Germany has vast underground black metal scene and Tot aus dem Wald is one of the jewels of this scene. This one has been in the scene since 1997 led by entity called Das Kakophonieä (All Instruments, Vocals). This opus offers eight old school raw black metal anthems filled with energy of old times and resisting these modern overproduced so called black metal bands. Besides hypnotic almost ritualistic guitar work, there are couple of subtle melodies thrown underneath it all and what I also find remarkable are those dark ambient sounds like some mixture of J-horror and Kurosawa movies. Lyrics are in German and I think they deal with some sort of Asian warrior demons if I am not mistaken. My personal favorites are Oni, wollen zerreissen wollen zerfetzen, and also one called Tengu, die Nase des Todes. This is old school raw black metal par excellence.
I once visited Požega, Croatia in December and it was magic. All those woods, a kind of sinister atmosphere, some invisible spirit of old in the air. Well, Kktz, veteran and legend of Croatian underground scene delivered another release with his black metal entity Tenebrositas. This time, significant news is that on this release Tenebrositas is a duo with Kktz handling vox. guitars and bass and O. handling drums and production. This is in fact one epic tale, song of just under fifteen minutes which indicates a bit of new path for Tenebrositas. It is still fast and raw almost hypnotic black metal with repetitive melody on guitar that kind of rolls through all song parts reappearing again and again. Atmosphere is dark yet fighting, victorious and persisting that dark hordes will prevail one day. Vocals are fantastic as always but this time Kktz tried some new things, by this I don’t mean clean singing but a bit more following guitar melody and melancholy with his shrieks. I love how the opus kind of slows down almost doomy towards the end but then wakes up to promise us another battle. This is in my opinion best Tenebrositas yet, I follow this entity for years in my zine. Recommendation.
Romanian bands are something special. This magic country that gave us Vlad Tepes and shrouded in Carpathian fog provides yet another superb opus to our black metal hearts. This time it is Wormgod from Bucharest area. This duo gave us their first full length although the band has been in existence since 2009 releasing one demo and single, but it has been nine years of ominous quiet and then this jewel. What to expect on this one? Well, you can bet that these nine hymns are excellent and I recommend them to any fan of melodic black metal with lots of atmosphere and melancholy in the song structures. This album reminds me a lot of nineties black metal and the reason why I love this music, the mix of aggression and melody, melancholy and battle. From the all out blast beat epic melody of My Blood, across more mid tempo and atmospheric The Blossom Of Fear which is one of my personal favorites, to epic Failure’s Reign and Olden Crusade, this one is a black metal opus par excellence. There are some a bit more modern parts, I would dare to call them post black metal in some song structures but that parts bring more eeriness and haunting feeling. Lyrics are, as you can see in English language and they deal with more personal side of hauntings, dealing with demons and darkness. Vocals are excellent, screamed but not too over the edge, fit just great in the songs. This is one of the better black metal releases this year.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 