Along with getting the latest (seventh) issue of Convivial Hermit in stock, we've also picked up a couple of older issues of this fantastic underground magazine that we hadn't yet stocked.

Issue number six of the massive underground metal / neo-folk / experimental mag Convivial Hermit continues to deliver the goods, with another thick perfect-bound volume loaded with a ton of eye-grub for you to bury your nose in for the next week or two. Each issue of this lovingly assembled, professionally printed publication just gets bigger and bigger; this one's got one hundred and four pages filled with the mag's signature in-depth interviews and other writings, featuring smart, long pieces with everyone from avant-garde French black metallers Blut Aus Nord, Russian black metal pagans Vspolokh, and old-school Finnsh black metallers Funerary Bell, to Finnish funeral doom outfit Profetus, Hungarian neo-folk duo Larrnakh and Russian darkfolk project Neutral, Icelandic industrial duo Gjoll, Belgian avant-folk weirdos Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, folk-flecked American black metallers Falls Of Rauros, and mysterious avant German black metallers Bergthron. In addition, there's interviews with corpse-painted Portuguese gravecrawlers Cripta Oculta, Italian black metal aesthetes Movimento D'avanguardia Ermetico, 90's-era Finnish death metallers Rippikoulu and Purtenance, British deathcrushers Cruciamentum, the post-dISEMBOWELMENT Australian psych-death outfit Inverloch and a vintage Q&A with dISEMBOWELMENT tribal/ambient side project Trial Of The Bow, French funeral doom legends Monolithe, Belarussian dark folk/ambient project Dalina, Russian doom metallers The Sullen Route, symphonic Israeli black metallers Dagor Dagorath, German black metal outfit Infestus, satanic French black metallers Christicide, and interviews with Swedish black metal label Temple Of Torturous and Philly record store Digital Ferret.

And as usual, the rest of the magazine is rounded out with additional in-depth articles, from a killer retrospective on Finnish Death Metal and macabre road diaries, to their meaty zine review section, an interview/article with British fantasist Joe Abercrombie (writer of the First Law trilogy), an extensive dispatch from the 2011 Killtown Deathfest in Denmark, a report from Merzbow's Philadelphia show in 2010, an extensive primer on Japanese noise musician / sound sorcerer Aube, a handful of highly readable philosophical essays, surreal dream diaries, an absolutely scathing article titled "The Worst Metal of 2009-2011" that had me rolling, and as always, the extensive take-no-prisoners record reviews section that closes the mag. Whew! And all of this stuff is well written with a sense of humor throughout, making Hermit one of the most enjoyable underground music zines out there. Recommended.