#10 BLOODSPORE CYLIX Bloodspore Cylix
I say this with chest: I’m a Dog Heart – Lion Heart when it comes to keeping my feet on the necks of nazi scum, and I don’t care what color they are!!! I refuse to be silent against those who want to see the extermination of POC and say with my chest I’m unapologetically BLACK! The soundtrack to my ANTI-RACIST Fury today is Bloodspore Cylix’s demo out on The Final Return Records. I can’t help but get lost in their Blackened dirge of filth. This band writes Death Hymns that are full of unhinged sonic torment! From the moment I heard “Tithes of Blood”, I knew Bloodspore Cylix manifested the kind of maniacal melody that I loved! Yes, this pump-out Primitive Ethereal Von Worship jams but that’s the reason why I think they are so SICK! I can’t but have a vision of righting the wrongs that were done to my ancestors by the KKK as I blast “Atonement.” Real talk, Bloodspore Cylix is a Black Metal project that sounds to be on your radar if you dig insanely EPIC Music that just might inspire you to point your hate in the right direction!
#9 BAND Album Title
WTF, Bloody Keep’s Rats Of Black Death on Grime Stone Records is a Black Metal keeper. This band is so fucking rad because they just don’t give a fuck and create rocking music that gallops! They create songs that are free of creative doubt and full of awesome self-expression. Case in point, check out the title track and hear how amazing this band is. While I listen to “Nostalgic Vampire Magic,” I think about how music like this feels so empowering. If Bloody Keep reads this, I want them to know that their epic kind of Black Metal is fucking uplifting and a huge middle finger to all of the haters! With a HUGE smile on my face I say this loudly: Rats Of Black Death is fucking RAD!
#8 AGRICULTURE Living is Easy
As a new year approaches, I’m wondering about the wins and losses I’ll encounter on my path. Every year of my life I’ve stumbled and fallen in defeat, and I’ve climbed to victory. So listening to AGRICULTURE’s Living is Easy I really feel the juxtaposition between that title and the audio terror and triumph they’re conveying with their songs. Living isn’t easy, but is it because we’re being punished or because we’re being educated? This record is all-encompassing, with it’s forcefully delicate riffs and staggering percussion and frenzied vocals catching me up like a black metal tornado and throwing my limp body back to earth to shatter my entire skeleton. And that’s just the title track. This record is four beautiful compositions that completely capture my imagination and have me dreaming about what it means to be alive.
#7 ORANSSI PAZUZU Muuntautuja
ORANSSI PAZUZU is a band that never ceases to amaze me with the ways they morph and meld metal sounds into otherworldly sonic compositions that are almost impossible to genrify. Listening to their new record Muuntautuja feels like laying my head on an electronic blackened psych anvil and waiting for the black metal hammer to rain down on my fragile skull. From “Bioalkemisti” to “Vierivä usva,” this record is a formidable mind-fuck in the most dark and pleasurable way. “Valotus” feels like wandering into a pitch-black cavern, winding deeper through the rocky walls and feeling the earth’s molten heat grow and grow until it blasts the flesh from your skeleton. Then the delicate, eerie intro of “Ikikäärme” makes you feel like you’ve made it to safety only to find yourself surrounded by demons. I don’t know how such a devastatingly gloomy record can feel so uplifting to listen to. It sounds like music made by the fungus that consumes human brains and bodies in The Last of Us and I fucking love it. Some psilocybin would really complement Muuntautuja, actually, but don’t blame me for any transcendent terror you might experience if you try it.
#6 VIGLJOS Tome I: apidae
Imagine a world where honey is the currency that kingdoms kill for. Now imagine the soundtrack to this depraved, ferocious exploitation of a natural resource is medieval black metal! VIGLJOS have created a body of work that transports the listener into an alternate universe where liquid gold reigns and the keepers protect it with the ferocity of 1,000 wasp stings. Tome I: apidae is a maelstrom of urgent riffs and scathing howls, blastbeats pummelling your eardrums like angered bees. Black metal is often inspired by the more archaic forms of nature, but I’ve never seen a more fitting muse than bees.
#5 MACHUKHA Mochari
Within certain sonic walls of sound, it’s within the space where the gems are alive! Case in point is the new band MACHUKHA, whose songs are full of layers of emotions that we all can relate to. This band is not some verse-hook-verse vibe. They want the listener to commit to digesting their whole record, so that you will go on a journey with them where your fears might have the power to make you see the world for what it is. I love bands like this because I can feel where they are coming from. Make sure to check MACHUKHA’s Mochari because it’s fucking RAD!
#4 ASTRAL LORE ASTRAL LORE
I’m impressed with Astral Lore’s new record that is out on Realm and Ritual–Primitive Archive. Throughout three long tracks, this band shows the world why they can’t be fucked with! Their cold riffs give my humanity space to think and be free of negative self-talk. I love how they weave empathy into their sonic atmosphere and let me know that this fucked up world does not have to end just yet. Dive into their dreary anthem “Wandering down the path towards the light” and allow your reality to turn bleak. Astral Lore manifests Black Metal that soars and slays all at the same time!
#3 TSURIS Black Magick Ecstasy
Unholy hell fucking yes, TSURIS’s new album Black Magick Ecstasy is pure Raw Uncut Black Sonic Bliss. Every song is razor sharp and I can’t help but have visions of beheading every KKK member that ever walked this earth. As I blast “In for Life, Out to Kill,” the taste of fury coats my mouth as anger fills my eyes and I want to harm those who harmed my ancestors! TSURIS create the kind of nitro-charged Black Metal that I fucking love! The singer has range and every note bleeds with blackened passion! On the musical tip, Black Magick Ecstasy has so many layers of audio hate to lose yourself in this it’s epic! TSURIS has manifested one of the most dynamic Black Metal debuts of 2024!
#2 SPECTRAL WOUND Songs of Blood and Mire
Hell fucking yes, the new SPECTRAL WOUND album Songs of Blood and Mire out on Profound Lore Records is the FUCKING BOMB! Every millisecond of this sonic beast is an all-out feral Black n Roll party in your eardrums! This band knows how to create some of the sickest Black Metal on this planet. They know how to construct Raging Death hymns that break down genre walls to manifest a sound that is all of their own. Their songs fucking soar and turn into Blackened Phoenixes that will burn weak hearts alive! “Aristocratic Suicidal Black Metal” is a perfect example of how brilliant this band is, because you can hear for yourself that SPECTRAL WOUND can’t fucked with. Imagine if Accept, Venom, Bathory, and Darkthrone came together to create a band, the outcome would only partially sound like how epic this band sounds. There is not one moment on Songs of Blood and Mire that sounds better than the other meaning that this record just might be perfect! I want the band to know that they have manifested a collection of songs that will sound classic forever. All of the pain that I have in my reality flies away as I blast “The Horn Marauding.” SPECTRAL WOUND channels Black Metal soundscapes that become a part of your humanity while speaking to our ancient past!
#1 HÄSSLIG Apex Predator
HÄSSLIG is yet another audial plague conceived by enigmatic recluse Spanish black metal musician D.B., who is more widely known for his more adherent and intransigent solo black metal work under the banners of Negativa and Délirant. With HÄSSLIG however D.B. leaves the esoteric and supernatural black metal world to come back down on earth and revel among the worst scum of this planet, discharging 12 putrid stabs of demented and nekro-fucked black metal punk necrotized with elements of Oi!, post-punk and black and roll. The whole work reeks with booze, dirt, filth, drugs, death and perversions, resembling almost some kind of squalid, slum-vomited nightmare of sorts where the shit end of society’s stick scrapes by how they can, with crime, fraud, betrayal, theft, violence, and of course murder, being the defining triumphs in this lurid story telling and glorification of society’s worse.
