J. Andrew

There’s a lot of great underground black metal bands out there among the leather-wearing and corpse-painted multitude. This article features music by Riivaus, Nyctophilia, Atra Vetosus, Antimateria, Ühtceare and Nox.

Cosmic Church’s final encyclical is an endlessly immersive work of atmospheric black metal, delivered in a manner that retains the style’s essential rawness and power.

A profile of a group of musical entities from northwestern England, specializing in pure, raw black metal, all under the name Legions ov Darkness.

Ever thought of starting a band that took the best of late-90s black metal and gave it a modern sheen? Well, you’re too late, Aornos already did it.

Check out the premiere of the new track from Age of Taurus, “In Dreams We Die,” and revel in their mix of doom metal riffage and heavy metal power!

Check out “Beyond Death,” from the upcoming reissue of Haunting’s 2014 demo. OSDM done the way it should be: great vocals, great riffs, no nonsense.

Austin Lunn has always been bold. On his latest double-album release, Panopticon’s various elements are allowed to truly soar to the heights of their black metal, post-rock, country and folk glory.

Check out the lyric-video for “Vedestä Vieraantunut,” from Finland’s own Vermilia.

There’s a lot of atmospheric black metal out there these days. But Germany’s Eïs rises above glut by retaining the ferocity of the second-wave sound.

“Slave to the Grind” is a new documentary about grindcore, its history and its place in the wider world of extreme music.

When people tell you they don’t like metal, they might mean they’re not familiar with it. Here’s a way to think about getting people into music that’s new to them.

United Forces was a zine that ran from 1986-1991 out of Brazil and covered the early development of extreme metal, a new book compiles all the issues so readers can get the whole picture.

Check out Midnight’s cover of “Mother of Mercy,” from the Samhain tribute album, “We All Want Our Time in Hell.”

Check out the new split with Crawl and Leviathan for two equally horrifying takes on humanity’s nightmares.

The latest from the influential Czech black metal band creates a mysterious and engrossing atmosphere, but still totally rips.

Cist has taken the science of scorching vocals, gritty guitars ripping out excellent riffs, and a brutal yet precise rhythm section, and turned it into an art.

Alghazanth manages an excellent balance between the raw sounds of the Norwegian second wave and just enough production value to give the music the extra boost it needs to fulfill its theatrical destiny.

According to Jim, the mastermind behind the spooky UK act Primitive Knot, “what I like to do is create collisions between different genres and approaches, as this creates confusion, creative tensions and new psychic spaces.”

With their excellent new album, “Abandoned,” Pillärs has made the dark hardcore album to beat in 2018.

Check out the new video from Retortion Terror, “I Wanna Live,” featuring legendary guitarist Takafumi Matsubara.

Watain’s upcoming album, “Trident Wolf Eclipse,” is a fantastic explosion of straightforward blackened death metal. This return to form is a good chance to think about why some bands do better experimenting, whereas others should stick to what they’re good at.

In anticipation of their latest album, “With Doom We Come,” in 2018, here are 5 great songs to get into Summoning, the masters of Tolkien black metal.

Hear the beginnings of Leviathan’s black metal classic with “The First Sublevel of Suicide,” containing demo recording of the legendary full-length debut.

You can rely on Finland to consistently deliver on a few things: pine trees, winning gold medals at the winter Olympics and producing excellent metal.

Author Aleksey Evdokimov has gathered his doom metal knowledge into a massive 300,000 word monster called Doom Metal Lexicanum, which comes complete with the stories of the bands and select discographies.

Every holiday season has its own hallmarks, the things that you identify with the time to make it complete and recognizable. Valentine’s Day has its ill-advised first dates, Saint Patrick’s day has its ill-advised consumption of Irish Carbombs, Christmas has its ill-advised decision to ever voluntarily listen to Christmas music. Others, like Halloween, are just…

Sure, you probably know about Infest, Charles Bronson, Spazz and Despise You, but not everyone is well versed enough to know about Apartment 213 (or wasn’t old enough to be into them when they were putting out material).

It’s nice to have bands like Khandra around. The Belorussian duo has been quiet on personal details, but loud on creating quality, memorable black metal.

If the glorious new track, “Betrayer” is any indication, Trivium’s new album should be a chance for metalheads to revisit Florida’s metal heroes.

There’s a lot of great music coming out this fall. If you’re into solid, blistering black metal, Asagraum is one band you should not overlook.