76th part of short reviews.
LURING – Inimicitias Veteres Vulneribus Desperatione
Year of release: 2021
Label: Inferna Profundus Records
Rating: 7,3 / 10
Here is Black Metal from the USA, and this is really Black Metal from the USA, that is, a rather rare phenomenon. Convincingly diabolical and otherworldly music, which reminded me magnificent ANCIENT MOON. Unfortunately, these Americans' intense songs are much worse than slow and atmospheric ones. But in general, this mini album is very solid. Give it a listen.
ODYRMOS – For the Brightest Light
Year of release: 2021
Label: BMC Productions
Rating: 5 / 10
Amateurish stuff with Greek instrumental and American vocals. The vocals are dangerously close to retardation at first, and then they finally break down into pure emocore. The instrumental part is divided in two. The first half is metal of no value with a drum machine. You can hear a lot of such pointless fucking around from the fantastic bands like Russian BLACK LAKES. It's like eating wet bread; tasteless. But the ambient compositions turned out to be surprisingly rich and captivating. The musician has not yet learned to work with sound properly, but at least he has a talent in this direction. In the future, I hope he will switch to ambient completely.
HRAESVELGR – Hraesvelgr
Year of release: 2021
Label: NSM Prod
Rating: 7,5 / 10
An interesting album of “from nowhere to nowhere” kind. Anonymous Swedish atmospheric metal, most likely ideologically right, although the press release states that the band is not interested in mundane things and blah blah blah. Most of all, it reminds YGG with hysterical vocals and three times the increased dynamics. The band does not play traditional atmospheric metal in the sense that they try to enrich their monotonous riffs by slightly changing the key or rearranging the notes. This creates a sense of greater diversity. Also diversity - but already negative - is given by differences in the sound of the tracks. Obviously, the material was made in different years and then mixed with the back left foot. Somewhere the bass works just gorgeous, but the guitars squeal unbearably, and the drums blast into nowhere. Somewhere, on the contrary, the guitar and drums are excellent, but there is almost no bass. Vocals, however, are disgusting everywhere. Anyway, there are a lot of delightful moments on the album, and 10 years ago its creators could get rich & famous. Today, it is probably doomed to oblivion, because it was released only on vinyl in an edition of 100 copies. 4 views of official full album video on YouTube is not what you call a success. But whoever needs it will find it - at least even with the help of this review.
MARRAS – Endtime Sermon
Year of release: 2021
Label: Spread Evil Productions
Rating: 7 / 10
This is the most Finnish Black Metal album I've heard in recent years, and in recent years I've been listening to a lot of Finnish Black Metal. Everything good and bad from Finland is collected here - a sincere approach and tertiary material, black suffering evil and bad taste (expressed mainly in the use of vocal filters and some kind of Hollywood ambient with offscreen voices). I did not find anything outstanding here, but the album holds strong. Finland as it is - either eat or pass by.
DUNGEON STEEL – Bloodlust
Year of release: 2021
Label: Signal Rex
Rating: 5,7 / 10
The debut release of the Ecuadorian project starts with a delightful old-fashioned synth track, and, probably, it would be better for it to continue in this vein, since further events did not inspire me. Maybe I'm just tired of all this blackened speedy stuff, or maybe this mini album is just weak. It combines natural recording and deathly cold digital sound in an extremely unpleasant way, and the vocals are terribly foul. The songs themselves are not bad, even non-banal, but in the end I rather feel regret about the irretrievably lost time. At least the solos in "Heavy Metal Tyrant" partly pay for it.
English (UK) 
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