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It was but 2019 when FUNERAL STORM made their grand entrance onto the international metal stage with their acclaimed debut album, Arcane Mysteries, courtesy of HELLS HEADBANGERS. While their history goes back to 2001, activities didn't begin in earnest until 2012, and hard graft became their watchword. But it was Arcane Mysteries that majestically consolidated all of FUNERAL STORM's considerable promise into one grand statement of classic Greek black metal in an authentically early '90s style. It certainly didn't hurt that that debut album featured Varathron founder Necroabyssious on vocals. Two years came a split 7" with Greek comrades Synteleia, appropriately titled The Ancient Calling, also courtesy of HELLS HEADBANGERS.

That split featured a scaled-back lineup of Necroabyssious and guitarist Arcania and founding guitarist/bassist/drum-programmer Wampyrion, and thus fortified does FUNERAL STORM's second full-length follow. Likewise appropriately titled, Chthonic Invocations further explores the steadfast theme of the Cthulhu mythos. More specifically, FUNERAL STORM's second album in general focuses on death, in every form, for Arcania and Wampyrion were totally isolated during the lockdown and Necroabyssious was heavily infected with Covid-19 to a point where the band didn't know what would happen. However, after he was healed, Necroabyssious delivered an exceptionally aggressive performance, suiting to his bandmates' more surging yet more mystical music. Truly, Chthonic Invocations sounds like FUNERAL STORM 666%, and harkens even further into the ancient past: to say that the album could've been released in 1993 on Unisound is an understatement to end all understatements. But again, just like its full-length predecessor, Chthonic Invocations easily avoids lazy "throwback" status on both the strength of its songwriting and its era-authentic synths, handled by both Arcania and Wampyrion.

Featuring another awe-inspiring cover courtesy of Markus Vesper (DENIAL OF GOD, Manilla Road, Attic), with Chthonic Invocations do FUNERAL STORM once again triumphantly revive atmospheric tartaric black metal in the vein of the old Hellenic scene. The old ones have been summoned!

Since 2021, Ohio's GENOCIDAL RITES have been waging war on the American Midwest via a demo and a trio of EPs and especially their mesmerizing live shows. Just last year, HELLS HEADBANGERS made a blood pact with the band on their home soil, with the first fruit being the EP Exsanguination of the Gods. As concise of an introduction to GENOCIDAL RITES as any, the feral frequencies across that three-song/nine-minute assault were indeed black, white, and red all over: the Ross Bay gods of war loomed large here, as did paradigmatic Black Witchery and especially Proclamation.

No progression and no compromise, GENOCIDAL RITES now make their Genocidal Upheaval of Subservient Abrahamic Law. Still throbbing with ignorant barbarity, here do the quintet somewhat flip the script on the bestial metal idiom. Said foundation firmly in place, GENOCIDAL RITES amplify their underlying D-beat influence - think Avskum, GBH, and especially Anti-Cimex - and more so the '80s grindcore of Repulsion, Germany's Blood, Finland's Goat Vulva, and the demos of Sweden's Carnage. As such, Genocidal Upheaval of Subservient Abrahamic Lawis just as blown-out and blackgrinding as expected, but the songwriting and execution slightly deviate from those dogmatically rocking wraparound shades. Pushing this deviance further are the perverted solos swirling about RITES' wreckage, creating a unique headspace for otherwise-hammering intensity. Lyrically, Genocidal Upheaval of Subservient Abrahamic Law is good on its title, balancing void and chaos magic, total annihilation, death to the Abrahamic religions, psychological mania resulting in true evil, and long-forgotten deities; ritual-ritual-rituals and fumbling through pig's blood this is not. GENOCIDAL RITES have arrived, machetes leveled at you!

At ground zero of the rebirth and resurgence of South American black/death at the dawn of the new millennium, GOAT SEMEN delivered one of the most classic demos ever with their self-titled 2002 demo, which has seen countless re-editions in the past two decades. As their legendry grew to enviable levels, so, too, did the anticipation for these Peruvian devils' debut album. But alas, time passed and the fervor 'n' anticipation for that first full-length reached critical mass in the metal underground, taking on almost mythical status (not unlike Sadistic Intent's long-promised debut LP). Finally, it saw the unlight of day in 2015 as Ego Svm Satana: the ultimate GOAT SEMEN statement, in the making for literally a decade, the album became something of a veritable travelogue across the history of South American metal barbarity the prior three decades. The very end, and also the beginning, Ego Svm Satana was suitably CLASSIC, as expected.

But, GOAT SEMEN are never one for half measures, and much like that full-length took at least a decade before it emerged from hellfire fully formed, they've only released live albums and a couple splits since then - nothing as substantial as a fully-new recording. Now, nearly a decade after that momentous debut album, GOAT SEMEN return with a comparatively quick-hitting EP in Fuck Christ. Much like its unapologetic & unadorned title, the Peruvian devils waste no time, kicking in immediately with a swirlingly sulfurous maelstrom of classic GOAT SEMEN proportions. For a record that comprises five stout songs in 19 electric minutes, Fuck Christ feels simultaneously longer and quicker than that runtime suggests, so respectively satisfying and urgent is that hammering barbarity. Naturally, it wouldn't be GOAT SEMEN if everything wasn't attacking from every angle all at once, the feeling of imminent implosion lurking around every dark 'n' diseased corner; compared to Ego Svm Satana, Fuck Christ exacerbates that mania to an almost overwhelming degree even when the intensity dips down to a doomed trudge. But perhaps the most unique element on this new record is how relatively clean and clear its recording is, with each and every instrument sounding sharp and powerful - nothing "muddy" about GOAT SEMEN fucking Christ here - which in turn makes the band's inherent grit & grime sound stranger and more depraved. Put another way, there's nothing to hide behind here; there's simply no escape from Fuck Christ.

For those who still hail the old gods of equally early Sarcofago, Krisiun, Hadez, Sextrash, and Mystifier, no matter when their records arrive, you can always count on GOAT SEMEN to Fuck Christ!

VERY LAST copies of the original Deathangle Absolution Records pressing. The 2nd full length album on SATANIC SKINHEAD PROPAGANDA. 11 pummeling assaults of hatred, rage and fury aimed at all subhuman degenerate filth. The most brutal and crushing onslaught by the band whose 21 years of existence has led to this release. NO "DIE HARDS". NO "EXTRAS". ALL COPIES THE SAME.

VERY LAST copies of the original Deathangle Absolution Records pressing. The return of the Brazilan Blackgrind War Metal Commando. The follow up to the band's highly praised album from 2011 "Depleted Ammunition", displays the band returning with a vengeance and fury aimed at anyone who dares to stand in their way. 11 tracks of insanity driven barbarity performed and delivered with the band's unique blend of Grindcore, Black Metal and Death Metal to create a form of audial warfare that could be described as nothing other than what they have defined and labeled themselves for well over 2 decades: WAR METAL.

It was but 2020 when GRIEVE emerged from the darkness with their self-titled debut EP. Although otherwise meant to exist strictly in that darkness, it was soon discerned that the band included veritable Finnish black metal royalty within its ranks. Nevertheless, the swiftly uncompromising nature of Grieve was felt: Northern Black Metal Exclusively From the 1990s. No more, no less, no progression, no fun.

And then, at the dawn of 2020 came GRIEVE's first - and, at the time, final - album. Aptly titled Funeral, the record was a fiercely focused one, solely featuring funereal marches by V-Khaoz and last rites by Werwolf. Beyond cold, utterly grim, violent and restrained simultaneously, Funeral was a record out of time, one where the last couple decades of "black metal" never existed. And then GRIEVE ceased to exist.

But, obeying only nature and will, GRIEVE have arisen from their own self-imposed grave with the second full-length Wolves of the Northern Moon. "We said we’d end the project for good, but we lied," state the band about that grave. "We exhumed it." Indeed, the exhumation also includes a nastiness last found on such Nordic classics as Kronet til konge, Pentagram, Til evighet..., or even Black Thrash Attack. Essentially, then, GRIEVE's ethics have not changed (nor should they have to), but one can nonetheless find here a pronounced asskicking sensibility that adds further antagonization to trendy ears as well as a noble march to mystical victories. "Eternal Winter, Eternal War": These Wolves of the Northern Moon are on the hunt - and you're next!

Spain’s HAEMORRHAGE should require no introduction. Alongside MORTICIAN, there is no other gore-obsessed death metal band who’ve been around longer and been more influential – or, perhaps most importantly, never wimped out for more commercial aspirations. As such, while they’ve undoubtedly drawn influence from the immortal early works of Carcass, it could be argued that HAEMORRHAGE have in many ways bested the original. Or, simply, rarely does goregrind get as disgusting AND catchy as these Spanish legends.

Alas, it’s been eight long years since HAEMORRHAGE released the full-length We are the Gore, and the only brand-new material they’ve released since then was the three-way split with Hemdale and Meat Spreader the following year. Therefore, it is with no small amount of ceremony that Opera Medica arrives, courtesy of longtime fans HELLS HEADBANGERS (who recently reissued on vinyl 1998’s classic Anatomical Inferno). Thankfully, HAEMORRHAGE are as sick and depraved as ever, serving up their characteristic goregrind with utmost catchiness, crushing power, and a charisma otherwise elusive to their contemporaries. Featuring five exclusive songs in 19 swift minutes, Opera Medica sounds exactly as it should – like HAEMORRHAGE, sewer-drenched and slicing / sluicing and yet with a focus that’s (STILL!) frightening to behold – but the uniquely strutting “Nomenclator Pathologicum” surprises with its sleazy groove, and is bound to become one of the band’s new live standards.

HAEMORRHAGE’s Opera Medica will be exclusively available on CD and one-sided 12” vinyl, with a silkscreened side B. Don’t be a canoe and miss out on this new record by one of the few ‘90s death metal bands that hasn’t wimped out!

Longtime fans of KRISIUN's classic early work, HELLS HEADBANGERS is proud to conspire with the band to reissue their classic fourth album, Ageless Venomous, on 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. Originally released in 2001, Ageless Venomous continues the tradition of their trauma-inducing sound, once again invoking the unadulterated power of relentless aggression in metal communities around the world. The entire album is highlighted by Alex's rotting-throat vocals and Moyses's masterful guitar chaos, heavily influenced by his knowledge of classical guitar. Max's drumming continuously pushes the limits of modern percussion, showcasing the same incendiary hunger that fueled the groundbreaking contributions of Slayer's Dave Lombardo and Morbid Angel's Pete Sandoval.

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.