NINE – ZIGGURAT Ritual Miasma
It’s quite refreshing to hear black metal bands with an approach as robust as Ziggurat’s. In their five track debut, this Israeli duo has crafted a work that almost seems an affront to anything that is black metal dujour. While the lofi, raw and to the bone approach thrives in the underground, Ziggurat have embraced fuller aesthetics; starting with that booming low end that gives this recording much weight and heaviness and ending with what seems to be layered distortion and simultaneous countermelodies.
What’s most striking is how hard Ziggurat hit from the start. Concentration on the opener is a must; crackling sound or perhaps acid rain hitting the pavement percolates to the side of guitars. As I go through this track time and time again, I seem to hear the cries of thousands in the back, the lament of the masses as they descend to their hellish end. Whether what I am listening to is there or not I can’t truly tell, and that goes to the merit of Ziggurat who have delivered a work of attention to detail.
Read full review Here…
EIGHT – ANATOMIA Cranial Obsession
Damn Anatomia brings nothing but off the meat rack pain with this one! Which is why they are number 9 on our Death Doom list!
SEVEN – MORAST Ancestral Void
2017 was the year Germany’s MORAST devoured me alive. Yes indeed. Having risen from the ashes of German sludge-doom aberrants Nightslug, Morast is like the darkening and sublimation of that band’s legacy in slow-crawling destruction – moving into more classic metal realm and with way more ambitious intents and purposes. Released on March 31st by TOTENMUSIK and VÁN Records, Morast’s debut Ancestral Void is one of the most cohesive, abyssal, and mind-bending death-doom debuts I have heard all year so far. With a foreboding wall of vibrating and earth-shaking down-tuned tremolo chaos, Ancestral Void strides forth with imposing magnificence, shrouded in decaying moods and blood-chilling atmospheres.
Read full review Here…
SIX – DESOLATE SHRINE Deliverance from the Godless Void
Unholy fucking black, death and doom Desolate Shrine is back with a new LP Deliverance from the Godless Void and it fucking kills. Their songs will drag you by the skull down into their abyss of sonic chaos where you just might head bang yourself to death. Want I love about the this band is how skillful played the music sounds without sounding over thought out!
FIVE – SERPENTRANCE The Besieged Sanctum
Unholy fuck come a little closer so that you can hear the slow death sounds of – SERPENTRANCE The Besieged Sanctum! Damn this record is so grim in all of the right ways!!!
FOUR – GATEWAY Scriptures of Grief
It’s hard to believe that one man can create such sickening aural filth as is found on the latest release from GATEWAY. This one-man Belgian band has crafted “an inhumanly bestial death crawl straight into the bowels of hell,”
THREE – EL CALVARIO Proscrito
666% raw and uncut DEATH DOOM! I am fucking addicted to EL CALVARIO and when you hear them you might be as well!
TWO – TCHORNOBOG S/T
This is so good it’s just painful. Tchornobog is definitely one of the most impressive releases so far this year. This is a mandatory listen for anyone into the darker side of extreme music. Pinched from Wonderbox Metal
Read full review Here…
ONE – SPECTRAL VOICE Eroded Corridors of Unbeing
At this point, I really don’t think anyone needs Spectral Voice introduced. This band has decimated stages for some years now, they are one of the best and fucking heaviest death-doom units around these days, and their twin/sister band with which they share a staggering three members (and often the stage as well!) – Blood Incantation – is already an internationally revered death metal powerhouse on a vertical climb for total world domination, and after this monster by Spectral Voice was released by Dark Descent last month, I am sure that will be their fate as well (actually already probably is). It goes without saying that the amount of personal and individual talent going into both bands is mind boggling. These guys are capable of harnessing incredible imaginative powers, all while staying firmly rooted in the tradition of the old and historic heavy metal they love. In this, Eroded Corridors of Unbeing, is both a classic and visionary work, with a foot in each stretch of time – past and future– but the result is not a mere addition of these parts, more like an exponential multiplication of them.
