Underground magazine The Convivial Hermit has long since abandoned any attempt at maintaining a regular release schedule, but who gives a shit - this is still one of the best print mags coming out right now. With its focus on in-depth conversations with the cream of the crop of the international black / death / neo-folk / experimental underground, each issue of this now roughly biennial magazine endures as both a comprehensive guide to amazing extreme/avant art and a moment-in-time document of the current countercultural zeitgeist; it certainly doesn't hurt that Hermit editor Yury instills a wealth of wit, erudition, and attitude into each and every issue. Indeed, Convivial Hermit is one of the few metal-centric print zines that has a dedicated section in my own library.

The seventh issue of Hermit is once again packed to the brim with one hundred thirty-six perfect-bound pages, filled with those signature lengthy in-depth interviews, thirty of 'em in all this time around, featuring legendary Greek black metallers Rotting Christ, atmospheric death metallers Ectovoid, neofolk outfits Empyrium (Germany), Raflum (China) and Woodland Choir (Hungary), Swedish black metallers Nasheim, Austrian avant-goth/folk metallers Angizia and Golden Dawn, Hungarian black metallers Velm, French avant-drone/blackened ritual doom ensemble Mhonos, Japanese black metallers Cataplexy, Finnish black metal pagans Ancestors Blood and France's Pagan Blood, and septic Danish death metallers Undergang. There are Q&A's with Czech prog-death outfit Draco Hypnalis, Japanese funeral doom band Funeral Moth, prog-doom masters Worm Ouroboros, Chilean black metallers Wangelen, Italian darkwave outfit Dperd, Danish proggy doom rockers Annwfyn, the doom-laden Italian darkwave band Canaan, Norwegian black metallers Isvind, Finnish death metal atavists Stench Of Decay, Norwegian avant-metallers Manes, atmospheric Austrian black metallers Summoning, Malaysian death metal throwbacks Humiliation, Cascadian black metallers Fauna, Spanish dark ambient outfit Asbaar, Greek black metallers Kawir, and Russian doomdeath band Sacratus. And on top of all of that, you also get a couple of well-written travelogue pieces, philosophical musings, eleven goddamn pages of in-depth fanzine reviews, a retrospective on French metal label Holy Records (Elend, Nightfall, Septic Flesh), lengthy dispatches from Incantation and Negativland shows, and a massive record review section with equally lengthy and in-depth looks at a variety of releases. And all of this is presented with a top-notch layout design and highly readable presentation, and written with intelligence and humor and a deep unwavering obsession with music and art. Can't recommend this enough.