News
Purity Through Fire announces Úlfarr's second 'Grim & ancient Black Metal is the order of the day across this eight-song LP...'
November 19, 2024
Purity Through Fire is proud to present Úlfarr’s highly anticipated second album, ‘Fornetes Folm’, on CD and vinyl LP formats. The CD version will be released on December 25th while the vinyl version will see release in early 2025, and both will feature ‘His Crown Grows From His Skull’ as a bonus EP.
Since 2011, Úlfarr have stood for uncompromising, antisocial UK Black Metal – or, under their own banner of Cumbrian Black Metal. Helmed by Dominus – who counts the equally prolific Thy Dying Light amongst his activities, as well as fellow labelmates Nefarious Dusk and Morte Lune – Úlfarr released a handful of demos, a couple splits, and most uniquely, a couple live albums before their debut mini-album, Hate & Terror – The Rise of Pure Evil, in 2019 and then another mini-album, The Ruins of Human Failure, two years later. During the summer of 2023, they released a split album with fellow UK horde Malfeitor. Across these caustic recordings, Úlfarr stoked the fires of old – namely, classic Craft, Darkthrone, Mayhem, One Head One Tail, and Death Cult.
Late last year – in December, to be exact – Úlfarr released their debut album, ‘Orlegsceaft’, featuring a revamped lineup as well as sound. Going from a quintet to trio now, the band release a second album a full year after the first: ‘Fornetes Folm’. Mind you, this second album carries forward three members – erstwhile Exvoidxist / Forvitnast vocalist Játvarðr, Malfeitor maiman Nosdrahcir on drums & bass, and of course Dominus on all guitars – and suitably does ‘Fornetes Folm’ further the sound of its full-length predecessor. Grim & ancient Black Metal is the order of the day across this eight-song LP: raw yet refined, atmosphere and physicality coiled like the Ouroboros, with ghoulish grimness running rampant like a long-lost recording from 1995 given undead life through ghostly means. With such a continuation, it’s fair to say that Úlfarr have fully entered their second epoch, and it’s sublimely anti-modern. Underlining their perpetually anti-modern air, the bonus EP ‘His Crown Grows From His Skull’ is included, harkening to the earlier Úlfarr sound – and yet, its three tracks were recorded after the central album. Only they know the true contents of their cauldron, but Black Metal diehards are all the richer for Úlfarr’s restlessness.
More info: Úlfarr; Purity Through Fire;Atrocity Altar and Hells Headbangers eager to release new Lament in Winter's Night album: "...spectral in its rawness, wounded in its melodicism..."
November 14, 2024
Hells Headbangers is proud to present Lament in Winter’s Night’s highly anticipated second album, ‘Whereunto the Twilight Leads’, on CD and vinyl LP formats. Atrocity Altar shall handle the cassette tape release.
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.
More info: Lament in Winter's Night; Atrocity Altar; Hells Headbangers Records;Wolfkult Religion presents Bestial Rites first assault on cassette: "Wild Peruvian Bestial Metal Of Death!"
November 14, 2024
Wolfkult Religion will release the first Bestial Rites demo ‘El Abismo’ on cassette, limited to 50 copies in January 2025, after Goat Eyaculation Records have released it in their home country Peru.
The 6-track demo is for fans of Anal Vomit, Goat Semen, Morbosatan, Sarcófago, Angelcorpse, Necrovore, Slaughter, Atomic Aggressor and the likes. This demo evokes the old glories of metal made in this part of the continent…Wild Peruvian Bestial Metal Of Death!
More info: Bestial Rites; Goat Eyaculation Records; WolfKult Religion;Mutagenic Host ready to release debut album: "And with their fluid shifting between tank-rolling downtempo and galloping bouts of speed, we can confidently declare 'The Diseased Machine' as the epitome of "chug and slug"".
November 13, 2024
On January 3rd, 2025 internationally, Mutagenic Host will release their highly anticipated debut album, ‘The Diseased Machine’. The album will be co-released by Gurgling Gore (vinyl, cassette), Dry Cough Records (vinyl, cassette), and Memento Mori (CD). The CD version will be released on January 20th, 2025.
Mutagenic Host are a five-piece band hailing from London, as part of the New Wave of British Death Metal (see also: Coffin Mulch, Celestial Sanctuary, Slimelord, Vacuous, Mortuary Spawn, etc.). The group comprises members from various parts of the UK and United States. With a diverse background spanning the Hardcore, Black Metal, and Death Metal scenes, Mutagenic Host blend hardcore sensibilities and groove with the heavy, well-crafted sound reminiscent of ’90s Floridian Death Metal.
Mutagenic Host dive into a technological apocalypse, examining a world overshadowed by hypocritical, insidious, and murderous global powers. The band is deeply disillusioned with the traditional themes of Death Metal and hardcore, feeling that these subjects no longer capture the urgency of the present. Instead, Mutagenic Host tackle the modern-day specters of complacency, apathy, and the looming threat of AI. Their work is an allegory for the systematic industrialization of humanity’s eradication — whether by human hands or by the machines we create to snuff out life. In this narrative, the instruments of the state use AI to monitor, control, and suppress the population, sounding a warning of impending doom through a fresh, intense lens in the Death Metal genre.
The ‘Genotoxic’ Demo, unleashed in early 2023 via Dry Cough, featured four tracks that plunged listeners into a cerebral mulch while simultaneously slashing through them with a ruthlessness found in the streets. Following a year of relentless live performances alongside bands such as Incantation, Fulci, Fuming Mouth, Undeath, Celestial Sanctuary, Kruelty, Portrayal of Guilt, and Doldrey, Mutagenic Host have now finished writing, producing, and recording their inaugural full-length debut, ‘The Diseased Machine’.
Aptly titled, ‘The Diseased Machine’ is a dark and thought-provoking journey into that post-plague world, which frankly doesn’t feel so far away from present times. As a debut album, it consolidates Mutagenic Host’s myriad strengths – stomping ‘n’ slamming grooves, world-eating heaviness, patient deployment of double-bass movement – and then intensifies them to an enviable degree. To be sure, the band are the proverbial well-oiled machine (but not diseased!) across the album’s ten oft-twisting tracks, the clean-yet-crushing production amplifying their strident execution. And with their fluid shifting between tank-rolling downtempo and galloping bouts of speed, we can confidently declare ‘The Diseased Machine’ as the epitome of “chug and slug” – Mutagenic Host have stormed the gates to further solidify their ferocious presence in the Death Metal scene!
More info: Mutagenic Host; Dry Cough Records; Gurgling Gore; Memento Mori;Iron Bonehead Productions presents new Luring album: "...Luring render their third full-length a never-belabored masterclass in Black Metal both authentically ancient and refreshingly modern"
October 19, 2024
Iron Bonehead Productions is proud to present Luring’s highly anticipated third album, ‘Malevolent Lycanthropic Heresy’, on CD and vinyl LP formats.
Belonging to the Order of the Broken Sword circle which includes labelmates Azathoth’s Dream and Wuldorgast, Luring made their public debut in 2018 with the Interitu Caret Devotione ad Coronam Satanas demo. From there, with the successive full-lengths Victory Fires Ablaze Under the Banner of Lucifer and the Iron Bonehead-released Triumphant Fall of the Malignant Christ last year, Luring have slowly-yet-assuredly become one of the most exciting developments in American Black Metal of recent years, effortlessly finessing a stridently classicist form that doesn’t point toward preceding idioms too obviously nor overly.
Perhaps reaching their apotheosis of such, Luring now deliver ‘Malevolent Lycanthropic Heresy’. The trio’s third album features much of the same foundation as its two LP predecessors – rippling physicality fused with otherworldly texture, inspired by contemporaneously early Abigor and Gorgoroth as equally as turn-of-the-millennium Nocternity and Lunar Aurora – but here do Luring intensify the extremes of their sound. On one hand, that physicality goes a more gutted direction, digging deep into sepulchral catacombs almost deathly. On another hand (and especially as the album plays on), their once-subtle melodicism goes to bolder lengths: some more melancholic, others more triumphant, but always with a fully developed narrative arc. Interestingly, half the album is given to instrumental tracks that aren’t strictly “ambient” in the usual Black Metal sense(s), imparting haunting / alluring atmospheres that thread seamlessly into ‘Malevolent Lycanthropic Heresy”s overall sensory experience; however, there are touches of true ambient within the other four, otherwise-black-metal songs. Altogether, and armed with a cleaner and yet still-analog production, Luring render their third full-length a never-belabored masterclass in Black Metal both authentically ancient and refreshingly modern.
More info: Luring; Iron Bonehead Productions;New Unholdun material on its way under the Purity Through Fire banner: "Electric, exciting, restlessly roiling but ripping with a joie de vivre that's impossible not to get windswept up by..."
October 15, 2024
Purity Through Fire is proud to present Unholdun’s highly anticipated debut album, ‘Fœhn’, on CD format.
The work of one Alexis Chiambretto, Unholdun made their public debut in 2022 with a self-titled EP through Purity Through Fire. At the time, the mainman modestly said, “I didn’t try to revolutionize Black Metal with this EP; it’s more like ‘a tribute’ to the good, old Black Metal. So, I would like to feel a little bit the ’90s vibe, even in the artwork.” Nevertheless, Unholdun’s pleasures were simple but sublime, exhibiting a sweepingly melodic surge that favorably recalled the Québec scene that’s made waves in the underground for the past couple decades.
While Chiambretto still calls France his home (and he’s here joined by session drummer Rémi Serafino), Unholdun’s sound has become bigger and bolder with ‘Fœhn’, the band’s full-length debut. The unadorned and awe-inspiring cover artwork spells out the magick of ‘Fœhn’ in no uncertain terms: epic, expansive, elemental, but frighteningly focused. Unholdun’s template hasn’t changed so much as the execution of such has. Electric, exciting, restlessly roiling but ripping with a joie de vivre that’s impossible not to get windswept up by, paradoxically, the band’s influences are more upfront and yet relatively more varied – classic Arckanum, late ’90s Darkthrone, similarly late ’90s Kampfar, 2000s Khold, first-era Deathspell Omega, all templars of Black Metal all unbounded in approach – but Chiambretto manages to mix & mince those various DNA in such a manner that what emerges is idiosyncratic and infectious. Pushed to greatness by powerful production that’s clear, gritty, and wholly human, ‘Fœhn’ has all the hallmarks of a quiet triumph. Face towering solitude and explore the peaks with Unholdun!
More info: Unholdun; Purity Through Fire;Total Hate ready with new album which will be released by War Anthem Records: "...the band proves that they are still a leading force of the German Black Metal scene"
October 13, 2024
Total Hate was founded in 2000 by vocalist and guitarist Adrastos and drummer Tondhron as a side project besides their main band Seeds Of Hate. Since then Scandinavian Black Metal of the glorious 1990s has been their main source of inspiration. After their first demo tape was recorded and released in 2002 via Flaming Hate Productions, the band played dozens of shows at home and abroad with different line-ups, who always had been “suitable comrades in arms”.
All in all the band has released five full-length albums, a demo tape, an EP and a 7″ split within their 25 years of existence. And even after more than two decades Total Hate are manifesting their Old School Black Metal the Norwegian way: more brutal, more uncompromising and full of misanthropy.
With their upcoming sixth full-length album ‘Forthcoming Age Of The Reaper’, the band proves that they are still a leading force of the German Black Metal scene – Death, Hate, Eradicate!
More info: Total Hate; War Anthem Records;Dominance of Darkness Records proudly unleashes Asenheim's 'Wolkenbrecher': "Wolkenbrecher' whisks the listener off to forgotten realms with a folkloric Black Metal sound securely steeped in the ancient 1990s."
October 12, 2024
On December 10th internationally, Dominance of Darkness Records is proud to present Asenheim’s highly anticipated ninth album, ‘Wolkenbrecher’, on CD and vinyl LP formats.
Hailing from Germany, Asenheim was founded in 2004 under the original name Sins of Desire. The founding members at the time included Tiwaz on rhythm guitar and vocals and Verdensanskuels on lead guitar and keyboard. Since the lyrical themes increasingly dealt with pagan themes, the name was changed to Asenheim in 2006. Sometime later, Norse Raider joined as bassist. Unfortunately, rehearsals together were far too rare, which is why Asenheim developed into a solo project for Tiwaz.
After numerous demo recordings, the first Asenheim album, simply self-titled ‘Asenheim’, and the mini-album ‘Sehnsucht’ were created in 2012. Already, here it was clear in which direction the music should develop. The album was musically and lyrically permeated by fantasy elements and old legends. The mini-album, on the other hand, was a confrontation with bitter, cold reality and was also much harder musically. A drum machine was used on all releases at this point.
The stylistic elements of these two releases were combined for the second Asenheim album, ‘wenn die Nacht…’. To give the album a livelier sound, Tiwaz was looking for a drummer and came in contact with Valfor. Initially planned as a session drummer, he soon became an integral part of Asenheim and, in addition to playing the drums, took over a large part of the synthesizers and also the mixing of the albums. This was followed by six more albums, a single, and a mini-album.
Despite such a vast catalog, never has there been a dip in quality; Asenheim are nothing if not dependable. Put another way, Tiwaz and Valfor’s vision has always been focused and firm, and beholding it has become something of a rite of passage. The latest proof of that proud pagan brilliance comes in the form of ‘Wolkenbrecher’. Immediately sounding like classic Asenheim, ‘Wolkenbrecher’ whisks the listener off to forgotten realms with a folkloric Black Metal sound securely steeped in the ancient 1990s. But more than being “regressive” or backwards-looking, the duo rather exude the true authenticity of those times and create a canvas for the imagination to roam far and free. As such, ‘Wolkenbrecher’ tells its own story with every song that has shaped Asenheim over the last 20 years and made them what they are today.
From oldest Teutonic steel to the pagan vastlands of Eastern Europe and even south of Helvete in ancient Hellas, Asenheim’s Black Metal is rich in its splendor and multifaceted in its approach. ‘Wolkenbrecher’ is a 52-minute journey into their rarefied realm, and one you’ll want to remain in for time eternal.
More info: Asenheim; Dominance of Darkness Records;Filii Nigrantium Infernalium and Osmose Productions team up to release new album: "Sacrilegious and offensive Speed/Thrash/Black Metal..."
October 12, 2024
Open the mouth of Hell: Filii Nigrantium Infernalium, classic Portuguese maniac Black Metal pioneers, deliver their fourth album for Osmose Productions called: ‘Pérfida Contracção do Aço’.
Crushing, demented production and compositions. Blasphemous, disconcerting artwork by cult artist Paolo Girardi. Forged out from the pandemic, this masterpiece is raw, baroque, and complexly straight to the point, an unpredictable, insane labyrinth of sound and words. This album also contains deranged guest musicians from Irae, Phenocryst, and Toxikull.
Sacrilegious and offensive Speed/Thrash/Black Metal, grotesque sinister gloom, venomous sarcasm ranging from old-school Heavy Metal to dark sharpened Doom and relentlessly wild blasting beats’ devastation.
More info: Filii Nigrantium Infernalium; Osmose Productions;Purity Through Fire is thrilled to unleash Bloodmoon Eclipse's powerful debut album: "Uncompromising, closeminded, and cold, Bloodmoon Eclipse play ancient Nordic-style black metal exclusively in the vicinity of 1993-1995."
October 11, 2024
Purity Through Fire is proud to present Bloodmoon Eclipse’s striking debut album, ‘For I Am Your Death’, on CD and vinyl LP formats.
Bloodmoon Eclipse is a Greek-based team-up between Sad’s Ungod and Lunar Spell’s K.C.H. Despite the newness of this formation, the sound of the band’s ‘For I Am Your Death’ debut album is most definitely old. Uncompromising, closeminded, and cold, Bloodmoon Eclipse play ancient Nordic-style black metal exclusively in the vicinity of 1993-1995. The influences are well-known but noble – Darkthrone’s ‘Under a Funeral Moon’, Gorgoroth’s ‘Pentagram’, and Dødheimsgard’s ‘Kronet til konge’ – and assimilated with an authenticity that belies the otherwise-modern nature of this recording; even down to its production, this is as about as era-accurate as it gets. Nevertheless, the duo integrate tasteful touches of their own, including subtly contemplative bass-work, betraying the depth of that authenticity. No more but definitely no less, Bloodmoon Eclipse are the very definition of Old Black Metal Exclusively!
More info: Bloodmoon Eclipse; Purity Through Fire;