Show 2, Best of 2024, with my #1 band, Spectral Wound (CAN)!
1:46-7:26 SPECTRAL WOUND (CAN), album - Songs Of Blood and Mire The Horn Marauding — Magical black metal that is despaired, intense, and powerful.
8:03-13:40 MODERN RITES (US/Swiss), album - Endless Veil Of Opulence — Melodic black metal crashing down from a storm of clouds.
14:14-21:29 IOTUNN (Denmark), album - Kinship The Coming End — Thunderous vocals in a complex and epic death with grandiose, melodic compositions backed by an insane drummer playing with proggy, intricate rhythms.
21:58-26:22 KERES (Italy), album - Homo Homini Lupus Void and Silence — Ear-worm fun tech melodic death with a maelstrom of hurtling drums, and complex, writhing guitars.
27:19-34:24 LUUSÄKKI (Finland), album - S/T Fifth of the Fifth Columns — A one-person black and death metal with wretched vocals set against creepy noise and bleak black.
35:05-40:13 NIGHTWRAITH (Denver), album - Divergence Perpetual Night — Proggy melodic and flying guitar solos, 70s keyboards and flute with the incredible throaty vocals that we love.
40:39-44:56 THE MOSAIC WINDOW (CA), album - Hemasanctum Incantation to Summon the Unstable — Moody meets groove. Flying thrash guitars and an impassioned vocalist leading us through moments of zen.
45:33-51:11 MÚR (Iceland), album - S/T Múr — Lush black metal for the blackest of skies and the thickest of stars, broken by lurching tempos and rocking riffs.
51:33-57:16 DISLOYAL (Poland), album - Divine Miasmata Religion Of Warfare — Thunderous death, sweeping riffs, a sly and ominous lead vocalist and proggy, dynamic and intricate compositions.
57:44-1:04:07 SEAR BLISS (Hungary), album - Heavenly Down The Winding Path — 70’s style majestic synth and horns that add to their ambient black metal, evolving to chomping, fist pumping earworm and a touch of sludge.
1:04:47-1:10:23 ANOXIDE (UK), album - Morals & Dogma Age of Austerity — Vocals are a punch within uneasy, blistering death with sticatto, djent additions.
1:10:50-1:14:19 CHAT PILE (OK), album - Cool World Shame — Retro-leaning moody melodic hardcore modernized with sludge and noise and 90s indie guitar.
1:14:46-1:19:17 CABINET (US), album - Hydrolysated Ordination Hydrolysated Ordination — Immediate malevolence of death suffocation, but in a meditative lovely way.
1:19:52-1:25:49 BLOOD INCANTATION (Denver), album - Absolute Elsewhere The Message [Tablet I] — Their furnace death metal cut with instrumental twists and 70s krautrock and a splatter of Pink Floyd that creates floating bubbles of synthy metal candy.
1:26:14-1:31:29 VORGA (GER), album - Striving Toward Oblivion Starless Sky — Plenty of heartstrings pulled with chilling notes in hypnotic arrangements, and cool spacy synth creating beautiful melodies.
1:32:07-1:35:52 REPLICANT (NJ), album - Infinite Mortality Nekrotunnel — A best of 2021 band with members in Putrascension, a best of 2023 band. Baritone and screech charges like a warrior within octane intricate technical death and angular tempos.
1:36:23-1:39:36 SUMMONING THE LICH (MO), album - Under The Reviled Throne The Forest Feasts — An incredible live performance, and more of the topnotch dueling vocals and technical at the speed of light.
1:40:12-1:46:57 AKLASH (UK), album - Reincarnation Cossack — Doom, melodic black, psychedelic and folk with horns and accordion that is intense and satisfyingly groovy.
1:47:26-1:51:58 KARKOSA (IN), album - Esoterrorcult Shattered Throne — Compressed rasps and tumbling-forward vocals with an avalanche of lyrics in a wickedly paced black metal with tech death elements.
1:52:24-1:57:29 VOLCANDRA (KY), album - The Way Of Ancients Not Even Death — Knife vocals and bludgeoning baritones create an epic, moody black and death with catchy thrashy awesomeness.
1:57:54-2:04:06 CARRION VAEL (IN), album - Cannibals Anonymous Savage Messiah — In my Best of 2022, this is more excellence. Slaughtering vocal in an explosive tech death with undulating guitars and a raging drummer. The sweet clean vocals add to the dynamic mix.
2:04:30-2:11:58 SELBST (Chile), album - Despondency Chord Progressions The One Who Blackens Everything — Rich instruments stack and become jammy. Epic, plaintive and demanding with vocals that beat its chest on a mountain.
2:12:26-2:21:42 ANTE-INFERNO (UK), album - Death’s Soliloquy Towards Asphyxiating Darkness — Ripped apart by vocal fury, and soothed with deeply disturbed melodic compositions.
2:22:02-2:25:51 SERVANT (GER), album - Death Devil Magick Devil — Rippling guitar in a moody mix of tremelo-heavy black metal and an expressive lead singer.
2:26:18-2:34:09 HIDEOUS DIVINITY (Italy), album - Unextinct Atto Quarto: The Horror Paradox — A balance between a show of power with badass savage riffage and intricate noodle-y compositions. The vocals are a ride.
2:34:33-2:40:55 OUBLIETTE (TN), album - Eternity Whispers Desolate Path — Roars over organic and erupting textural melodic black metal drenching you in its beauty.
2:41:36-END WORMWITCH (CAN), album - S/T Godmaegen — Best Blackened Death in 2019. Another hit into the galaxy of groove and shrapnel hitting you right in the face.