The folks behind the excellent metal zine Convivial Hermit have come out with a limited-edition reprint of the very first issue from 2004, long out of print. It's essentially identical to the original, except stapled together and not perfect bound. Still a great read from one of my favorite underground music rags; even this early in its existence, Convivial Hermit editor Yury was cultivating a thoughtful, intelligent mag focused on dark, atmospheric music that spanned an eclectic variety of sounds and forms, centering around themes of art, the occult, nature, misanthropy, and romanticism. The inaugural issue featured the same sort of in-depth interviews and enthusiastic energy found in later issues, with similarly solid writing, and featured lengthy and engaging interviews with Finnish funeral doom gods Skepticism, Romanian avant-garde black metal band Negura Bunget, Finnish darkfolk outfit Tenhi, folk-flecked Irish black metal legends Primordial, Austrian black metallers Abigor, Summoning, Amestigon and Dornenreich, German black metal/neo-folksters Empyrium, Finnish doom metallers Dolorian and Yearning, Aussie black metallers Abyssic Hate, raw German black metaller Akerbeltz, the atmospheric Maryland death metal band Garden Of Shadows, obscure Finnish black/death band Thromdarr, classic funeral doom outfits like Norway's Funeral and Ireland's Mourning Beloveth, Brazilian doomdeath titans Mythological Cold Towers, symphonic Swedish black metallers Parnassus, melodic Finnish death metallers Nocturnal Winds, neo-folk bands like Hekate. It's rounded out with well-written essays on "Some Thoughts On The Concept Of Originality" and "Reawakening The Impulse For Exploration", a piece on Diogenes of Sinope who helped to develop the Cynic philosophy, a well-argued defense on the merits of printed zines, and more, as well as that massive review section that delivers equally in-depth criticism on everything from uber-cult black metal to experimental noise artists like Daniel Menche and Merzbow, to dark industrial artists like Puissance and IRM. Even though it came out a decade ago, this is still an indispensable resource guide to dark, experimental music of the early oughts.