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Elegant hardcover digibook with an 8-page booklet. Longtime fans of KRISIUN's classic early work, HELLS HEADBANGERS is proud to conspire with the band to reissue their classic third album, Conquerors of Armageddon, on vinyl LP, digibook CD, and cassette tape formats.

KRISIUN require no introduction. For over 30 years now, the power-trio have come to define Brazilian death metal, and are among the country's most renown and influential bands - rivaling the likes of Sarcofago and early Sepultura, even. However, it is KRISIUN's first three albums - Black Force Domain, Apocalyptic Revelation, and Conquerors of Armageddon - that are the band's most legendary recordings, unmatched and unrivalled in their extremity, intensity, and sheer evil. KRISIUN continue to be an unstoppable force to this day, but this unholy trilogy of albums remains the band's most beloved, and for good reason.

Originally released in 2000, Conquerors of Armageddon capped a run of albums that made KRISIUN legendary within the international death metal scene. In fact, the trio could've broken up following its release and their name would still be spoken in reverential tones today. Thankfully, the KRISIUN at the dawn of the new millennium kept dominating barriers and brought the band to a massive level of recognition otherwise unattainable to music this unremittingly savage and evil. Following widespread touring across the world, Conquerors of Armageddon saw KRISIUN link up with Century Media - one of the very biggest metal labels, where they've remained to this day - and it saw them deliver one of the most mesmerizing statements of death metal ever committed to tape. Granted, you could say their Black Force Domain was the most evil and follow-up Apocalyptic Revelation the most crushing, but Conquerors of Armageddon sought a savagery that was martial and hypnotic, labyrinthine and monolithic. In short, it was high ART sent from the sulfurous pits of Hell.

Hailing from the ever-fertile Australian black metal underground, LAMENT IN WINTER'S NIGHT is the work of one The Seer, who has a vast array of other projects lurking in his cobwebbed soul. Of them, LAMENT IN WINTER'S NIGHT is the most prominent and prolific and, since the beginning of 2019, has seen feverish activity from The Seer, culminating in the debut album At the Gates of the Eternal Storm in 2020. so impressed by its hideous grimness, HELLS HEADBANGERS reissued the album in 2022 and promptly sought an alliance with The Seer, which now culminates in the release of LAMENT IN WINTER'S NIGHT's second album.

Evocatively titled Whereunto the Twilight Leads, LAMENT IN WINTER'S NIGHT's second full-length immediately sounds like them - spectral in its rawness, wounded in its melodicism, largely bass-less recording, and altogether ghoulish and ethereal in equal measure - but changes are certainly afoot here. For one, The Seer is joined by Blood Fury on drums, and while the former still handles all songwriting as well as guitar, bass, synth, and vocals, their chemistry comes careening with no small amount of aplomb: Whereunto the Twilight Leads is both more feverish and nuanced than the band's prior recordings, bouncing from buoyant blasts to an almost-regal midtempo that absolutely amplifies the unapologetically bright riffing & lead-work (often, one and the same). Mind you, by "bright," there's an underlying sentiment of melancholy or at least nostalgia across the whole of the album, but rather than get bogged down by the should-be-inherent misery, The Seer's scurrying & scrying strings build citadels of invigorating sound - "medieval" by proxy, and perversely more AND less black metal than ever. It's a unique disconnect that LAMENT IN WINTER'S NIGHT work further in their favor here, and anyone who misses the work of Stefan Kozak (Mystic Forest, Eikenskaden) would be well advised to roam these hinterlands of Whereunto the Twilight Leads.

An exceptionally emotional release, Whereunto the Twilight Leads proves that LAMENT IN WINTER'S NIGHT are defying the "raw black metal" template with daring imagination and breathtaking poignancy.

By now, MEDIEVAL DEMON should require little introduction. Formed in that fateful year of 1993, MEDIEVAL DEMON remained one of the cultest entities of the immortal Greek black metal scene, releasing a handful of demos during the mid '90s and then their lost-classic debut album, Demonolatria, in 1998. Not long after, the band receded into the shadows, in vampiric slumber, until awakening from the crypt in 2018 with the majestic comeback album, Medieval Necromancy, through longtime fans HELLS HEADBANGERS, followed two years later by the equally acclaimed Arcadian Witchcraft.

Continuing that enviable momentum compared to most "old" bands who tiredly rehash long-faded glories, MEDIEVAL DEMON light another new full-length torch with Black Coven. Just as its esteemed predecessors sounded like those glorious '90s never ended, so, too, does Black Coven burn with an authentically eldritch fire by those who truly LIVED IT. Much as canonical Hellenic black metal always prized heavy metal classicism at the heart of black METAL, MEDIEVAL DEMON once again synthesize such with equally-classic horror and high drama, making Black Coven arguably their most widescreen record yet. The production, in kind, gives robust crunch to that heavy metalized songwriting, along with highlighting the band's always-captivating synth work. Indeed, the album sounds EXACTLY as it should for something titled Black Coven: the ancient spirits are legion, and unbound!

As founding drummer/keyboardist/composer Lord Apollyon explains, "For the composition of Black Coven, there were used methods and practices of the ancient Greek theory of music, which were also used to the Middle Ages - in the name of Satan. Composition in black metal presupposes to live in real time the process that includes all the elements involved in this kind of black art. We moved into an isolated village inside the forest, a place where ancient Greek sorcery and death magic was born. Ritualism and ancient black metal are parts of our eternally black souls."

Specifically, opening track "Where Witches Dwell and Labyrinths Confuse" was written as tribute to the deceased Andrea Meyer of Norway's cult Aghast. Likewise, the unabashed use of saxophone was in tribute to founding Greek forebears Necromantia, who entered the crypt of time eternal last year. And of course, the influence of Italian gods Goblin is never far away from MEDIEVAL DEMON, even if that influence is more spiritual rather than literal. Any way you cut it (and try not getting mesmerized by the choirs here!), Black Coven is cinematic black art at its very finest. Last word, then, to Lord Apollyon: DEATH TO THOSE WHO BETRAY THE SECRET CULT!"

"One of the most solid, heavy, legit death metal releases of the year!" -MetalAsFuck.net

Hot on the heels of their Whoresanna EP, Australian hooligans MONGRELS CROSS deliver their highly anticipated debut album, The Sins of Aquarius. Seven anthems of chaotic-yet-poised black/death barbarity, The Sins of Aquarius spans filthy thrashing, downtempo warmarches, and epic metal grandeur alike, with a powerful panache and strong songwriting to the fore. MONGRELS CROSS throw down the gauntlet and spit on all pretenders - behold The Sins of Aquarius! Recommended for diehards of GOSPEL OF THE HORNS, BESTIAL MOCKERY, GRAND BELIAL's KEY, and UNCREATION's DAWN

Formed in 1997, France's MORGUE quickly set to work on assaulting the death metal underground with an uncompromising style of goregrind-leaning death metal. After a demo, EP, and a couple splits – the second of which with fellow goregrind legends LAST DAYS OF HUMANITY - MORGUE were at last ready for their full-length debut in 2001. And what a debut it was: curiously titled Artgore, both the GORE and the GRIND were pushed to the extreme, and there was certainly no "art" in sight. With a production that was exceptionally sharp but also eerily echoed, MORGUE's restlessly blasting-and-slamming attack took on an impossibly heavier aspect, like a massive, rusted dumptruck sloshing viscera all around before a fateful dumping; that the band always seemed on the verge of chaos only heightened that terror. Or, in other words, total goregrind perfection.

Originally released only on CD through the cult label Ablated Records and out of print for nearly two decades, MORGUE's Artgore finally finds a fitting home at HELLS HEADBANGERS with not only a CD reissue but, for the first time ever, a proper vinyl release. REAL goregrind's undead!

NECROPHAGIA's importance to and influence over the death metal genre was firmly established with their utterly classic debut album, Season of the Dead, in 1987. While 1990's posthumous Ready for Death was intended to be NECROPHAGIA's debut album, its highly contentious nature was deemed an "official bootleg" by the band, who had already ceased to exist following the release of Season of the Dead.

However, NECROPHAGIA were undead and eternal, and the band rose from the grave in 1998 with the release of Holocausto de la Morte. The band’s TRUE second album, Holocausto de la Morte featured a brand-new lineup, fronted (as always) by founding vocalist/lyricist Killjoy. While something of a loosely guarded secret at the time, this NECROPHAGIA lineup featured one "Anton Crowley" on guitar, who was, in fact, Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo. Either way, Holocausto de la Morte kept the NECROPHAGIA spirit intact and then some, as Crowley’s disgusting tone and swampy riffing, in particular, put the album into darker and more delirious territory than most death metal of the time. Neither "old school" nor a total throwback to Season of the Dead, Holocausto de la Morte honorably expanded the NECROPHAGIA lexicon in truly SICK fashion, and more importantly brought the band to a whole new legion of fans, who thankfully got to experience the band’s evolution over the next two decades.

To honor Killjoy's memory, longtime fans HELLS HEABANGERS - the last label to work with the man, for his HAXXAN project - exhume this pivotal record on luxurious digibook CD and vinyl LP formats. Out of print for years, no time like the present to witness Holocausto de la Morte again…or for the first time!

Hailing from wintriest Canada, NOCTURNAL DEPARTURE were birthed from yellow moonlit darkness between Beltane and Lughnasadh of 2017 into a campaign of rejection and disgust for Christendom and the hypocritical norms of society. NOCTURNAL DEPARTURE redirect the psychomachia of the human condition through ritual and occultism, focusing it outwards as the moon gathers and reflects light from the sun, with raw and illuminating indifference. After releasing their debut album, Cathartic Black Rituals, and follow-up Worm Moon Sessions on cult underground imprints Death Kvlt Productions and Les Fleurs du Mal, founding members Funeror (guitar/vocals), Kryptys (drums), and Illartha (bass) are joined by new guitarist Necrogeist in grim occlusion with HELLS HEADBANGERS. The band's first crime for the label (and third) overall, Clandestine Theurgy, features this bolstered lineup and brings forth the band's most focused statement to date.

Almost literally a band out of time, NOCTURNAL DEPARTURE harken to the grim days of the '90s black metal underground, particularly its most devout sectors just south of the border in the United States. While once the object of mockery from the ignorant despite featuring some of the most original and unorthodox outliers, it's USBM that has the last laugh, as the idiom has developed over the decades and still rings true in the darkest of hearts. Although calling Canadian soil home, NOCTURNAL DEPARTURE encapsulate this mood and era in its most perfect, poignant form on Clandestine Theurgy. Featuring gloriously macabre cover art created by Abomination Hammer, indeed, its title is something of a rallying cry for such hearts - "those who know, know," as the adage goes - and its raw, desperate violence evinces elements of Judas Iscariot, Masochist, Black Funeral, Summon, and Blood Storm but undeniably with a personality all its own. TRADITIONAL black metal, then, no more but definitely no less: Clandestine Theurgy is a throwback masterclass.

"We are gratuitous in this moment," state the band, "sharing a glimpse into what we have all worked so passionately on as a group over the last couple of years. Our dormant slumber has ended, and we have returned with an igneous rage and inspiration! We are honored to be working with HELLS HEADBANGERS, and for all that this unholy pact yields for us together. Prepare for Clandestine Theurgy under demonic winter moons, 2022/2023."

By now, POUNDER should require little introduction. From their humble beginnings with their debut demo in 2017 to the Faster Than Fire 7” for SHADOW KINGDOM a year later, POUNDER’s ascent was hastened by their proud 'n' powerful debut album, Uncivilized, in early 2019. In no uncertain terms, Uncivilized truly put the band on the international metal map and made ears stand to attention. Despite their collective pedigree, POUNDER's stock-in-trade showed itself as a seemingly effortless, unselfconscious conglomeration of classic metal styles - from a firm foundation of NWOBHM on to hints of early '80s speed metal, Sunset Strip flash, and AOR accessibility. Amazingly, POUNDER eclipsed that momentous first full-length with the all-guns-blazing follow-up Breaking the World in 2021. Leaner, meaner, and all-too-accurately titled, Breaking the World saw the band - vocalist/guitarist Matt Harvey, bassist Alejandro Corredor, and lead guitarist Tom Draper - getting both heavier and more anthemic, more American in their metal but also more wide-ranging in their reach.

While the bar was set judiciously high (and the world was indeed broken), POUNDER return with a titanic third full-length and veritable raison d’être: Thunderforged! Third albums are arguably as decisive to a band’s fate as a sophomore one; while second albums prove whether a hot debut was just a flash in the pan, it’s that third album that establishes a band’s staying power – whether they’ll just spin their wheels, rehashing past glories but lazier, or stay true to a strident sound and expound upon it. And so it goes with POUNDER’s Thunderforged, whereby the band (here joined by session drummer Mike Heller) explore a moodier side (“Deeper Than Blood,” “Metal Eternal”) alongside loud ‘n’ proud expressions of pure HEAVY METAL. Less flash but just as much excitement, more rivetheaded and red-blooded, and exhibiting a swagger that sometimes borders on parody if not for their overwhelming authenticity and commitment to the true-metal cause, POUNDER pound and push and pulse with more poise than ever and an absolutely addicting charisma that’s larger than life. Granted, Thunderforged is still as much of a love letter to 1985 as any POUNDER record – indeed, Harvey’s clever wordplay wittily immortalizes metal tropes (and hey, THAT COVER) – but with a pronounced emphasis on speeding-into-the-night chargers and a clean ‘n’ crisp production that thankfully doesn’t sacrifice any grit, the band simply sound like they’re at the height of their powers. In other words, you know what they came here to do: “Get Pounded”!

Forever the iconoclasts, PROFANATICA are both black metal legends and defiant of such concepts of "legendary." As one of earliest American black metal bands, during the dark 'n' bloody days of the early 1990s, PROFANATICA set out upon a course of utter blasphemy and barbaric primitivism, then retreated into the shadows as a cult icon, only to be resurrected years later once the black metal scene had finally caught up with their invention/degradation. When they returned, with Profanatitas de Domonatia in 2007, the signature PROFANATICA sound was firmly in place, and yet masters Paul Ledney and John Gelso continued to challenge themselves and push this pulsing primitivism to uncharted waters of sin 'n' sickness. Three years later, Disgusting Blasphemies Against God pushed the envelope even further, and yet three more years again, 2013's Thy Kingdom Cum climaxed all over that envelope. Now, with The Curling Flame of Blasphemy, PROFANATICA have gone back to the beginning while re-imagining their signature sound in the subtlest and yet somehow-most-powerful way.

Arguably the band's crudest and most primitive full-length thus far, The Curling Flame of Blasphemy bulldozes into being with a crushing, blown-out explosion of sound, setting out PROFANATICA's stall and drawing a very firm line in the sand: you either submit to its gloriously hypnotic blasphemy or get trampled under cloven, obsidian hoof. Paul Ledney's idiosyncratic approach to rudimentary/elevated-mind drumming forms the backbone by which John Gelso sends out wave upon wave of tense, vertigo-inducing riff, layering the bulldoze with chilling counterpoint that sends the vertigo into overdrive and creates a perverse disconnect from the sonic wreckage going on all around them. All the while, Ledney's charred-black vomits cut through the crush to spill forth verbal desecration, profaning the pure and defiling dog's creation as only he can. Together, both masterminds behind PROFANATICA underline an already incontrovertible fact: despite a decade or two of the black metal scene pilfering from them, no one sounds like PROFANATICA. Thus, The Curling Flame of Blasphemy never dies, never relents - from a flicker into an inferno - and both its heat and light shall serve as a guide for future generations of devotees/descecrators.

PROFANATICA require no introduction. Cold 'n' alone American black metal before "USBM" became some dumb rallying term, pushing boundaries and "good taste" with vile blasphemy and even-more-vile music, and simply doing whatever the fuck they want, both in their original early '90s guise and their now-intensely-prolific period in the 21st millennium: there's only ever been one true PROFANATICA.

However, let it be known than PROFANATICA are NOT standard "black metal," but rather their own rarefied strain of BLACK / DEATH metal. They've been proving it the last handful of years, and prove it more perversely than ever with Wreathed in Dead Angels. The band's return to longtime supporters HELLS HEADBANGERS features six brand-new tracks in a swift 'n' salacious 22 minutes: immediately, irrevocably PROFANATICA from beginning to end. But, while the power-trio maintain a signature sound, by no means are they repeating past glories. From the utterly gutted guitar tone to the cultivated primitivism of founder Paul Ledney's drumming to the creeping / crushing songwriting, Wreathed in Dead Angels vulgarly displays PROFANATICA just entering their prime - all the more amazing for a band that's been around since 1990.

SATANIC WARMASTER needs no introduction. Since the band's formation in 1998, founder Werwolf has prolifically - and provocatively - stoked fires that refuse to be quenched. A totally independent artist in all aspects, SATANIC WARMASTER has sold hundreds of thousands of albums internationally and played stages all across the world, from north to south and east to west. The band's black metal is devoutly traditional but eternally fruitful, standing as an immovable monument to the purest and proudest foundations of the artform. As such, SATANIC WARMASTER is hated and loved with equally strong passion, with those naysayers only feeding that fire with falsehoods and gross misconceptions. There is no middle ground: no apologies, and no surrender.

And so the battle continues with Aamongandr, SATANIC WARMASTER's first studio full-length since 2014's acclaimed Fimbulwinter. Indeed, where that album evinced a diversity of songcraft and, more so, a concertedly polished aspect that majestically made that obsidian gleam, Aamongandr explores that duality with equally compelling results. In fact, with the album wasting no time in kicking into high gear, SATANIC WARMASTER sounds more urgent than ever - and yet, here is where the band's epic side is also revealed in full. Cryogenic and caressing is its melodicism, in the glare of burning churches, and deftly dusted with subtle synths that heighten the mysticism at the heart of the SW sound, Aamongandr's six songs charge forth with the grim grandiosity of mighty steeds; not for nothing is one of the album's highlights titled "Duke's Ride (Ride of the Spectral Hooves)." All told, this sixth long-form statement of intent is immediately recognizable as SATANIC WARMASTER but irrevocably proves that its creator's imagination continues to flow as infinitely as the Atlantean depths.

SATANIC WARMASTER needs no introduction nor explanation, and nor should the modern classic that is Carelian Satanist Madness. Originally released in the dark days of 2005, this album emerged during the peak of Finland's black metal underground, and mainman Werwolf - here recording everything, save session drums - led the way for all others well into the next decade. All the triumph and tragedy, mysticism and madness, literally EVERYTHING that is sacred and pure in authentic and dedicated BLACK METAL is here distilled to its proudest and most poignant essence. To deny this is to deny black metal itself. Feeding the fires forever more is this new 2-CD edition, which hereby includes the 10th anniversary concert where Carelian Satanist Madness is performed in its entirety, along with the previously released collaboration track with Bizarre Uproar, available on CD for the first time.

SATANIC WARMASTER needs no introduction. Since the band's formation in 1998, founder Werwolf has prolifically - and provocatively - stoked fires that refuse to be quenched. A totally independent artist in all aspects, SATANIC WARMASTER has sold hundreds of thousands of albums internationally and played stages all across the world, from north to south and east to west. The band's black metal is devoutly traditional but eternally fruitful, standing as an immovable monument to the purest and proudest foundations of the artform. As such, SATANIC WARMASTER is hated and loved with equally strong passion, with those naysayers only feeding that fire with falsehoods and gross misconceptions. There is no middle ground: no apologies, and no surrender.

The new album, entirely performed, recorded, and mixed by Werwolf, was created in complete isolation between 2021 and 2024. Exultation of Cruelty emanates a wintry breath reminiscent of the rising Black Metal underground of the early 2000s, capturing the original barbaric essence of SATANIC WARMASTER-before the dilution of "Finnish Black Metal" by today's trends.

While each of SATANIC WARMASTER's five full-length albums serve as crucial (and rightfully classic) monuments in their own right, it is often the band's myriad EPs where their paradigmatic (and paradigm-influencing) aesthetic truly shines. As such, Revelation...of the Night compiles two crucial mini-albums: 2004's...Of the Night and 2007's Revelation. Both breathing the essence of the days when the black metal underground was still cloaked in shadows, both EPs foretell the full-length strikes to follow, with the melancholic majesty of ...Of the Night largely prefiguring the classic Carelian Satanist Madness LP a year later and Revelationsignaling a return to rotten pastures with 2010's eventual Nachzehrer. On their own, however, both short-lengths are endlessly satisfying and undiluted Finnish black metal for which SATANIC WARMASTER has made known the world over. Revelation...of the Night shall be presented on special gold disc for this first-time CD pressing.

By now, the name SAVAGE MASTER should be more than familiar to anyone following today's occult heavy metal scene. Founded in 2013 by guitarist Adam Neal and vocalist Stacey Savage, the duo transformed their love of heavy metal and horror into one of the most exciting and electrifying sounds around. During their first six years, SAVAGE MASTER swiftly built an impressive canon of work over the course of two cult albums, one EP, one single, and especially their over-the-top live shows. Prolific touring and festival appearances followed, but it was the duo of 2019's Myth, Magic and Steel and 2022's Those Who Hunt at Night - both released by SHADOW KINGDOM - which catapulted the band to the top of the true metal pack. Sound and vision had aligned into a spectacle both mysterious and mesmerizing.

After yet more prolific touring, SAVAGE MASTER return with arguably their crowning achievement. Fittingly titled Dark & Dangerous, the band's fifth album furthers the plausibly streamlined sound of its predecessor, where early/mid '80s stunners like Judas Priest's Point of Entry (moody and dynamic) and Jag Panzer's Ample Destruction (locomotion and drama) formed the crux of SAVAGE MASTER's refinement. On Dark & Dangerous, that refinement continues, and it bears arena-ready HEAVY METAL gold. Gleaming steel, clean and clear, utterly HUGE in effect: one could here liken the record to Judas Priest's Defenders of the Faith, so swaggering and surefire are SAVAGE MASTER. The leads likewise take a more melodic, triumphant turn, making these mid-tempo hooks hit fucking HARD. Stacey Savage entrances as only she can, hitting the heights (and dark depths) of her by-now-signature delivery, with the sum effect truly sorcerous. Dark & Dangerous? Most definitely, but the album can also poignantly pull at the heartstrings, as exemplified by the cautionary "I Never Wanna Fall In Love" - bound to be the band's big hit!

"SAVAGE MASTER exists in a fantasy," concludes the front-woman. "Some say reality is stranger than our world of darkness. The lyrics for Dark & Dangerous dance between the two dimensions. We took our personal struggles into that realm. For the listener to escape this universe and apply our message into their life, that’s the intent. Whether it be praising Our Dark Lord or hearing the warrior’s call, we want the listener to feel the never-ending fire inside themselves - to be strong, like a chain that never breaks."

Formed in 2012, SKELETHAL have been at the forefront of the now-fertile French death metal scene. While many of the band's primary influences have been Swedish - Entombed, Carnage, and Dismember - over the past decade, the quartet have finessed that style of death metal into one that feels classic rather than simply "old." Call it intrinsically understanding what makes death metal DEATH METAL or simply possessing the songwriting nous to add to such a hallowed canon rather than merely milking, but SKELETHAL have proven to be contenders to the throne. First full-length evidence was 2017's Of the Depths..., followed by 2020's Unveiling the Threshold, which saw a lineup change and bold steps beyond Swedeath (and both released by HELLS HEADBANGERS), and now arrives LP#3 to all but assure that ascent to the throne.

Tellingly titled Within Corrosive Continuums, SKELETHAL's third album equally encapsulates their past and builds upon it in noble ways. While it's predecessor saw a slight uptick in clarity, here do SKELETHAL carry forward that clarity with a conspicuous dirtying-up of tone. The production's as powerful as ever, so it could be argued that that rediscovered grit & grime come more in the band's execution - or, more accurately, the songwriting itself. Within Corrosive Continuums immediately sounds like the same band who unleashed those prior two (celebrated) LPs, but SKELETHAL flex a bit differently here, opening up a number of (still-death metal) influences and transforming them into riffs and rhythms that ever so slightly more adventurous, all without (crucially) losing their characteristic directness. As such, the bulk of these largely-five-minute-long songs feel twice as fast, so feverish is the band's intensity, but dread-draped hooks and CRUSHING heaviness still rule the day. Put another way, SKELETHAL take on textures that are more personal and somber, but keep the expression resolutely death metal. Simply witness the 13-minute closing juggernaut, appropriately enough the title track: hearing is believing, and SKELETHAL will make believers out of even the crankiest "old school" diehards.

Third albums are always a gamble when it comes to death metal; you either sell out, or get stuck in inertia for the rest of your days. SKELETHAL defy this convention and continue to push their limits, culminating in a deep trip Within Corrosive Continuums.

1st pressing on a noble 4-panel digipak with 12-page booklet. From the dawn of the classic debut album, Netherstorm, in 2018, Finland's VARGRAV have almost single-handedly reinvigorated the oft-maligned symphonic black metal subgenre. Forged in fires from the ancients - founder V-Khaoz's credentials are vast and stretch back decades - and stoking the embers last left by Obtained Enslavement and Norway's Covenant and Odium, VARGRAV's two albums to date stand as proud pillars of shimmering, classics-based obsidian.

As momentous as those two full-lengths have been, VARGRAV arguably eclipse both with their third album, The Nighthold. With a lineup that now includes the notorious Graf Werwolf von Armageddon on vocals and Moonsorrow members Trollhorn of the Black Harvest on guitars/bass and Baron M. Tarwonen on drums, VARGRAV's swirling, cosmic surge has never been more potent; their attack is both sharper and dreamier, crystal-clear and opaque simultaneously. That added clarity creates more immediacy as The Nighthold kicks in, for the aggression of old is kicked into overdrive here and the synths take on a truly orchestral aspect. It's not for nothing that the album is a full hour in length: everything here sounds (and feels) HUGE, one massive velvety purple landscape of stained-glass visions as far as the third eye can see. And all 12 tracks are threaded together in a plausibly cinematic manner; while each is mighty in its own respective right, VARGRAV sequence every song with artistic flair and high drama, concluding the immersive experience with a daresay-soulful guitar solo during the coda of "Creator of the True Realm" that then segues into the nearly-10-minute big-screen instrumental "Ghostlands." What film or filmic realm one enters into (or leaves) is entirely up to the listener...The Nighthold is boundless!

It is thus not unjust to liken this achievement to Covenant's classic Nexus Polaris. The second era of VARGRAV has hereby begun with The Nighthold!

It was but the dawn of summer 2021 when WINTER ETERNAL released their breakthrough album, Land of Darkness. The band's third album overall and first with HELLS HEADBANGERS, Land of Darkness truly launched the name WINTER ETERNAL onto the worldwide metal map with their absolutely authentic synthesis of 1997-vintage melodicism and mysticism. "Melodic black metal" before it became a dirty word, mainman Soulreaper proved that his heart pumped the blood of the ancients, recalling both '90s Swedish and Hellenic scenes (the band originally formed in Greece, but later relocated to Scotland) but now with charisma and personality to spare. Above all, Land of Darkness bristled with stellar songwriting and impassioned playing - timeless black metal songcraft that can stacked alongside those old, hallowed tomes rather than simply drawing influence from them.

Now, two years later, WINTER ETERNAL return with their boldest record yet: Echoes of Primordial Gnosis. While immediately recognizable as the same WINTER ETERNAL that delivered the preceding modern classic, Echoes of Primordial Gnosis just-as-prominently displays a greater usage of dynamics, particularly those revolving around acoustic and clean-stringed instruments such as cello. Similarly, the still-impassioned playing has been giving an uptick in intensity and analog spirit through session drums by V. Nuctemeron (Sacral Rage, Chainsaw), lending warmth - nay, burning desire! - to the band's ever-characteristic attack. Soulreaper, for his part, gives a masterclass in spiraling, twilit melodicism: hammering and mesmerizing at first, but his riffs become rippling layers of majesty and mayhem that seemingly echo back on each other, proving that there's indeed complexity in simplicity of design. Add to this his anguished & emotive vocals, with guest clean vocals courtesy of Macabre Omen mainman Alexandros and Hildr Valkyrie, and the album's overall concept fully comes into focus: calling forth the spirits of ancient gods and legendary heroes around the world, paying tribute to their timeless powers, with each song thematically focused on one such god or hero. Form meeting content, in every sense - and likewise for Mars Triumph's symbolic cover artwork.

No longer the black metal underground's best-kept-secret, WINTER ETERNAL step fully into the halls of greatness with Echoes of Primordial Wisdom.

By now, the Colombian power-trio of WITCHTRAP should require no introduction. Since 1992, these maniacs have been flying the flag of hate for evil thrash and speed metal with no compromise and no quarter given. Across five full-lengths and twice as many EPs, demos, and splits, WITCHTRAP have perfected a sound that's eminently classic but undeniably their own. Their energy is utterly addicting; simply put, WITCHTRAP are equally evil and fun.

Thankfully, "same as it ever was" with WITCHTRAP and their long-overdue sixth album, Hungry as the Beast. While it's been four years since the preceding Evil Strikes Again - indeed, it did! - the Colombians show no signs of slowing down or wimping out on Hungry as the Beast, thus proving its title and then some. Released earlier this year on CD in South America via the band's own Dirty Sound Records, this worldwide edition of Hungry as the Beast should more than satiate the demonic lust of WITCHTRAP's fervent legions, proving that their urgency is as potent as ever even if the length of time between albums grows. We should only be so lucky to have this Hunger, that by-now-characteristic foundation of Welcome to Hell-meets-Evil Invaders, and that WITCHTRAP can sharpen their blades in such a manner without coming off too clean. As they state about their modest goals here, "We were only focused on impressing our fans with our music and artwork and not from pictures or imagery trends as nowadays all bands do."

WITCHTRAP are nothing if not pure and true and totally grassroots; it's heavy metal for heavy metal maniacs, where old songs like "Death to False Metal" resound with profundity for they are authentic expressions of a band who not only believe it, but LIVE it. "Music, aggression, and attitude - it's the real important thing about metal to us." Feast forever with Hungry as the Beast!

2022 repress on traditional black vinyl in gatefold jacket with lyrics. This is identical to the first pressing, no changes have been made to the layout.

Arcane rituals, medieval devil worship, black blood spilling forth, screams from the abyss both nameless and numerous...CULTES DES GHOULES unleash their second full-length spell, Henbane. Five years on from their classic debut album, Haxan, the mysterious Polish cult take the sulphurous, swirling gnarliness they've plied on their splits in the interim - and particularly on the preceding Spectres Over Transylvania MLP - and drag it deeper into the eldritch depths. Both more compositionally advanced and more primitive than all previous, vocals ranging throats both ghoulish and diseased, and still with the most overpowering, bass-driven sound around: CULTES DES GHOULES make their grandest, most garish statement yet with the epic Henbane. Listening to this just once, you'll be damned for all eternity...