There are certain things that grab my attention when it comes to discovering new bands and artists. I try to pay attention to several outstanding Youtube channels that post amazing demos, and Bandcamp releases from bands I've never heard of. Sometimes, I'll be searching through Metal-Archives.com for research, and I'll end up chasing some killer obscure act from Slovenia down a deep and twisting rabbit-hole. And when I'm working on Discogs, there's stuff that I see that will reach out and grab me by the throat. I'm obsessive about reading the "Style" line in band and release listings on that site. You never know what you might find.

Like a band described as "Prog Rock, Dungeon Synth, Funk Metal.

Alright, you' got me. And thus I stumbled across a band called Vrajitor’s Tenebrarium, a new (I assume) Finnish band with one member, a guy called Lord Vechi Vrăjitor, aka Juuso Peltola, who also plays in the black metal bands Warmoon Lord and Argenthorns. Avantgarde pouts out a lot of wild stuff (the label name is there for a reason), and when I picked up this debut album, covered in gloomy, wizard's castle-style artwork and beautifully designed in six-panel digipak, I couldn't wait to hear this thing. OK, so the whole "funk metal" tag is clearly someone being cheeky, but what it is, is some of the best Goblin / Italian prog-rock inspired mutation I've ever heard. This bizarre band wears its influences on its flowing, wizard-robe sleeves, but adds on a whole new level of groovy weirdness that's really different from the other Goblin-influenced outfits I listen to.

Kissed by gloriously nostalgic synthesizers, the opener "Et Mors Pallida Venebit" unfurls waves of majestic Tangerine Dream-esque electronics, symphonic grandeur, and huge-sounding church organs, all folded together into this striking keyboard-heavy introduction inhabited by a female vocalist that sounds like she wandered in from the Celtic Frost Into the Pandemonium sessions. A short but killer blast of synth-drenched darkwave then leads into the similarly synth-heavy prog rock of "Rubedo", filled with lush acoustic strings and spooky arpeggios that have an odd Fabio Frizzi vibe even as the metallic power chords and booming percussion kicks in. When this really starts to rock, it's fuckin' awesome. "Rubedo" has this distinctly 80's spook-prog vibe that's unmistakable, conjuring memories of both Frizzi and Goblin, as well as the weird gothic prog of Jacula and Devil Doll. The way this stuff is layered together with the crunchy, metallic guitars and driving backbeat is just spot-on, man. It's really not at all what I was expecting at first; it's the best type of surprise. Heavy, funky, pseudo-Italian goodness, where Vrajitor breathes much power and magic into the eleven songs, laying down infectiously catchy hooks and a hard rock backbone alongside all of his spirited weirdness. Some righteous saxophone shows up on "Black Frog" next to delicious woodwinds in the background, more elegant acoustic strings on "Lucus Horribilem Atque Pestilentem" as it erupts into a kind of Blue Oyster Cult-meets-Goblin ecstasy; the album feels mostly instrumental, although those feminine vocals and some echoing, chant-like voices do pop up throughout the album. The keyboards get even more Claudio Simonetti-esque as it winds through the labyrinth of moody progressive rock, heavy, crunching riffs, and soaring dark melody, but Vrajitor succeeds in giving this its own unique character, nimbly avoiding being another retro-Goblin-influenced outfit and producing a full, sensual piece of music that (despite the obvious influences) stands on its own as an incredible and original slab of occult Italo-prog. Those Tardo Pede In Magian Versus-era Jacula and Antonius Rex influences are every bit as prominent as the other stuff as well , especially whenever Vrajitor lays on that heavy liturgical pipe organ. The sounds of bouzouki (again, shades of Goblin's Suspiria) and clarinet spread through many of the tracks. There's some great experimental atonality in a few tracks, particularly the pair of songs that close the album, "Exorcismus" and "Semper Victimas Vult ", which wrap it all up with Gregorian-style chanting and an air of an arcane ritual ceremony. Stunning production, too. This album fills the air around me, with all of its intricacies and nuances. I also can't get over how much sax action is happening here, too - the winding jazzy convulsions of "Volantes Castrum" are one of the best on E.N.L.D., especially when the horn segues into some straight-up heavy metal guitar heroics, killer shredding matched by the wild onslaught of chamber strings, piano and whooshing synth. And it is indeed very "funky", the drumming performance propelling the songs forward into huge, massive grooves, eve sliding into stuff like the quasi-disco delirium of "Sanitarium Son".

It's the ultimate in 70's style "spook-prog", free of any kind of retro-irony. I can't stop listening to this. If you're as into the aforementioned bands as well as stuff like Daemonia, Anima Morte, Morte Macabre, Giallos Flame, and even older stuff like Sacrifice-era Black Widow and Halloween -era Outsider , this seriously gets the highest possible recommendation from me.

There are certain things that grab my attention when it comes to discovering new bands and artists. I try to pay attention to several outstanding Youtube channels that post amazing demos, and Bandcamp releases from bands I've never heard of. Sometimes, I'll be searching through Metal-Archives.com for research, and I'll end up chasing some killer obscure act from Slovenia down a deep and twisting rabbit-hole. And when I'm working on Discogs, there's stuff that I see that will reach out and grab me by the throat. I'm obsessive about reading the "Style" line in band and release listings on that site. You never know what you might find.

Like a band described as "Prog Rock, Dungeon Synth, Funk Metal.

Alright, you' got me. And thus I stumbled across a band called Vrajitor’s Tenebrarium, a new (I assume) Finnish band with one member, a guy called Lord Vechi Vrăjitor, aka Juuso Peltola, who also plays in the black metal bands Warmoon Lord and Argenthorns. Avantgarde pouts out a lot of wild stuff (the label name is there for a reason), and when I picked up this debut album, covered in gloomy, wizard's castle-style artwork and beautifully designed in six-panel digipak, I couldn't wait to hear this thing. OK, so the whole "funk metal" tag is clearly someone being cheeky, but what it is, is some of the best Goblin / Italian prog-rock inspired mutation I've ever heard. This bizarre band wears its influences on its flowing, wizard-robe sleeves, but adds on a whole new level of groovy weirdness that's really different from the other Goblin-influenced outfits I listen to.

Kissed by gloriously nostalgic synthesizers, the opener "Et Mors Pallida Venebit" unfurls waves of majestic Tangerine Dream-esque electronics, symphonic grandeur, and huge-sounding church organs, all folded together into this striking keyboard-heavy introduction inhabited by a female vocalist that sounds like she wandered in from the Celtic Frost Into the Pandemonium sessions. A short but killer blast of synth-drenched darkwave then leads into the similarly synth-heavy prog rock of "Rubedo", filled with lush acoustic strings and spooky arpeggios that have an odd Fabio Frizzi vibe even as the metallic power chords and booming percussion kicks in. When this really starts to rock, it's fuckin' awesome. "Rubedo" has this distinctly 80's spook-prog vibe that's unmistakable, conjuring memories of both Frizzi and Goblin, as well as the weird gothic prog of Jacula and Devil Doll. The way this stuff is layered together with the crunchy, metallic guitars and driving backbeat is just spot-on, man. It's really not at all what I was expecting at first; it's the best type of surprise. Heavy, funky, pseudo-Italian goodness, where Vrajitor breathes much power and magic into the eleven songs, laying down infectiously catchy hooks and a hard rock backbone alongside all of his spirited weirdness. Some righteous saxophone shows up on "Black Frog" next to delicious woodwinds in the background, more elegant acoustic strings on "Lucus Horribilem Atque Pestilentem" as it erupts into a kind of Blue Oyster Cult-meets-Goblin ecstasy; the album feels mostly instrumental, although those feminine vocals and some echoing, chant-like voices do pop up throughout the album. The keyboards get even more Claudio Simonetti-esque as it winds through the labyrinth of moody progressive rock, heavy, crunching riffs, and soaring dark melody, but Vrajitor succeeds in giving this its own unique character, nimbly avoiding being another retro-Goblin-influenced outfit and producing a full, sensual piece of music that (despite the obvious influences) stands on its own as an incredible and original slab of occult Italo-prog. Those Tardo Pede In Magian Versus-era Jacula and Antonius Rex influences are every bit as prominent as the other stuff as well , especially whenever Vrajitor lays on that heavy liturgical pipe organ. The sounds of bouzouki (again, shades of Goblin's Suspiria) and clarinet spread through many of the tracks. There's some great experimental atonality in a few tracks, particularly the pair of songs that close the album, "Exorcismus" and "Semper Victimas Vult ", which wrap it all up with Gregorian-style chanting and an air of an arcane ritual ceremony. Stunning production, too. This album fills the air around me, with all of its intricacies and nuances. I also can't get over how much sax action is happening here, too - the winding jazzy convulsions of "Volantes Castrum" are one of the best on E.N.L.D., especially when the horn segues into some straight-up heavy metal guitar heroics, killer shredding matched by the wild onslaught of chamber strings, piano and whooshing synth. And it is indeed very "funky", the drumming performance propelling the songs forward into huge, massive grooves, eve sliding into stuff like the quasi-disco delirium of "Sanitarium Son".

It's the ultimate in 70's style "spook-prog", free of any kind of retro-irony. I can't stop listening to this. If you're as into the aforementioned bands as well as stuff like Daemonia, Anima Morte, Morte Macabre, Giallos Flame, and even older stuff like Sacrifice-era Black Widow and Halloween -era Outsider , this seriously gets the highest possible recommendation from me.

Released alongside the skull-stomping new Seducer (Expanded Edition) EP, the Whip Seduction shirt features a stunning, brand-new design by Cultic drummer and acclaimed illustrator Rebecca Magar. This design is exclusive to Crucial Blast, and features what could well be my favorite art from Rebecca / Wailing Wizard to date - for real, I'm possessed by an overwhelming impulse to get this tattooed on my person. Perfectly capturing the sleaze, filth, and carnal violence of Cultic's brand of atavistic, dungeon synth-soaked death metal, it's also one of the coolest designs that we've released over here at C-Blast. This is a highly quality three-color print courtesy of our collaborators at Forest Passage Printing, available on black 100% cotton Gildan garments. GET SEDUCED.

SHIPPING THE WEEK OF FEBRUARY 9TH, 2024.

Released alongside the skull-stomping new Seducer (Expanded Edition) EP, the Whip Seduction shirt features a stunning, brand-new design by Cultic drummer and acclaimed illustrator Rebecca Magar. This design is exclusive to Crucial Blast, and features what could well be my favorite art from Rebecca / Wailing Wizard to date - for real, I'm possessed by an overwhelming impulse to get this tattooed on my person. Perfectly capturing the sleaze, filth, and carnal violence of Cultic's brand of atavistic, dungeon synth-soaked death metal, it's also one of the coolest designs that we've released over here at C-Blast. This is a highly quality three-color print courtesy of our collaborators at Forest Passage Printing, available on black 100% cotton Gildan garments. GET SEDUCED.

SHIPPING THE WEEK OF FEBRUARY 9TH, 2024.

Released alongside the skull-stomping new Seducer (Expanded Edition) EP, the Whip Seduction shirt features a stunning, brand-new design by Cultic drummer and acclaimed illustrator Rebecca Magar. This design is exclusive to Crucial Blast, and features what could well be my favorite art from Rebecca / Wailing Wizard to date - for real, I'm possessed by an overwhelming impulse to get this tattooed on my person. Perfectly capturing the sleaze, filth, and carnal violence of Cultic's brand of atavistic, dungeon synth-soaked death metal, it's also one of the coolest designs that we've released over here at C-Blast. This is a highly quality three-color print courtesy of our collaborators at Forest Passage Printing, available on black 100% cotton Gildan garments. GET SEDUCED.

SHIPPING THE WEEK OF FEBRUARY 9TH, 2024.

Released alongside the skull-stomping new Seducer (Expanded Edition) EP, the Whip Seduction shirt features a stunning, brand-new design by Cultic drummer and acclaimed illustrator Rebecca Magar. This design is exclusive to Crucial Blast, and features what could well be my favorite art from Rebecca / Wailing Wizard to date - for real, I'm possessed by an overwhelming impulse to get this tattooed on my person. Perfectly capturing the sleaze, filth, and carnal violence of Cultic's brand of atavistic, dungeon synth-soaked death metal, it's also one of the coolest designs that we've released over here at C-Blast. This is a highly quality three-color print courtesy of our collaborators at Forest Passage Printing, available on black 100% cotton Gildan garments. GET SEDUCED.

SHIPPING THE WEEK OF FEBRUARY 9TH, 2024.

Released alongside the skull-stomping new Seducer (Expanded Edition) EP, the Whip Seduction shirt features a stunning, brand-new design by Cultic drummer and acclaimed illustrator Rebecca Magar. This design is exclusive to Crucial Blast, and features what could well be my favorite art from Rebecca / Wailing Wizard to date - for real, I'm possessed by an overwhelming impulse to get this tattooed on my person. Perfectly capturing the sleaze, filth, and carnal violence of Cultic's brand of atavistic, dungeon synth-soaked death metal, it's also one of the coolest designs that we've released over here at C-Blast. This is a highly quality three-color print courtesy of our collaborators at Forest Passage Printing, available on black 100% cotton Gildan garments. GET SEDUCED.

SHIPPING THE WEEK OF FEBRUARY 9TH, 2024.

Dark Dungeon Metal Overdrive!

Man, I was immediately obsessed with Cultic as soon as I heard 'em; their 2019 debut album High Command stomped me into the dirt with its visions of dark epic fantasy and primal death/doom. That album demonstrated Cultic's sure hand at grinding you into dust, their sound grounded in a fetid mixture of classic 1980s heavy metal, primitive death metal, Hellhammer / Celtic Frost, and a smattering of barbaric hardcore punk. But that pummeling style was elevated by its use of electronics, weird effects and post-industrial elements, turning their already sufficiently crushing and filthy death churn into something stranger, spacier, more otherworldly, perfectly encapsulating the feel and atmosphere that emanates from the band's stunning original artwork (from drummer Rebecca Magar, a talented visual artist and the force behind the art/design house Wailing Wizard). Fiery dragons and clashing medieval armies, eldritch monoliths and sinister sorcery - Cultic's album art evoked everything that I loved about the darker fantasy novels I read in my youth, backed by atomic hammer riffs, scowling vocals, vintage synthesizers, and dark martial bombast. That album and its 2022 follow-up Of Fire and Sorcery (both released on the band's own Eleventh Key label) featured a raw assault of vaguely psychedelic mid-paced Morbid Tales-damaged deathsludge, and from the early demos through to the latest album, Cultic has followed a contorted upward trajectory into ever-heavier, more down tuned riff-laden primacy.

In 2023, the band released the two-song Seducer EP through Eleventh Key. With new bassist Andrew Harris (also of Baltimore trad doom heavyweights Alms) joining the husband-and-wife team of Brian (vocals / guitar) and Rebecca (drums) Magar, these guys sounded more embittered, lustful, and just plain violent than ever. Ancient synths and gorgeous dark ambience, ethereal female vocals, and mesmeric dungeon industrial starts off the title track, then pulls the rug out from under you as the trio lunge out of the shadows with one of their heaviest riffs ever. The awesome screams and mocking, acid-tinged roars melt into the atavistic spaced-out doom-death as "Seducer" lumbers through more of those killer Moogy electronics and weird effects. It's ridiculously heavy in spite off all the bizarre hallucinatory audio swirling around. Then "Seduced" bathes you in eve more lush, grim keyboard sounds, the most kosmische kind of dungeon synth bliss, and once again the band scatters that bleary ether when they drop into another fucking scuzzy, spine-bending hunk of slo-mo death metal . It's terrific. These two songs have better production than previous recordings, while maintaining their raw, caustic filthiness. If these two tracks are indicative of what Cultic's next album is going to be like, god help us.

This expanded version of the band's Seducer EP includes the early demo version of "Seduced" which has its own alternate electronic charms, and reveals a much more primitive, caveman vision of that song. Like hearing early Cathedral jamming in some rickety, oil-stained garage, soused out of their gourds on dextromethorphan. It's rad. On the B-side, this release features several bonus tracks: first is the two-song Prowler demo from 2017, recorded when the band was just the original duo of Brian and Rebecca. Their first-ever recording, previously released on a now out-of-print CDR, Prowler sounds fully formed, just more raw and low-fi, and without the electronic elements that would later develop into their current sound. These two songs are crushers, "Cruel Orders" and "The Prowler" delivering those signature dark fantasy lyrics, trippy grunting vocals, and knuckle-dragging doom-death. In addition, the EP is rounded out by a feral 2018 live recording of "Conqueror" that unleashes the band's full war-wrath, and circles back around with a killer live 2019 recording of "Seducer" that's stripped down to its bulldozing basics.

Nearly forty minutes of primo gargantuan Gamma World barbarian death metal. So for an "EP", this Crucial Blast reissue crams in the goods. It's also beautifully designed by the band themselves: Seducer boasts more of Rebecca's striking, Frazetta-esque artwork, which perfectly captures the carnal violence of this music. It's one of the coolest looking tapes we've put out over here yet. I can't express how stoked I am to be working with this band, as I've been a longtime fan of the couple's work, both Rebecca's fantastic art and Brian's previous musical dark arts in the ritual black ambient / doom-drone outfits The Owls Are Not What They Seem and Layr. Can't recommend this band enough.

The release of the expanded Seducer EP on holy analog tape is further celebrated by this bitchin' brand-new Cultic shirt design, created specifically for this release. Featuring what might be my favorite Rebecca Magar art yet, the wicked three-color "Whip Seduction" shirt is printed by Forest Passage Printing on black Gildan 100% cotton garments, front print only.

This item combines the Cultic Seducer (Expanded Edition) Cassette with the "Whip Seduction" shirt, shipped together. This item will begin shipping the week of February 9th, 2024.

Dark Dungeon Metal Overdrive!

Man, I was immediately obsessed with Cultic as soon as I heard 'em; their 2019 debut album High Command stomped me into the dirt with its visions of dark epic fantasy and primal death/doom. That album demonstrated Cultic's sure hand at grinding you into dust, their sound grounded in a fetid mixture of classic 1980s heavy metal, primitive death metal, Hellhammer / Celtic Frost, and a smattering of barbaric hardcore punk. But that pummeling style was elevated by its use of electronics, weird effects and post-industrial elements, turning their already sufficiently crushing and filthy death churn into something stranger, spacier, more otherworldly, perfectly encapsulating the feel and atmosphere that emanates from the band's stunning original artwork (from drummer Rebecca Magar, a talented visual artist and the force behind the art/design house Wailing Wizard). Fiery dragons and clashing medieval armies, eldritch monoliths and sinister sorcery - Cultic's album art evoked everything that I loved about the darker fantasy novels I read in my youth, backed by atomic hammer riffs, scowling vocals, vintage synthesizers, and dark martial bombast. That album and its 2022 follow-up Of Fire and Sorcery (both released on the band's own Eleventh Key label) featured a raw assault of vaguely psychedelic mid-paced Morbid Tales-damaged deathsludge, and from the early demos through to the latest album, Cultic has followed a contorted upward trajectory into ever-heavier, more down tuned riff-laden primacy.

In 2023, the band released the two-song Seducer EP through Eleventh Key. With new bassist Andrew Harris (also of Baltimore trad doom heavyweights Alms) joining the husband-and-wife team of Brian (vocals / guitar) and Rebecca (drums) Magar, these guys sounded more embittered, lustful, and just plain violent than ever. Ancient synths and gorgeous dark ambience, ethereal female vocals, and mesmeric dungeon industrial starts off the title track, then pulls the rug out from under you as the trio lunge out of the shadows with one of their heaviest riffs ever. The awesome screams and mocking, acid-tinged roars melt into the atavistic spaced-out doom-death as "Seducer" lumbers through more of those killer Moogy electronics and weird effects. It's ridiculously heavy in spite off all the bizarre hallucinatory audio swirling around. Then "Seduced" bathes you in eve more lush, grim keyboard sounds, the most kosmische kind of dungeon synth bliss, and once again the band scatters that bleary ether when they drop into another fucking scuzzy, spine-bending hunk of slo-mo death metal . It's terrific. These two songs have better production than previous recordings, while maintaining their raw, caustic filthiness. If these two tracks are indicative of what Cultic's next album is going to be like, god help us.

This expanded version of the band's Seducer EP includes the early demo version of "Seduced" which has its own alternate electronic charms, and reveals a much more primitive, caveman vision of that song. Like hearing early Cathedral jamming in some rickety, oil-stained garage, soused out of their gourds on dextromethorphan. It's rad. On the B-side, this release features several bonus tracks: first is the two-song Prowler demo from 2017, recorded when the band was just the original duo of Brian and Rebecca. Their first-ever recording, previously released on a now out-of-print CDR, Prowler sounds fully formed, just more raw and low-fi, and without the electronic elements that would later develop into their current sound. These two songs are crushers, "Cruel Orders" and "The Prowler" delivering those signature dark fantasy lyrics, trippy grunting vocals, and knuckle-dragging doom-death. In addition, the EP is rounded out by a feral 2018 live recording of "Conqueror" that unleashes the band's full war-wrath, and circles back around with a killer live 2019 recording of "Seducer" that's stripped down to its bulldozing basics.

Nearly forty minutes of primo gargantuan Gamma World barbarian death metal. So for an "EP", this Crucial Blast reissue crams in the goods. It's also beautifully designed by the band themselves: Seducer boasts more of Rebecca's striking, Frazetta-esque artwork, which perfectly captures the carnal violence of this music. It's one of the coolest looking tapes we've put out over here yet. I can't express how stoked I am to be working with this band, as I've been a longtime fan of the couple's work, both Rebecca's fantastic art and Brian's previous musical dark arts in the ritual black ambient / doom-drone outfits The Owls Are Not What They Seem and Layr. Can't recommend this band enough.

The release of the expanded Seducer EP on holy analog tape is further celebrated by this bitchin' brand-new Cultic shirt design, created specifically for this release. Featuring what might be my favorite Rebecca Magar art yet, the wicked three-color "Whip Seduction" shirt is printed by Forest Passage Printing on black Gildan 100% cotton garments, front print only.

This item combines the Cultic Seducer (Expanded Edition) Cassette with the "Whip Seduction" shirt, shipped together. This item will begin shipping the week of February 9th, 2024.

Dark Dungeon Metal Overdrive!

Man, I was immediately obsessed with Cultic as soon as I heard 'em; their 2019 debut album High Command stomped me into the dirt with its visions of dark epic fantasy and primal death/doom. That album demonstrated Cultic's sure hand at grinding you into dust, their sound grounded in a fetid mixture of classic 1980s heavy metal, primitive death metal, Hellhammer / Celtic Frost, and a smattering of barbaric hardcore punk. But that pummeling style was elevated by its use of electronics, weird effects and post-industrial elements, turning their already sufficiently crushing and filthy death churn into something stranger, spacier, more otherworldly, perfectly encapsulating the feel and atmosphere that emanates from the band's stunning original artwork (from drummer Rebecca Magar, a talented visual artist and the force behind the art/design house Wailing Wizard). Fiery dragons and clashing medieval armies, eldritch monoliths and sinister sorcery - Cultic's album art evoked everything that I loved about the darker fantasy novels I read in my youth, backed by atomic hammer riffs, scowling vocals, vintage synthesizers, and dark martial bombast. That album and its 2022 follow-up Of Fire and Sorcery (both released on the band's own Eleventh Key label) featured a raw assault of vaguely psychedelic mid-paced Morbid Tales-damaged deathsludge, and from the early demos through to the latest album, Cultic has followed a contorted upward trajectory into ever-heavier, more down tuned riff-laden primacy.

In 2023, the band released the two-song Seducer EP through Eleventh Key. With new bassist Andrew Harris (also of Baltimore trad doom heavyweights Alms) joining the husband-and-wife team of Brian (vocals / guitar) and Rebecca (drums) Magar, these guys sounded more embittered, lustful, and just plain violent than ever. Ancient synths and gorgeous dark ambience, ethereal female vocals, and mesmeric dungeon industrial starts off the title track, then pulls the rug out from under you as the trio lunge out of the shadows with one of their heaviest riffs ever. The awesome screams and mocking, acid-tinged roars melt into the atavistic spaced-out doom-death as "Seducer" lumbers through more of those killer Moogy electronics and weird effects. It's ridiculously heavy in spite off all the bizarre hallucinatory audio swirling around. Then "Seduced" bathes you in eve more lush, grim keyboard sounds, the most kosmische kind of dungeon synth bliss, and once again the band scatters that bleary ether when they drop into another fucking scuzzy, spine-bending hunk of slo-mo death metal . It's terrific. These two songs have better production than previous recordings, while maintaining their raw, caustic filthiness. If these two tracks are indicative of what Cultic's next album is going to be like, god help us.

This expanded version of the band's Seducer EP includes the early demo version of "Seduced" which has its own alternate electronic charms, and reveals a much more primitive, caveman vision of that song. Like hearing early Cathedral jamming in some rickety, oil-stained garage, soused out of their gourds on dextromethorphan. It's rad. On the B-side, this release features several bonus tracks: first is the two-song Prowler demo from 2017, recorded when the band was just the original duo of Brian and Rebecca. Their first-ever recording, previously released on a now out-of-print CDR, Prowler sounds fully formed, just more raw and low-fi, and without the electronic elements that would later develop into their current sound. These two songs are crushers, "Cruel Orders" and "The Prowler" delivering those signature dark fantasy lyrics, trippy grunting vocals, and knuckle-dragging doom-death. In addition, the EP is rounded out by a feral 2018 live recording of "Conqueror" that unleashes the band's full war-wrath, and circles back around with a killer live 2019 recording of "Seducer" that's stripped down to its bulldozing basics.

Nearly forty minutes of primo gargantuan Gamma World barbarian death metal. So for an "EP", this Crucial Blast reissue crams in the goods. It's also beautifully designed by the band themselves: Seducer boasts more of Rebecca's striking, Frazetta-esque artwork, which perfectly captures the carnal violence of this music. It's one of the coolest looking tapes we've put out over here yet. I can't express how stoked I am to be working with this band, as I've been a longtime fan of the couple's work, both Rebecca's fantastic art and Brian's previous musical dark arts in the ritual black ambient / doom-drone outfits The Owls Are Not What They Seem and Layr. Can't recommend this band enough.

The release of the expanded Seducer EP on holy analog tape is further celebrated by this bitchin' brand-new Cultic shirt design, created specifically for this release. Featuring what might be my favorite Rebecca Magar art yet, the wicked three-color "Whip Seduction" shirt is printed by Forest Passage Printing on black Gildan 100% cotton garments, front print only.

This item combines the Cultic Seducer (Expanded Edition) Cassette with the "Whip Seduction" shirt, shipped together. This item will begin shipping the week of February 9th, 2024.

Dark Dungeon Metal Overdrive!

Man, I was immediately obsessed with Cultic as soon as I heard 'em; their 2019 debut album High Command stomped me into the dirt with its visions of dark epic fantasy and primal death/doom. That album demonstrated Cultic's sure hand at grinding you into dust, their sound grounded in a fetid mixture of classic 1980s heavy metal, primitive death metal, Hellhammer / Celtic Frost, and a smattering of barbaric hardcore punk. But that pummeling style was elevated by its use of electronics, weird effects and post-industrial elements, turning their already sufficiently crushing and filthy death churn into something stranger, spacier, more otherworldly, perfectly encapsulating the feel and atmosphere that emanates from the band's stunning original artwork (from drummer Rebecca Magar, a talented visual artist and the force behind the art/design house Wailing Wizard). Fiery dragons and clashing medieval armies, eldritch monoliths and sinister sorcery - Cultic's album art evoked everything that I loved about the darker fantasy novels I read in my youth, backed by atomic hammer riffs, scowling vocals, vintage synthesizers, and dark martial bombast. That album and its 2022 follow-up Of Fire and Sorcery (both released on the band's own Eleventh Key label) featured a raw assault of vaguely psychedelic mid-paced Morbid Tales-damaged deathsludge, and from the early demos through to the latest album, Cultic has followed a contorted upward trajectory into ever-heavier, more down tuned riff-laden primacy.

In 2023, the band released the two-song Seducer EP through Eleventh Key. With new bassist Andrew Harris (also of Baltimore trad doom heavyweights Alms) joining the husband-and-wife team of Brian (vocals / guitar) and Rebecca (drums) Magar, these guys sounded more embittered, lustful, and just plain violent than ever. Ancient synths and gorgeous dark ambience, ethereal female vocals, and mesmeric dungeon industrial starts off the title track, then pulls the rug out from under you as the trio lunge out of the shadows with one of their heaviest riffs ever. The awesome screams and mocking, acid-tinged roars melt into the atavistic spaced-out doom-death as "Seducer" lumbers through more of those killer Moogy electronics and weird effects. It's ridiculously heavy in spite off all the bizarre hallucinatory audio swirling around. Then "Seduced" bathes you in eve more lush, grim keyboard sounds, the most kosmische kind of dungeon synth bliss, and once again the band scatters that bleary ether when they drop into another fucking scuzzy, spine-bending hunk of slo-mo death metal . It's terrific. These two songs have better production than previous recordings, while maintaining their raw, caustic filthiness. If these two tracks are indicative of what Cultic's next album is going to be like, god help us.

This expanded version of the band's Seducer EP includes the early demo version of "Seduced" which has its own alternate electronic charms, and reveals a much more primitive, caveman vision of that song. Like hearing early Cathedral jamming in some rickety, oil-stained garage, soused out of their gourds on dextromethorphan. It's rad. On the B-side, this release features several bonus tracks: first is the two-song Prowler demo from 2017, recorded when the band was just the original duo of Brian and Rebecca. Their first-ever recording, previously released on a now out-of-print CDR, Prowler sounds fully formed, just more raw and low-fi, and without the electronic elements that would later develop into their current sound. These two songs are crushers, "Cruel Orders" and "The Prowler" delivering those signature dark fantasy lyrics, trippy grunting vocals, and knuckle-dragging doom-death. In addition, the EP is rounded out by a feral 2018 live recording of "Conqueror" that unleashes the band's full war-wrath, and circles back around with a killer live 2019 recording of "Seducer" that's stripped down to its bulldozing basics.

Nearly forty minutes of primo gargantuan Gamma World barbarian death metal. So for an "EP", this Crucial Blast reissue crams in the goods. It's also beautifully designed by the band themselves: Seducer boasts more of Rebecca's striking, Frazetta-esque artwork, which perfectly captures the carnal violence of this music. It's one of the coolest looking tapes we've put out over here yet. I can't express how stoked I am to be working with this band, as I've been a longtime fan of the couple's work, both Rebecca's fantastic art and Brian's previous musical dark arts in the ritual black ambient / doom-drone outfits The Owls Are Not What They Seem and Layr. Can't recommend this band enough.

The release of the expanded Seducer EP on holy analog tape is further celebrated by this bitchin' brand-new Cultic shirt design, created specifically for this release. Featuring what might be my favorite Rebecca Magar art yet, the wicked three-color "Whip Seduction" shirt is printed by Forest Passage Printing on black Gildan 100% cotton garments, front print only.

This item combines the Cultic Seducer (Expanded Edition) Cassette with the "Whip Seduction" shirt, shipped together. This item will begin shipping the week of February 9th, 2024.

Dark Dungeon Metal Overdrive!

Man, I was immediately obsessed with Cultic as soon as I heard 'em; their 2019 debut album High Command stomped me into the dirt with its visions of dark epic fantasy and primal death/doom. That album demonstrated Cultic's sure hand at grinding you into dust, their sound grounded in a fetid mixture of classic 1980s heavy metal, primitive death metal, Hellhammer / Celtic Frost, and a smattering of barbaric hardcore punk. But that pummeling style was elevated by its use of electronics, weird effects and post-industrial elements, turning their already sufficiently crushing and filthy death churn into something stranger, spacier, more otherworldly, perfectly encapsulating the feel and atmosphere that emanates from the band's stunning original artwork (from drummer Rebecca Magar, a talented visual artist and the force behind the art/design house Wailing Wizard). Fiery dragons and clashing medieval armies, eldritch monoliths and sinister sorcery - Cultic's album art evoked everything that I loved about the darker fantasy novels I read in my youth, backed by atomic hammer riffs, scowling vocals, vintage synthesizers, and dark martial bombast. That album and its 2022 follow-up Of Fire and Sorcery (both released on the band's own Eleventh Key label) featured a raw assault of vaguely psychedelic mid-paced Morbid Tales-damaged deathsludge, and from the early demos through to the latest album, Cultic has followed a contorted upward trajectory into ever-heavier, more down tuned riff-laden primacy.

In 2023, the band released the two-song Seducer EP through Eleventh Key. With new bassist Andrew Harris (also of Baltimore trad doom heavyweights Alms) joining the husband-and-wife team of Brian (vocals / guitar) and Rebecca (drums) Magar, these guys sounded more embittered, lustful, and just plain violent than ever. Ancient synths and gorgeous dark ambience, ethereal female vocals, and mesmeric dungeon industrial starts off the title track, then pulls the rug out from under you as the trio lunge out of the shadows with one of their heaviest riffs ever. The awesome screams and mocking, acid-tinged roars melt into the atavistic spaced-out doom-death as "Seducer" lumbers through more of those killer Moogy electronics and weird effects. It's ridiculously heavy in spite off all the bizarre hallucinatory audio swirling around. Then "Seduced" bathes you in eve more lush, grim keyboard sounds, the most kosmische kind of dungeon synth bliss, and once again the band scatters that bleary ether when they drop into another fucking scuzzy, spine-bending hunk of slo-mo death metal . It's terrific. These two songs have better production than previous recordings, while maintaining their raw, caustic filthiness. If these two tracks are indicative of what Cultic's next album is going to be like, god help us.

This expanded version of the band's Seducer EP includes the early demo version of "Seduced" which has its own alternate electronic charms, and reveals a much more primitive, caveman vision of that song. Like hearing early Cathedral jamming in some rickety, oil-stained garage, soused out of their gourds on dextromethorphan. It's rad. On the B-side, this release features several bonus tracks: first is the two-song Prowler demo from 2017, recorded when the band was just the original duo of Brian and Rebecca. Their first-ever recording, previously released on a now out-of-print CDR, Prowler sounds fully formed, just more raw and low-fi, and without the electronic elements that would later develop into their current sound. These two songs are crushers, "Cruel Orders" and "The Prowler" delivering those signature dark fantasy lyrics, trippy grunting vocals, and knuckle-dragging doom-death. In addition, the EP is rounded out by a feral 2018 live recording of "Conqueror" that unleashes the band's full war-wrath, and circles back around with a killer live 2019 recording of "Seducer" that's stripped down to its bulldozing basics.

Nearly forty minutes of primo gargantuan Gamma World barbarian death metal. So for an "EP", this Crucial Blast reissue crams in the goods. It's also beautifully designed by the band themselves: Seducer boasts more of Rebecca's striking, Frazetta-esque artwork, which perfectly captures the carnal violence of this music. It's one of the coolest looking tapes we've put out over here yet. I can't express how stoked I am to be working with this band, as I've been a longtime fan of the couple's work, both Rebecca's fantastic art and Brian's previous musical dark arts in the ritual black ambient / doom-drone outfits The Owls Are Not What They Seem and Layr. Can't recommend this band enough.

The release of the expanded Seducer EP on holy analog tape is further celebrated by this bitchin' brand-new Cultic shirt design, created specifically for this release. Featuring what might be my favorite Rebecca Magar art yet, the wicked three-color "Whip Seduction" shirt is printed by Forest Passage Printing on black Gildan 100% cotton garments, front print only.

This item combines the Cultic Seducer (Expanded Edition) Cassette with the "Whip Seduction" shirt, shipped together. This item will begin shipping the week of February 9th, 2024.

Dark Dungeon Metal Overdrive!

Man, I was immediately obsessed with Cultic as soon as I heard 'em; their 2019 debut album High Command stomped me into the dirt with its visions of dark epic fantasy and primal death/doom. That album demonstrated Cultic's sure hand at grinding you into dust, their sound grounded in a fetid mixture of classic 1980s heavy metal, primitive death metal, Hellhammer / Celtic Frost, and a smattering of barbaric hardcore punk. But that pummeling style was elevated by its use of electronics, weird effects and post-industrial elements, turning their already sufficiently crushing and filthy death churn into something stranger, spacier, more otherworldly, perfectly encapsulating the feel and atmosphere that emanates from the band's stunning original artwork (from drummer Rebecca Magar, a talented visual artist and the force behind the art/design house Wailing Wizard). Fiery dragons and clashing medieval armies, eldritch monoliths and sinister sorcery - Cultic's album art evoked everything that I loved about the darker fantasy novels I read in my youth, backed by atomic hammer riffs, scowling vocals, vintage synthesizers, and dark martial bombast. That album and its 2022 follow-up Of Fire and Sorcery (both released on the band's own Eleventh Key label) featured a raw assault of vaguely psychedelic mid-paced Morbid Tales-damaged deathsludge, and from the early demos through to the latest album, Cultic has followed a contorted upward trajectory into ever-heavier, more down tuned riff-laden primacy.

In 2023, the band released the two-song Seducer EP through Eleventh Key. With new bassist Andrew Harris (also of Baltimore trad doom heavyweights Alms) joining the husband-and-wife team of Brian (vocals / guitar) and Rebecca (drums) Magar, these guys sounded more embittered, lustful, and just plain violent than ever. Ancient synths and gorgeous dark ambience, ethereal female vocals, and mesmeric dungeon industrial starts off the title track, then pulls the rug out from under you as the trio lunge out of the shadows with one of their heaviest riffs ever. The awesome screams and mocking, acid-tinged roars melt into the atavistic spaced-out doom-death as "Seducer" lumbers through more of those killer Moogy electronics and weird effects. It's ridiculously heavy in spite off all the bizarre hallucinatory audio swirling around. Then "Seduced" bathes you in eve more lush, grim keyboard sounds, the most kosmische kind of dungeon synth bliss, and once again the band scatters that bleary ether when they drop into another fucking scuzzy, spine-bending hunk of slo-mo death metal . It's terrific. These two songs have better production than previous recordings, while maintaining their raw, caustic filthiness. If these two tracks are indicative of what Cultic's next album is going to be like, god help us.

This expanded version of the band's Seducer EP includes the early demo version of "Seduced" which has its own alternate electronic charms, and reveals a much more primitive, caveman vision of that song. Like hearing early Cathedral jamming in some rickety, oil-stained garage, soused out of their gourds on dextromethorphan. It's rad. On the B-side, this release features several bonus tracks: first is the two-song Prowler demo from 2017, recorded when the band was just the original duo of Brian and Rebecca. Their first-ever recording, previously released on a now out-of-print CDR, Prowler sounds fully formed, just more raw and low-fi, and without the electronic elements that would later develop into their current sound. These two songs are crushers, "Cruel Orders" and "The Prowler" delivering those signature dark fantasy lyrics, trippy grunting vocals, and knuckle-dragging doom-death. In addition, the EP is rounded out by a feral 2018 live recording of "Conqueror" that unleashes the band's full war-wrath, and circles back around with a killer live 2019 recording of "Seducer" that's stripped down to its bulldozing basics.

Nearly forty minutes of primo gargantuan Gamma World barbarian death metal. So for an "EP", this Crucial Blast reissue crams in the goods. It's also beautifully designed by the band themselves: Seducer boasts more of Rebecca's striking, Frazetta-esque artwork, which perfectly captures the carnal violence of this music. It's one of the coolest looking tapes we've put out over here yet. I can't express how stoked I am to be working with this band, as I've been a longtime fan of the couple's work, both Rebecca's fantastic art and Brian's previous musical dark arts in the ritual black ambient / doom-drone outfits The Owls Are Not What They Seem and Layr. Can't recommend this band enough.

For the twenty-fifth anniversary of CRUCIAL BLAST, we are stoked to present the first in a series of Crucial Blast shirts featuring brand-new commissioned art from our favorite visual artists. This design features the gnarly collage art of Cody Drasser, guitarist for the acclaimed New York prog-death outfit AFTERBIRTH; we've been longtime fans of Drasser and his music/art, with several releases from him in the C-Blast catalog..

The "Psychotronic Catastrophism" design is an accurate glimpse into the neurologic strategies behind the art, music, film, and literature that we release here at Crucial Blast. Issued in a limited printing, on black Gildan 100% cotton short sleeve t-shirt, two-color print, with the Crucial Blast sigil on the back of the shirt.

For the twenty-fifth anniversary of CRUCIAL BLAST, we are stoked to present the first in a series of Crucial Blast shirts featuring brand-new commissioned art from our favorite visual artists. This design features the gnarly collage art of Cody Drasser, guitarist for the acclaimed New York prog-death outfit AFTERBIRTH; we've been longtime fans of Drasser and his music/art, with several releases from him in the C-Blast catalog..

The "Psychotronic Catastrophism" design is an accurate glimpse into the neurologic strategies behind the art, music, film, and literature that we release here at Crucial Blast. Issued in a limited printing, on black Gildan 100% cotton short sleeve t-shirt, two-color print, with the Crucial Blast sigil on the back of the shirt.

For the twenty-fifth anniversary of CRUCIAL BLAST, we are stoked to present the first in a series of Crucial Blast shirts featuring brand-new commissioned art from our favorite visual artists. This design features the gnarly collage art of Cody Drasser, guitarist for the acclaimed New York prog-death outfit AFTERBIRTH; we've been longtime fans of Drasser and his music/art, with several releases from him in the C-Blast catalog..

The "Psychotronic Catastrophism" design is an accurate glimpse into the neurologic strategies behind the art, music, film, and literature that we release here at Crucial Blast. Issued in a limited printing, on black Gildan 100% cotton short sleeve t-shirt, two-color print, with the Crucial Blast sigil on the back of the shirt.

For the twenty-fifth anniversary of CRUCIAL BLAST, we are stoked to present the first in a series of Crucial Blast shirts featuring brand-new commissioned art from our favorite visual artists. This design features the gnarly collage art of Cody Drasser, guitarist for the acclaimed New York prog-death outfit AFTERBIRTH; we've been longtime fans of Drasser and his music/art, with several releases from him in the C-Blast catalog..

The "Psychotronic Catastrophism" design is an accurate glimpse into the neurologic strategies behind the art, music, film, and literature that we release here at Crucial Blast. Issued in a limited printing, on black Gildan 100% cotton short sleeve t-shirt, two-color print, with the Crucial Blast sigil on the back of the shirt.

For the twenty-fifth anniversary of CRUCIAL BLAST, we are stoked to present the first in a series of Crucial Blast shirts featuring brand-new commissioned art from our favorite visual artists. This design features the gnarly collage art of Cody Drasser, guitarist for the acclaimed New York prog-death outfit AFTERBIRTH; we've been longtime fans of Drasser and his music/art, with several releases from him in the C-Blast catalog..

The "Psychotronic Catastrophism" design is an accurate glimpse into the neurologic strategies behind the art, music, film, and literature that we release here at Crucial Blast. Issued in a limited printing, on black Gildan 100% cotton short sleeve t-shirt, two-color print, with the Crucial Blast sigil on the back of the shirt.

The swirling, sweat-soaked psychedelic black metal of Grave Gnosis first infected me when I discovered the band's 2021 album Lux Nigredo and 2022 EP Towards the Nameless Darkness a while back. Both of 'em are terrific and terrifying blasts of incredibly chaotic and mind-bending black metal that likewise caught the attention of many that follow the USBM underground, despite only being available as digital downloads and super-limited cassettes. Slick with swamp slime, the band's music is a smoldering torch in the darkness, mutating the raw matter of black metal into nightmarish and exuberant ritual. There's a distinctly marshy Southern stench that permeates their blend of raging black / death metal, psych, and neo-classical, wafting off the triumphant galloping riffs, harsh and blazing blackened blast, and miasmic trippiness that completely enshrouds their music. But on their latest, Pestilence Crowned , all hell fully and truly breaks loose as the band ascends to a new level of Satanic savagery and twisted, psychotronic violence. This shit is wild . Possessed with a powerful shamanic presence, the nine songs on Pestilence are thoroughly tangled with specific formulae of ceremonial magic and violent adoration, a direct continuation of the themes running through Nigredo related to the band's system of Vedantic Nihilism. Each song becomes a paved stone on the honeysuckle and kudzu-covered footpath to a particular transcendental state; no mere soundtrack to patchwork blasphemies, this album directly interacts with the nervous system and the third eye.

From the ghoulish ambience of opener "Amidst the Rotten Coils of a Great Centipede" with its ghostly cello, tribal percussion and eerie experimental electronics, and the subsequent blast of feverish churning chaos that is "Carnivorous Darkness", this stuff undulates in some seriously crazed ways. Moving through passages of solemn funereal chamber strings and traces of rustic folk music tradition in the gorgeous acoustic strum that appears on tracks like "Ragziel", this album strikes a balance between inchoate madness and progressive intricacy that doesn't really sound like anything else going on in the US black metal field. It all explodes in kaleidoscopic forms, heavily layered with rabid howls echoing into oblivion, strange almost sitar -like ragas spinning in blackness, Moog-like spaced-out synthesizers snaking around the darkly majestic melodies and fractured riffs; you've got moments here that echo the weirder symphonic bombast found in later Emperor and Aspera Hiems Symfonia-era Arcturus , others that hint at classic death metal influences, but Grave Gnosis is so much more chaotic and convoluted, beautiful and monstrous. They've delivered one of the best American occult black metal albums I've heard so far this decade. Drown in the fires of its spiritual intensity.

This cassette edition of Pestilence Crowned is complete with the band's supplemental material: while the tape comes in a traditional case, it is presented in a re-sealable sleeve that also contains an 11" by 17" foldout poster of the scorching, lysergic cover art, and the band's twenty-three page Pestilence Crowned booklet. The latter is an essential piece of the experience, not just a collection of expansive liner notes pertinent to the album, but a new grimoire written by Grave Gnosis frontman Caine Del Sol ( aka Ø ), with explanations both "mundane" and "esoteric" for each song. The liner notes go into intimate detail about the creation and recording of the album, but pairs that with dense occult text, ritual practice, and extensive sigil art that is all as feral, impenetrable, and liberating as the music of Pestilence Crowned itself.

The cassette / booklet / poster edition from Crucial Blast is limited to one hundred copies, hand-numbered.

Not all dark ambient is equal. Plenty of artists strive for simple emptiness, the solace of the void. Which is nice, but there's something special about artists like Sweden's Johan Levin, who imbues a greater depth of emotion and feeling and menace into his largely electronic driftscapes. Nothing mawkish or comforting here, though. This is music meant to disturb. Levin's work under the banner of Desiderii Marginis is a singular body of work going back to the project’s formation in 1993; while one of the original Cold Meat Industries entities, Desiderii Marginis revealed a deeper textural core and a penchant for peeling back the softening, bruising flesh of his grim ambiance and revealing a kind of pungent poetry in the diaphanous clouds of synthesizer drones and electronic blur. That restrained, highly textured expression in some ways diverged from the cruel, morbid machinations of Cold Meat's harsher aesthetic. But the mood? The subject matter? The exquisite midnight blackness of Desiderii Marginis sits right at home amongst the likes of Brighter Death Now and Mz.412.

This 2023 reissue of Serenity / Rage is an exemplary demonstration of this abyssic style, with a more recent iteration of Levin's approach to creating rich fields of baleful, shadow-soaked sound, but the foundational syntax of his work remains the same. And the subject matter couldn't be more troubling: an examination of the serial killer Edmund Kemper, whose voice infests brief passages of the album's gorgeous dark ambience. Serenity was actually originally self-released by Levin several years ago, but Cyclic Law revived it as a lovely reissue on CD and vinyl, with distressing new sleeve art created by author / musician Martin Bladh (IRM, Skin Area, Infinity Land Press) that ties in with the album's grotesque subject matter.

You know you're in for a bad trip when an album opens with Kemper discussing his familial upbringing. His intelligent, contemplative voice hangs over a bed of dreary, melancholic drone, leading you down the darkened hallways of "I Was Destroying Icons". The voice recording used for this is perfectly selected and applied, effectively unnerving in his flat, impassionate delivery. In fact, the themes and imagery behind Serenity / Rage are not spelled out for the listener. What seems to be an aural examination of the Kemper case expands into something wider over the course of the album. That first track surgically applies Kemper's matter-of-fact confessionals to a dimly-lit space of distant but crushing distorted percussion in a reverberant vastness, descending downward into black chasms of psychological dread while haunting string sections, field recordings, and orchestral pads softly swirl around you. The six-song album grows more suggestive with its macabre material, once Levin performs an impressive interpretation of Brighter Death Now's "Necrose Evangelicum", reshaping it into something more amorphous and nebulous. An unexpected choice for the second song on Serenity, but its presence this early into the album is impactful. It picks up from those massive percussive blasts of the opener, as ghostly choral voices and surges of cold metallic synth sweep across the expanse; sounding totally cinematic in scope. Boundless electronic beauty hangs in stark opposition to the cruelties that continue to crawl to the surface. The temperature drops to sub-freezing when "New Flesh On The Demon Cold" rolls in, icy drones and glacial choral textures beset by occasional percussive blasts. These tracks melt one into the next, the bleary subterranean rumble of "Psychogeography" slipping into the sinister thrum, malevolent chittering noises and dissonant strings of "I Think It Was a Sunday", and finally into the closer "The Hours Of Darkness ", where strange mechanical sounds, distant metallic rattling, and angelic synths blur together into a perfectly formed, soul-chilling driftscape.

Its remarkable how much this feels informed by Berlin School-electronics. Even at its most chilling and unnerving, there's this gleaming grandeur that prevails. The album is a stunning contradiction between the capacity for human brutality and the transcendent power of music that reaches for the divine.

Limited to three hundred copies.

One of my latest obsessions is the burgeoning field of what I describe as "Death EBM", a loosely-connected cadre of artists and bands from around the world heavily influenced by the classic 1980s "Electronic Body Music" movement spearheaded by the likes of Nitzer Ebb and Front 242. Heavily relying on sequencers, distorted Korg and Roland synthesizers, pummeling drum machines, aggressive vocals, and punk-as-fuck anti-authoritarian lyrics, those pioneers developed a hybrid of industrial music; electronic dance elements and punk rage that absolutely dominated the late 80s underground. That style of industrial dance music went in and out of fashion over the subsequent decades, though, with some artists heading in a more "metal"-centric direction, others polishing their sound to a sleeker, more commercial technoid style. But in recent years, I've been following a serious resurgence in this style that seems to be coming primarily out of the harsh noise / dark industrial / synth-punk underground, with many of these new heavy hitters appearing on the Phage Tapes label. This new breed of EBM retains the violent 4/4 syncopated aggression and searing, distorted synthesizer sounds of the original scene, but bring a virulent strain of violent, grotesque electronics and vocals to the aesthetic, infecting these heavier EBM attacks with death metal-style shrieks, charred and blackened keyboard melodies, jackhammer-powered industrial abrasion, and trace elements of other extreme music forms that turn the whole EBM sound on its head, producing something uglier, heavier, harsher, darker and more ferocious than ever before, often drenched in violent, visceral eroticism. Phage has been mapping this incredible deathscape in recent years, delivering punishing neo-EBM from artists like Choke Chain, Distruster, Plack Blague, Wvalaam Klous, Harsh R, Talk Show, Fox Nova Project, Human Vault, It Spoke In Tongues and a host of other crushers. This shit is amazing, and anyone who's diggin' this heavy new brand of EBM should dive into that label's catalog, STAT.

One of the best of these dancefloor / headroom annihilators is STCLVR. Pronounced "Streetcleaver", this mutant from somewhere in Western NY blew the tail end of 2023 apart with the slammin' electronic body-horror bomb Post Self Abandonment , which came out on 12" vinyl through Phage right around Halloween. This cassette edition features the same material, and it's a beast. Merging caustic noise, power electronics influences, crumbling distortion walls, industrial metal, and monstrous vocals, this album builds upon the bulldozing EBM / synth-metal crush of the tracks from the Talk Show split cassette from 2022 (where I first encountered STCLVR's music, alongside the reissue of the Lovers album) and comes out even heavier (and more danceable) than ever. Ten tracks of brutal Death EBM that unleash a maelstrom of rabid electronic noise, horrifying death metal-esque screams and roars, gigantic rumbling industrial loops, vintage synthesizer arpeggios, and blasts of pummeling rhythmic power that invoke the hardest dance-floor eruptions of classic Belgian EBM. Equal parts harsh psychedelic noise, acid-damaged beast roars, lava-like distortion, and hardened beats that resemble Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, or Twitch -era Ministry filtered through a blackened cloud of rot and repulsion. The bass line that drives "Scumbag Finesse" immediately recalls the main theme from John Carpenter's iconic Assault On Precinct 13 score while adding chaotic, clanging rhythms, bursts of blast beat-level speed, and those ravenous shrieks; the propulsive four-on-the-floor power of "Plowed", underscored by grinding chord structures, erupts into a kind of electro-thrash savagery. The highly infectious beats that burn through the whiteout of "Cocaine Winter" join with melancholic synths, offering a discordian atmosphere that continues through the whole album; likewise, an element of Digital Hardcore seethes through songs like "Sea Hag 2023" and the menacing techno throb of closer "Tarnish", adding to the variety of rhythmic texture on the album. Forged from the black fire of mental and emotional struggle, STCLVR emerges anew, fearsome and unstoppable, and you can hear it through the entire album. Post Self Abandonment is triumphant.

The vinyl version of Post Self Abandonment is available via Phage Tapes.

I first met Baltimore-area musician Eric Rhodes years ago at an ill-fated show right here in my home town. Today Is The Day was supposed to play this absurdly small dive bar right down the street from me, there was no way I was going to pass that up. Alas, the band was stuck in traffic due to an accident on the highway, and they didn't make it. But the evening was salvaged by meeting Eric, who shared many of the same interests as I - we talked European prog, avant-garde death metal, and noise rock all evening. And he told me about his then-new band Genevieve; I assumed it was a reference to the Velvet Cacoon album, which it partially was. But as he described the band's sound, it was obviously something quite different. I followed Geneveieve's work over the subsequent past decade, watching this interesting, amorphous outfit move from early roots in Kayo Dot-esque chamber doom into something more idiosyncratic. That radical evolution tracked Genevieve moving from the gorgeous, Codeine-meets-Time Of Orchids-meets-blackened doom of 2013's Hope /Desolation demo (which is absolutely beautiful, harrowing stuff, check it out), and the early experimental digital releases that blended an increasing control of atonality and crushing black metal-influenced guitar sound with polluted sprawls of ambient guitar-noise ectoplasm, creepy-as-fuck improv industrial exercises, Abruptum-like horrorscapes, and the ever-present aura of prog and math rock, which would always manifest in the band's songwriting.

This mixture of sounds and textures really stood out on the two albums that Genevieve put out on local label Grimoire Records: 2015's Escapism and 2017's Regressionism. Here, it finally all came together into this monstrous and insanely heavy black / death chaos, barbed with bizarre dissonant leads, brutalizing tempo changes, churning concrete-mixer power that ripped everything around them to shreds. Nightmarish guttural vocals ascend into psychotic shrieks, each song unfurling into a pulverizing pandemonium of jagged edges and wrecked neurosis. But that math rock / chamber rock element is still fully present, appearing in the cracks that open amid the blackened blast, haunting interludes (sometimes using cello and acoustic guitar) and these beautiful, emotionally-wracked performances that magnify the intensity of the band's violent sound. Both of those albums are excellent and highly, highly recommended for those into the far-flung fringes of chaotic, experimental black / death.

And here we are with 2023's Akratic Parasitism. The band's third album, sharpened and concentrated, further perfecting Genevieve's unusual sound. As sweeping, majestic melodies rise through opener "Growth", the quartet expertly detonates maelstroms of ultra-violent, ravenous blackened death that swallow everything in sight, but which shatter into those amazing passages of clean, spidery guitar structures, ghostly vocals that waft through the shadows, and abrupt, off-kilter tempos that, to me at least, evokes the likes of Slint, Rodan, June Of 44 and other seminal 90s-era Louisville math rock outfits (as well as a heavy dose of early This Heat) . It seems like such an unlikely genetic code, but man, does it work. Akratic's eigh songs are slithering, undulating abominations, writhing with snarling shape-shifting vocals and grotesque roars, screaming at the heavens, the thick, suffocating chaos exuding something similar to the weird non-Euclidean death metal of bands like Ulcerate, Portal, Ehnahre, Altars, Dead Congregation, and Pyrrhon, that sort of post-Obscura Gorguts influenced death, but shot through with those abrupt shifts into shimmering angularity, chorus-drenched strings, spindly minor-key melody, choral voices, and impassioned, emotive singing that blossoms into something strange and achingly beautiful, before everything around it is brutally sucked back into their churning hell vortex. I haven't heard anything like it. The schizoid, form-splintering violence sewn through Genevieve's music continues to remind me of early Today Is The Day as well, funnily enough. One of the most interesting and ambitious extreme metal bands from the Baltimore area, Genevieve has found their way into a bizarre pocket universe of their own making.

For nearly a decade, Gregorio Franco has been a steadily rising force in the field of dark, aggressive synthesizer music, producing some of the most innovative and full-on heavy "synth metal" you're gonna find in the underground music scene. One of the most prominent faces in the field of what is generally referred to as darksynth, Franco has traversed similar dystopian badlands as Carpenter Brut and Perturbator. But where he deviates is the unique addition of an impenitent death metal influence; where other contemporary synth artists are often content to peddle the same 'ol pastel-hued VHS-era aesthetics and "outrun" sounds, Franco injects bulldozing guitar tones reminiscent of Bolt Thrower and the Swedish death metal underground, alongside an ultra heavy electro-bass attack and brutalizing rhythmic power that's directly descended from industrial metal's most violent drum programming. Franco's music feels more suited to a war zone than a dance floor, and in fact has the ability to turn one into the other. And his creative flow is endless; along with a multitude of albums and EPs that stretch back to 2013, his Bandcamp account is constantly updated with unique covers of synth-pop classics and video game soundtracks alike.

Under the Tombhammer banner, Franco now expands his sound into even deeper, heavier territory. His electronic influences are obvious, at their core consistently paying homage to the classic sounds of early John Carpenter, vintage Tangerine Dream / Klaus Schulze, and the darkest of neon-drenched 80s-era film soundtracks. But with Tombhammer, Franco further incorporates a specific side of his metal background for the project. Heavily informed by the tone and feel of Nightfall-era Candlemass, the lugubrious funeral doom of Australia's Mournful Congregation, and the peculiar blackened orchestrations and apocalyptic resonance of Urfaust circa-Verräterischer, Nichtswürdiger Geist and Geist ist Teufel, Franco's guitar work and songcraft evokes the tangled black roots of graveyard trees, the blinding glare of a nuclear-red sun at twilight, the oceanic emptiness of an uncaring omniverse, and the deepest abysses of human grief. This stuff is genuinely heart-wrenching with its cold, dark beauty and oppressive emotional depth. Somber. Sonorous. Man, these songs moved me.

Pairing the song "Sprecher des Omnibus der Ewigkeit" from the online digital demo MMXXIII with a brand-new exclusive B-side track "Bereiche Magischen Leids", this EP is the official debut release from the mighty Tombhammer. Together, it almost feels like part of a score to a previously unknown Panos Cosmatos film. The first, ""Sprecher" (roughly translated from the German to "Speaker of the Omnibus of Eternity"), stretches out to the razor-thin light dying on the horizon line, immediately casting you into a sumptuous and billowing cloud of black- fluorescent synthesizer. When that riff comes in, the complimentary effect is crushing. I was in love with this as soon as it kicked in. Cinematic synth-doom? Soaring, darkly romantic doomwave? Forget all that, "Sprecher" simply pulverizes with a perfect blending of electronic texture and bone-smashing doom. Somewhere, some film director should be scrambling to find Franco's contact info because this is one of the best unmade film scores I've ever heard. The middle section where the cinderblock guitars die away and we are adrift in clouds of swirling ashen particulate? Gorgeous. The moment when that devastator of a riff comes flowing back in like a river of black magma? Punishing. This instrumental crush is as emotionally weighted and mournfully ethereal as the best late 80s / early 90s UK / European doom metal, and just as memorable. The B-side "Bereiche Magischen Leids" was recorded exclusively for this EP release, and shifts the experience more towards the electronic side of the spectrum. It is just as cyclopean in scope. Again, a curtain is dropped on an immense black void, luminous drones driving into the infinite, a menacing guitar melody uncoiling in the depths. A synth-drenched hint of Peaceville-style slow-motion dread sprawling outward, everywhere. And it builds. And builds. Attracting molten matter to the slow spinning iron core and amassing itself into a kind of ambient metal spheroid, swirling black guitar drone and eerie doom-laden melody and grinding synth all bearing down on you like the shadow of a newly birthed black sun. An amorphous elegy as counterpart to the previous trudge through majestic misery.

It rolls over you, somewhat like the darker work of Jóhann Jóhannsson, seeded with the glacial melodic style of guitarist Andrew Craighan. One hell of a debut.

Finnish musician Marko Neuman has been busy as hell lately. I'd been following his work previously via the assorted high-grade bands he has been in (Dark Buddha Rising, Overdose Support, Sum Of R, Ural Umbo, Waste Of Space Orchestra). But until very recently, I hadn't heard his noise project Boredom Knife. It made an impact on me, though. Checking out previous releases like the split with Crepuscular Entity ‎on Basement Corner Emissions or the Your Pain Is Getting Worse tape on Bent Window introduced me to a cruel, cold strain of harsh noise, a form of deep-field black static, flecked with elements of power electronics and K2-style junk-avalanche. I was already getting deep into it when Neuman sent me his latest recording, Stalker.

This twenty-three-minute release pairs two corresponding pieces, "Envy" and "Snap", the first a long and winding chaos-channel into the doom-laden intensity of the second. The atmosphere around this release is felt in the cold stare, the mindless gaze, and the resulting vortex of emotional destruction that was written in the postures of celestial forms long before the final act of exterminating envy and dominance occurred. Lines cut through the star-map of lethal obsession. The predetermined hunt.

Boredom Knife's Stalker emits a cold, piercing gaze instantly, the first side "Envy" churning out a dense wall of hollowed-out drones, black static, bursts of corrosive hiss, and strange pulse-like rhythms buried deep within the core of this ghostly noisescape. While there's much to digest here for enthusiasts of the "wall", Neuman produces something much more complex and dramatic. Feedback and speaker-rumble are carefully probed and manipulated, vicious high frequency noise expressed through rivers of metallic skree that are easy to drown in. That first track gradually and deliberately evolves from the mechanical whirr, junk-style clatter, and mangled (but weirdly melodious) carnage at the beginning, morphing into a steady field of layered screech and endless hum, sharpened metal scrape and clusters of bizarre, almost subliminal gurgling that continue to resurface throughout the track. It conjures a hypnotic, possibly psychedelic state of sonic overwhelm, each layer of cruel noise obsessively carved and sculpted into a latter half of near-complete roar, before it finally circles back to a final stretch of rhythmic squelch, immutable drone, and hideous shattered distortion that resolves into a final noxious junk-loop at the end.

This brief bit of structured noise is instantly obliterated with the onset of the b-side "Snap". Everything is sucked inward, imploding in a vast mass of roaring, raging static. Some semblance of the humanity heard on the previous track is dragged to the surface and obliterated. This piece concludes Stalker with a blast of oppressive, dominating black static that remains almost constant over the entire runtime. Bits of machine-like jitter, traces of peripheral musicality, horrifying shrieks, it is all swirling inward, into itself, this titanic maelstrom of over-modulated electronics and eerie voice-like entities, teeth-grinding distortion, and covert structures of sound, all going down the drain forever. This is where Stalker really turns into something psychedelic, affecting your senses and your perception of the space around you as that chaos keeps seething and spinning, occasionally shooting out chunks of strange sonic debris and whiplash tentacles of high-end feedback. And then, for the first time, a volley of fearsome shrieks and howls come flying out of that chaos, incomprehensible screams of abject horror. Just for a moment, those nightmare distorted vocals blow your hair back, and it all suddenly collapses into itself, leaving you with a brief moment of deadened electrical thrum before it abruptly stops.

I've listened to a number of Boredom Knife releases, and while much of his material shares this tenacious sadism and auditory blast-violence, this one gives me the creeps. Stalker finds that blood-specked middle ground between the gargantuan murderous PE of Slogun, and the obliterating heaviosity of classic harsh noise.

Similar to the recent online-only (thus far) release of the long-thought-lost Cremation Grounds full-length Lord Of Nerves, the 20-minute EP Abortion Sacrament is another recording that was produced in the late 2000s and had been thought lost for fifteen years due to the destruction of the hard drive that contained the original masters. As part of a recent organizing effort here at Crucial Blast, almost all of these recordings were recently rescued from that cursed external drive, and have been resurrected and remastered for your listening displeasure.

Coming from one of the preeminent entities of the Order Of The Warhead, the three-track Abortion Sacrament EP is the very first release that Cremation Grounds recorded around 2008-2009, and like other recordings of the era, dislodges a bog-damn of insanely misanthropic black noise / heavy electronics, gruesome blown-out industrial sludge, crushing harsh-noise-wall style constructions, and an overdriven recording style that may well have been itself the cause of that hard drive's suffering and collapse. Again, the gist of these tracks is pure in-the-red evil electronic obliteration, much of it crafted by the entities behind Cremation Grounds as a kind of "meditation through abomination" strategy, utilizing the recordings for deep meditative sessions typically accompanied by sacred entheogens, assorted psychedelics (both natural and otherwise), acts of self-debasement and self-abuse, extended scatalogical ritual, and the disintegration of the ego in the churning jet-black oceans of searing distortion and low-end rumbling rot that dominate the sessions.

Abortion Sacrament does not have quite as much of the molten scum-dirge that is found on the Lord Of Nerves full-length. But these three tracks make up for it in all-out sense-wrecking chaos and over-modulated electronic violence. Drums, vocals and percussion all exist within the roiling black-static detonations of the title track and "Spread Wide Upon Her Cremation Grounds (Adorned In Bone Ornaments)", but they have been destroyed completely by walls of crumbling, crackling electronic distortion, with the occasional muffled roar of guttural, monstrous vocalizations breaking through the carnage.

As with the album, this material skews hard towards the harsh noise / black noise end of the sound spectrum, but likewise takes a great deal of inspiration from the diabolic filth of ancient, dissolving Finnish black/death demos. This sonic abhorrence crawls before the cracked and damaged altars of Macronympha, the no-fi bestial hiss of the earliest Beherit demos, classic Japanese noise a la Pain Jerk and Incapacitants, and the aura of eighth-generation dubs of Archgoat rehearsal tapes, all grown together into a swollen, pulsating, cancerous mass of cacophonous horror.

The EP is available on 3" CD in DVD-size packaging, hand-numbered in an edition of 90 copies. Sacrament is also available on audio cassette in a limited run of 100 copies, with a bonus tape-only track on the B-side titled "Enfolded In The Engorged Lips Of Kali", another nineteen-minute harsh blackened heavy electronics meditation that was recorded around 2010. Both the 3" CD and Cassette versions of Abortion Sacrament include full-color inserts and a vinyl Cremation Grounds sticker.

Similar to the recent online-only (thus far) release of the long-thought-lost Cremation Grounds full-length Lord Of Nerves, the 20-minute EP Abortion Sacrament is another recording that was produced in the late 2000s and had been thought lost for fifteen years due to the destruction of the hard drive that contained the original masters. As part of a recent organizing effort here at Crucial Blast, almost all of these recordings were recently rescued from that cursed external drive, and have been resurrected and remastered for your listening displeasure.

Coming from one of the preeminent entities of the Order Of The Warhead, the three-track Abortion Sacrament EP is the very first release that Cremation Grounds recorded around 2008-2009, and like other recordings of the era, dislodges a bog-damn of insanely misanthropic black noise / heavy electronics, gruesome blown-out industrial sludge, crushing harsh-noise-wall style constructions, and an overdriven recording style that may well have been itself the cause of that hard drive's suffering and collapse. Again, the gist of these tracks is pure in-the-red evil electronic obliteration, much of it crafted by the entities behind Cremation Grounds as a kind of "meditation through abomination" strategy, utilizing the recordings for deep meditative sessions typically accompanied by sacred entheogens, assorted psychedelics (both natural and otherwise), acts of self-debasement and self-abuse, extended scatalogical ritual, and the disintegration of the ego in the churning jet-black oceans of searing distortion and low-end rumbling rot that dominate the sessions.

Abortion Sacrament does not have quite as much of the molten scum-dirge that is found on the Lord Of Nerves full-length. But these three tracks make up for it in all-out sense-wrecking chaos and over-modulated electronic violence. Drums, vocals and percussion all exist within the roiling black-static detonations of the title track and "Spread Wide Upon Her Cremation Grounds (Adorned In Bone Ornaments)", but they have been destroyed completely by walls of crumbling, crackling electronic distortion, with the occasional muffled roar of guttural, monstrous vocalizations breaking through the carnage.

As with the album, this material skews hard towards the harsh noise / black noise end of the sound spectrum, but likewise takes a great deal of inspiration from the diabolic filth of ancient, dissolving Finnish black/death demos. This sonic abhorrence crawls before the cracked and damaged altars of Macronympha, the no-fi bestial hiss of the earliest Beherit demos, classic Japanese noise a la Pain Jerk and Incapacitants, and the aura of eighth-generation dubs of Archgoat rehearsal tapes, all grown together into a swollen, pulsating, cancerous mass of cacophonous horror.

The EP is available on 3" CD in DVD-size packaging, hand-numbered in an edition of 90 copies. Sacrament is also available on audio cassette in a limited run of 100 copies, with a bonus tape-only track on the B-side titled "Enfolded In The Engorged Lips Of Kali", another nineteen-minute harsh blackened heavy electronics meditation that was recorded around 2010. Both the 3" CD and Cassette versions of Abortion Sacrament include full-color inserts and a vinyl Cremation Grounds sticker.

The latest repress circa 2022, on blue marble vinyl.

Elder's latest slab of swirling downbeat metal follows up their Dead Roots Stirring album with a two-song ascent into more atmospheric territory. Released on vinyl only, the record begins with "Spires Burn", a slow-burning epic with all of the ingredients that make Elder one of the best current doom bands here in the States: those clear, powerful vocals that mesh perfectly with the soaring psychedelic leads and triumphant riffage so imbued with an aura of classic heavy metal; the sudden pitches into seriously-dark Sabbathian creep that the band contrasts with their slightly sunnier, more fist-raising anthemic moments; the swirling space-rock effects that come sweeping over the burning towers and scorched wastelands alluded to in the lyrics; and of course, the absolutely crushing riffage that evokes the meditative bulldozer crush of Sleep. And this song is some of the most rocking stuff I've ever heard from these guys, with some moves into grungy, shoegazy textures toward the end that sort of reminds me of a much heavier Smashing Pumpkins riff.

Then there's the beginning to the second side, where "Release" opens up with an amazing melodic intro that's all cascading clean guitars and dreamy, chiming melody - its goddamn fantastic. This swirling melody works its way into the main part of the song as the whole band locks into this killer Kyuss-esque psych-crush that's equal parts soaring, occult-tinged rock and pulverizing Sabbathian low-end, the guitars spinning out these killer melodic leads later in the song that fall somewhere between Josh Homme and J. Mascis. Elder have never sounded so accessible as they do here, but it's simply based on the strength of the songwriting, definitely a big step up from their debut album. The doom is still in here, its just skillfully contrasted with a dark jangly rock sound that comes together just about perfectly on this record. One of the best new doom releases for 2012 alongside the new Pallbearer album.