The songs have strong compositional structure and form. Blackened dynamics and atmospheric depth are understood at a masterful level, and their goals – always emotion-led – are achieved at the highest level.Afsky’s third album is a roaring success. Om Hundrede År contains a world of blackened soundscapes to explore, all in such a concise and efficient running time. Don’t miss out on this if you’re at all partial to the style. Essential listening.

For those who may be new to Afsky, it is the solo project of Ole Luk, who is also a member of the Danish black metal band Solbrud. Fittingly, the name he chose for this project means “disgust” or “detest” in Danish, though as you’ll discover, the emotional resonance of the music embraces other powerful feelings as wellUnmistakably, the seven songs on Sorg plumb the dark waters of depressive black metal, yet Afsky does that in ways that often prove mesmerizing. The songs are built around evocative, memorable melodies that wear their strong emotions on their sleeves, some disturbing and some beautiful. The power ebbs and flows, and in the crescendos of intensity, Ole Luk uses his searing, acid-bathed voice to burn their messages into your brain like a red hot brand. As we all know, there are different stages of grief. Sometimes it is a somber remorse, and sometimes it becomes indistinguishable from rage. Afsky moves throughout this range across Sorg.And so, for example, the slow, strummed, reverberating chords that begin the opening track “Jeg bærer deres lig” seem melancholy in a wistful way, as if channeling a remembrance of something longed for rather than regretted. But the music begins to alternate, becoming much heavier and darker but also erupting in blasting torrents, the melody elevating like a flame.The follow-on track, “Skær“, is a high-intensity experience right from the start, with an agonized guitar melody providing the prelude to a storm of thundering double-bass drums and boiling, tension-filled riffing. The music is deliriously wretched but also glorious in its desolation, the melodies rising and falling in waves like the wind-driven waters across a cold, black, pine-rimmed lake. Even in an interlude within the song, when a truly dismal, distorted solo guitar moans in agony, desolation reigns… but this song too proves to be mesmerizing.And across the other five songs on the album, Afsky continues to bring to the fore changing experiences of loss, longing, cauterizing emotional pain, and beleaguered perseverance. The music can be slow and stately one moment, and rampantly ferocious the next, almost majestic in its bleakness in some passages, and completely unhinged in others. What doesn’t change is the intense feeling and engrossing appeal of the songs’ melodic cores, which integrate some folk and doom inspirations as well as the traditions of classic black metal.  Ole Luk has explained Afsky and its evolution in this way:“Afsky was never meant to be a live band, more like an outlet for unused musical pieces, song lyrics and poems. I don’t like people telling me what to do, and how to do things, it kills all creativity. Afsky is the personal space where I can do what I like, which is also what makes the project very personal to me. It’s like I found the perfect place to combine my music,  craftsmanship, photography and so on, giving it all a higher purpose. That’s also the reason why I at first, didn’t care if it only stayed that way, without any live gigs. Some requests in Denmark finally made me put up a band”.(No Clean Singing)

AGRIMONIA returns with their fourth album release, and second for Southern Lord. Awaken arrives ten years since the release of their first album, and AGRIMONIA has evolved notably over that period. Their sound has always been dense, immersive, ambitious even, and on Awaken, the band has evolved their prog-infused form of expansive metal into something energetic, dynamic, and powerful. On Awaken, the band digs deep into their subconscious, trying to get an elevated state of mind, to connect the mind with sound and to find the combination of notes and melodies that evolves into a feeling or mood. AGRIMONIA channels the bittersweet aspects of life, and breathe air into thoughts that cannot easily be put into words. About Awaken the band comments, "We are thrilled to see the release of our fourth album Awaken. We are very proud of the outcome and feel that the album is our most dynamic and vital yet, and contains more of everything that is AGRIMONIA. Awaken is the soundtrack to our existence, and I hope other people can feel that way too." Awaken was produced by AGRIMONIA, and mixed and mastered by Henrik Udd who also worked on the previous recording Rites of Separation, then under the Studio Fredman banner but now under his own name, Henrik Udd Recording Studios. 

Agrimonia´s sound could be described as the bastard child of the epic, bittersweet sounds of bands like Counterblast and Neurosis, together with the simplicity and murk of bands like Bolt Thrower and Bathory. Thundering death and black metal soaked doom, with hints of crust, as well as atmospheric and epic darkness. The guitars range from devastating heaviness to gloomy acoustic sections, with piercing leads that flash through the darkness "Rites of Separation" was recorded at Studio Fredman in Sweden by Fredrik Nordstrom in the winter of 2012/2013. 

On 'A Distant Fire', Alda demonstrates a keen sense for engaging songwriting and a use of melody that is sure to enthrall listeners familiar with their work as well as individuals who are new to their sound. Thematically, the album tells a story about facing a dire and uncertain future, of nights illuminated by distant blazes and days obscured by ash and smoke. The songs fuse elements of the aforementioned genres with an ease that allows these songs to develop organically and presents listeners with an enticing sonic experience. The immersive qualities of the album are emphasized by the band's epic compositions, both in length and musical development throughout the songs.Written between 2017 and 2019, 'A Distant Fire' was recorded and engineered during 2020 by Jake Superchi (Uada, Ceremonial Castings), who provides these songs with an appropriately warm and accessible production job that compliments the band's music and compositions admirably. Finally, mastering was done by the renowned Mell Dettmer at Studio Soli (Sunn O))), Wolves in the Throne Room, Earth, Elder).The cover and whole insert artwork was painted by Second Nature Artwork - Craig Strother

Alda is the musical and ideological coalescence of a group of friends who met and began making music with and amidst each other in the town of Eatonville during the early 2000's. They officially christened their project with the name Alda in the Fall of 2007 after having relocated to the city of Tacoma. The sound is inspired by a variety of folk music traditions and Black Metal. They are a black metal band cut from the same Cascadian cloth as Agalloch... 

This record and its sound is so overwelmingly beautiful, it stole my body and kept spinning a web of agony in hope around my head for hours and hours, without me noticing, that it even had an end in between. Every song floats like a river, every note, sound and instrument leaves a path to a never ending circle of a haunting, but emotionally outbursting and powerful release - one of my closest favorites so far, I have to admit. Thank you, Alda 

RESTOCKED!!! Alda is the musical and ideological coalescence of a group of friends who met and began making music with and amidst each other in the town of Eatonville during the early 2000's. They officially christened their project with the name Alda in the Fall of 2007 after having relocated to the city of Tacoma. The sound is inspired by a variety of folk music traditions and Black Metal. They are a black metal band cut from the same Cascadian cloth as Agalloch .. They have a similar nature-centric take on the music and a similar ritualistic approach to their live performances. Their songs are long and often hypnotic, with tribal percussion, and memorable, sweeping melodies. But they also know how to slash and burn. their album "TAHOMA" comes out on double vinyl.

the Lichtlærm and "Minus.Mensch" records on one CD

USA-IMPORT!!!Alternate mix of AMENRA's critically acclaimed Relapse debut De Doorn mixed with Seth Manchester at Machine With Magnets Studio.AMENRA’s first release for Relapse Records is at once a departure and a momentous act of deliverance. Stepping outside the run of albums titled Mass I-VI, De Doorn casts a 21-year journey from the heart of Belgium’s crusading hardcore scene to world-renowned, spiritually guided innovators in an enthralling new light.Ritual, remembrance and hard-won rebirth have always been at the heart of Amenra’s colossal, soul-purging approach. Centered around frontman Colin H. Van Eeckhout, but marked out by a transcendent unity of purpose, their albums have acted as totemic, personal marker points, a means to process individual grief as a shared, cathartic experience. Their live shows are acts of incendiary, communal exorcism that reach a cusp of sublime, out-of-body experience. A closely knit collective, they transport you to a febrile state where confrontation of pain, transformation and true healing can occur.AMENRA have always been profoundly bound to their hometowns around Flanders, the weight of that area’s war-torn history. The sacrifice and sense of a larger purpose that bridges the fragility of humanity and the pull of an immaculate ideal is carried as an ever-present resonance. No more is this apparent than in the spectacular, commemorative events the band have performed in recent years – to mark ending of the First World War; the band’s 20th anniversary; and the departure of long-time band member Levy Seynaeve. At the SMAK Museum Of Contemporary Art in Ghent’s 19th-century, monument-strewn Citadelpark in May 2019, they offered a communal recognition of loss and letting go. Here, audience members were invited to make their own offerings, placing personal notes of acknowledgment in wooden structures created by Indonesian artist Toni Kanwa Adikusumah, before they were brought out into the park and set alight as an act of recognition and release – a forging of hope from the flames.Written for the purpose of that rite, De Doorn (‘The Thorn’) occupies a place between AMENRA’s recorded and live work, less a testimony to the band’s individual bereavements, more an invitation for others to come forward, and to pass through darkness into light. Where the Mass albums have taken the form of solitary struggles whose fearless honesty has aligned itself to the most intrinsically human of chords, the dynamics of De Doorn are as stricken by destiny as ever, but sonically looser. Guided to a lesser extent by the band’s characteristically immense, behind-the-beat traction, it’s more lush, immersive, steeped in sonorous, cathedral-echo ambiences amplified to the point of static-infected instability and carrying passages of deeply intimate spoken-word that feel like being drawn in to the most hallowed of confidences. Its themes of dialogue and the passing of knowledge are echoed in the combined vocals of Colin and Oathbreaker’s Caro Tanghe. Her spectral presence on the opening Ogentroost acts as both counterpoint and complement to Colin’s stricken howl as the song cycles between enervation and helplessly compelled momentum. Their whispered devotions in the following, vast, hallowed atmospheres of De Dood In Bloei leave you feeling as though you’re bearing witness to the most private of conversations.The first AMENRA album to be sung entirely in Flemish, De Doorn imparts a universal power by digging deep into local customs. Not just allowing for a greater range of expression through the intimacy, allowances and layers of meaning granted by your native tongue, it takes inspiration from Flemish forms such as Kleinkunst, a folk-based musical wave driven by storytelling, and the passing of wisdom through generations. Yet as with every AMENRA release, De Doorn is an act of observance that recognises the path travelled by fully experiencing the moment, as a rite of consummation, reckoning and deliverance. That state of transition is exemplified in the closing Vor Immer, a hushed, plaintively wracked coda that bursts into newborn, world-in-your eyes transfiguration where sheer, sense flooding experience becomes a blazing threshold where rupture and rapture become one.The thorn is the most potent of symbols – in religious terms, a reclamation and an agony as a mark of transformation. It’s the nagging reminder of vulnerability and it’s the violent protector, without which beauty cannot thrive. For the cover of De Doorn, it’s been cast in bronze – a thing of value and a memorial, each band member given their own piece to symbolise their own pain and their belonging to the greater whole. In bronze, it is both nature and something else – a mark of singularity and a portal to a continuity that we all share. As AMENRA have acknowledged once more, it’s one that hears our call, even when we feel we are at our most alone.

USA-IMPORT!!!AMENRA’s first release for Relapse Records is at once a departure and a momentous act of deliverance. Stepping outside the run of albums titled Mass I-VI, De Doorn casts a 21-year journey from the heart of Belgium’s crusading hardcore scene to world-renowned, spiritually guided innovators in an enthralling new light.Ritual, remembrance and hard-won rebirth have always been at the heart of Amenra’s colossal, soul-purging approach. Centered around frontman Colin H. Van Eeckhout, but marked out by a transcendent unity of purpose, their albums have acted as totemic, personal marker points, a means to process individual grief as a shared, cathartic experience. Their live shows are acts of incendiary, communal exorcism that reach a cusp of sublime, out-of-body experience. A closely knit collective, they transport you to a febrile state where confrontation of pain, transformation and true healing can occur.AMENRA have always been profoundly bound to their hometowns around Flanders, the weight of that area’s war-torn history. The sacrifice and sense of a larger purpose that bridges the fragility of humanity and the pull of an immaculate ideal is carried as an ever-present resonance. No more is this apparent than in the spectacular, commemorative events the band have performed in recent years – to mark ending of the First World War; the band’s 20th anniversary; and the departure of long-time band member Levy Seynaeve. At the SMAK Museum Of Contemporary Art in Ghent’s 19th-century, monument-strewn Citadelpark in May 2019, they offered a communal recognition of loss and letting go. Here, audience members were invited to make their own offerings, placing personal notes of acknowledgment in wooden structures created by Indonesian artist Toni Kanwa Adikusumah, before they were brought out into the park and set alight as an act of recognition and release – a forging of hope from the flames.Written for the purpose of that rite, De Doorn (‘The Thorn’) occupies a place between AMENRA’s recorded and live work, less a testimony to the band’s individual bereavements, more an invitation for others to come forward, and to pass through darkness into light. Where the Mass albums have taken the form of solitary struggles whose fearless honesty has aligned itself to the most intrinsically human of chords, the dynamics of De Doorn are as stricken by destiny as ever, but sonically looser. Guided to a lesser extent by the band’s characteristically immense, behind-the-beat traction, it’s more lush, immersive, steeped in sonorous, cathedral-echo ambiences amplified to the point of static-infected instability and carrying passages of deeply intimate spoken-word that feel like being drawn in to the most hallowed of confidences. Its themes of dialogue and the passing of knowledge are echoed in the combined vocals of Colin and Oathbreaker’s Caro Tanghe. Her spectral presence on the opening Ogentroost acts as both counterpoint and complement to Colin’s stricken howl as the song cycles between enervation and helplessly compelled momentum. Their whispered devotions in the following, vast, hallowed atmospheres of De Dood In Bloei leave you feeling as though you’re bearing witness to the most private of conversations.The first AMENRA album to be sung entirely in Flemish, De Doorn imparts a universal power by digging deep into local customs. Not just allowing for a greater range of expression through the intimacy, allowances and layers of meaning granted by your native tongue, it takes inspiration from Flemish forms such as Kleinkunst, a folk-based musical wave driven by storytelling, and the passing of wisdom through generations. Yet as with every AMENRA release, De Doorn is an act of observance that recognises the path travelled by fully experiencing the moment, as a rite of consummation, reckoning and deliverance. That state of transition is exemplified in the closing Vor Immer, a hushed, plaintively wracked coda that bursts into newborn, world-in-your eyes transfiguration where sheer, sense flooding experience becomes a blazing threshold where rupture and rapture become one.The thorn is the most potent of symbols – in religious terms, a reclamation and an agony as a mark of transformation. It’s the nagging reminder of vulnerability and it’s the violent protector, without which beauty cannot thrive. For the cover of De Doorn, it’s been cast in bronze – a thing of value and a memorial, each band member given their own piece to symbolise their own pain and their belonging to the greater whole. In bronze, it is both nature and something else – a mark of singularity and a portal to a continuity that we all share. As AMENRA have acknowledged once more, it’s one that hears our call, even when we feel we are at our most alone.

amenra´s mass I. 

This record really defines the AMENRA sound : a mix between dark post-metal and rough sludge with screamy and oppressive vocals.

Amenra is simply brilliant, the shape of darkness and light at the same time. A music to discorver your inner self.

PRE-ORDER!!!! Out 18th of September 2020

ANTLERS is a new band from Leipzig but the folks behind this outfit are not Germans, they are from Spain and Catalonia. The members, played in such renowned acts like EKKAIA, COP ON FIRE or SANGRE DE MUERDAGO (which are still active). They proof that punks can play black metal. The music ranges from atmospheric midtempo black metal towards the fast stuff. Due to the highly left wing political background of their ex-bands it seems to be sure, that ANTLERS is another bm-band which is cool (aka antifascist) plus their music sounds fucking awesome. 

Leipzig based ANTLERS’ second album turns out to be a 9 track bastard of blackened, melodic, introspective tunes and words that were not just played to be recorded, but bled, sweated and screamed on tape!"Beneath. Below. Behold" is an atmospheric and emotional journey that drags you down into the abyss of the human being, full of cryptic messages and diverse collaborations. It gets you drowned into the void of loss, love and hate and at the same time brings you out of the deep black waters to the healing surface and above. Over 50 minutes playing time.

Clocking in at a formidable sixty-eight minutes in length, Construct is the second album from Austrian/English/German collective Archivist, consisting of ten intricately composed tracks of audacious, atmosphere-drenched Post-Black/Post-Metal/Post-Rock proggery designed to infiltrate and stimulate both the body and the mind. featuring members of LIGHT BEARER, FALL OF EFRAFA, ANOPHELI, THURM, MOMENTUM...

3rd record from archivist

Seit 2005 veredelt die Band um Sänger Malte Seidel ihren teerschwarzen, zäh brodelnden Slow-Motion-Sound im Spannungsfeld zwischen Doom Metal, Stoner Rock, Sludge und Drone Music sowie der Tradition von Größen wie Isis, Neurosis oder Earth. Mit zahlreichen Veröffentlichungen inklusive drei Studioalben (das letzte, »Negative Black« erschien 2012 auf Exile On Mainstream) sowie brachialen, fesselnden Liveperformances konnten Black Shape Of Nexus das Szenepublikum im Sturm erobern und sich euphorischen Zuspruch von Kritikern und Fans sichern. Mit »Nothing New – 10 Years Of Fresh Air Enjoyment« erscheint zum Bandjubiläum eine Zusammenstellung von sechs bisher nur auf Vinyl erschienenen Songs, die in ihrer Dramatik und von der Gesamtspiellänge her aber durchaus wie ein ganz eigenständiges Album wirken. Mit »Honour Found In Delay« und »Always And Only« sind die beiden monströs epischen Songs ihrer Split-12" mit Lazarus Blackstar (Alerta Antifascista / 2013) enthalten, gefolgt von ›VIIe‹ von der Split-12" mit Kodiak (Denovali / 2010). Außerdem dabei: ›Heute Spaß, Morgen Tod‹ vom kultigen Szenesampler ›Clone – Play Slow, Die Fast Vol. IV‹. Mit ›VII‹ findet sich zum Abschluss ein bisher physisch gar nicht erhältlicher Song.