125th part of the short reviews.
THE INFERNAL DECEIT – The True Harmful Black
Year: 2025
Label: Personal Records
Rating: 6 / 10
German melodic Black/Death Metal, which strongly resembles the late NECROPHOBIC and other representatives of the Swedish scene. Although the press release screams in caps about the strength of their riffs, them riffs here are not really that good. As is customary in Germany, this is a completely standard, neutered, safe material through and through, and, of course, it's as unoriginal as possible. A product of the industry. The great solo in "in Death I Am Eternal" is the only thing I remember from the whole album.
SUNSTRIKE – Moira
Year: 2024
Label: Gladivs Records
Rating: 7 / 10
The debut release of the project, where two members of KRAJINY HMLY play. Dedicated to the ancient Hellenes. It combines traditional Eastern and Southern European blackened metal and the obvious influence of classic CELTIC FROST in a rather interesting way. It looks like this: at first, the band plays something briskly and dynamic, reminiscent of, say, BOMBARDIER, and then suddenly it screeches out a full metall RIFF in the style of Tom Warrior. If you think it's a coincidence, the final track - a cover of CELTIC FROST - tells you that it is not. Like all the works of the KRAJINY HMLY members that I know, this is very high-quality music by underground standards, but it lacks something that could've make you say: now, this is a real breakthrough.
TRIVAX – The Great Satan
Year: 2025
Label: Osmose Productions
Rating: 8,2 / 10
Suddenly relevant Blackened Death Metal of Iranian origin (the band currently lives in the UK): about the rebellion against religious dictatorship, against Shi(i)te Islam, and so on. The album is just great. The Iranians are shamelessly ripping off BEHEMOTH, but they do it extremely well. To be honest, this is how BEHEMOTH should have sounded after “The Satanist,” or at least after “I Loved You At Your Darkest.” TRIVAX have fire, courage, technicality, the right feeling of melody and natural dynamics, not calculated by the producers. It is also interesting that TRIVAX have no “oriental” motifs in their music at all, unlike BEHEMOTH. You wouldn't know who of these two is Iranian.
TUHKA – Havuportaali
Year: 2024
Label: Nordvis Produktion
Rating: 6 / 10
Finnish blackened metal with a very raw sound and a drum machine. It sounds very similar to BURZUM which it might have been if Varg hadn't gone to prison and started recording new albums at home at the turn of the century. It's a very specific and hypnotic thing that exists outside the definitions of "good” and "bad." I don't even know how it turned out on Nordvis. It seems that this music could have been much better in a studio format, but for some reason the author decided to leave it in the form of a demo and closed the project.
IKU-TURSO – Wolfheart
Year: 2025
Label: Purity Through Fire
Rating: 6,7 / 10
"Wolfheart" begins with a typical ISENGARD's riff. I immediately started looking at the band's discography on MA and found that the Finns of IKU-TURSO do not hide their sources of inspiration. They even have an EP called "Storm over Isengard", which includes a cover of SATYRICON. But don't be jump out of your pants yet. As usual, this is first of all traditional Finnish extreme metal, and then everything else. The main vocal is a standard scream, meaning it's not what everyone expects from the heirs of ISENGARD. "Wolfheart“ has a little more from STORM, and a lot from SATYRICON, because the keyboard parts really sound like they came from ”Dark Medieval Times" and ”The Shadowthrone". It all sounds good, until the track "Grizzled Skies" starts, which is complete and hopeless bullshit. I don't know why would anyone come up with something like this. The finale features a high-quality cover of ”Beyond The Great Vast Forest" of EMPEROR. The result is Finnish blackened metal with all its positive and negative sides. That's something, too.
