With their soon-to-be-released sixth album, The Astral Drain, Canadian black metal quartet Panzerfaust add to their The Suns of Perdition series three years after the first installment, Horrid War, in 2019. The latest epic in the saga is musically dense and complex, a perfect addition to Panzerfaust’s 17-years-and counting career. The Astral Drain, in fact, is less of a black metal album, per se, as a progressive blackened doom album that utilizes elements of modern black metal. The tempos here are typically slower, the overall vibe more apocalyptic than demonic.
With The Astral Drain, these Canadian stalwarts—Brock Van Dijk (vocals/guitar), Thomas Gervais (bass), Goliath (vocals), Alexander Kartashov (drums)—have created an album of great atmosphere, both with music and arrangements, as well as the overall recording and production. It sounds like the kind of album that could only come on the heels of a global pandemic—dark, horrific and hopeless. The nine-track album was produced by Greg Dawson at BWC Studios in Kingston, Ontario, and mastered by Sergei Lazar at CDM Records in Moscow, Russia. It’s set for release on vinyl, CD and digitally via Eisenwald on July 22. You can preorder it here
