118th part of the short reviews.
INVERTED CROSS – Eternal Flames of Hell
Year: 2024
Label: Helldprod Records
Rating: 6,66 / 10
I live and breathe,
I shit and cum
Only in the name of the Goat!!!!!
POGLAVNIK – Koracima predaka
Year: 2025
Label: Darker Than Black Records
Rating: 6,1 / 10
POGLAVNIK from the beautiful country of Croatia is a fairly traditional representative of the Eastern European patriotic / pagan metal. With the difference that it is from Croatia, and metal there remains in the deep underground to this day, even compared to neighboring Serbia. POGLAVNIK is the solo project of mr. Diluvialis, and on this album he did everything on his own, except for the acoustic part in the first track. Technologically, and musically, POGLAVNIK still remains in the first half of the 2000s, as it has a very amateurish sound and fairly simple music with archaically militant drum machine rhythms. The album's undisputed hit is the slow song "Lug Velesov II". As always, the main role is played by emotional and lyrical content. If you like uncomplicated but dramatic pagan metal with a sound in the vein of Hungarian WITCHER sound, give it a listen.
TROLLCAVE – Adoration of the Abyssal Trespasser
Year: 2024
Label: Me Saco un Ojo Records
Rating: 8,4 / 10
Gloomy, cavernous, archaic Death / Doom Metal as it should be. It sounds like ESOTERIC's first album, but without any drugged space trips. A real guest from the ancient graves of the early 90s.
GEGENENTWURF – Abgrund
Year: 2025
Label: self-release
Rating: curiosity
This German solo project performs experimental dark metal on all kinds of themes like... autism. Yeah. Perhaps listening to this is not as entertaining as watching the antics of the creator of STRIBORG, but GEGENENTWURF can be respected at least for the dedication of the author. A man has been playing music, which, frankly, few people need, for almost a quarter of a century, and he does it pretty well. On "Abgrund", he did literally everything by himself. This is a very uncomfortable, cold, uneven and even slightly dissonant metal with fully live instruments and high-quality mixing and mastering. The album is dedicated to "living on the fringes of society" and sounds appropriate, evoking disturbing emotions. The track "Zwischen Untergang und Absturz” is very similar to MAYHEM of "Ordo ad Chao" / "Esoteric Warfare" period. If you're one of those Nietzscheans who likes to test oneself with "unpleasant" metal, try this album.
CHAOS INCEPTION – Vengeance Evangel
Year: 2025
Label: Lavadome Productions
Rating: 7,5 / 10
Dynamic, militant, moderately technical and aggressive US Death Metal with great guitar solos. Matt Barnes from MONSTROSITY is on guitars here, and this band sounds a hundred times better than the sugary shit that MONSTROSITY plays nowadays. CHAOS INCEPTION is closer to HATE ETERNAL, ANGELCORPSE, KRISIUN, PERDITION TEMPLE and so on. It's a very solid album, except that the sound and vocals are a little bit disappointing.
