Svart Crown – Witnessing the Fall (Listenable Records 2011)

It’s safe to say that the album title suits the content of this bands newest opus of blackened metal brutality. You can feel society fall, the crumbling of the Earth beneath your feet, vast desolate voids open up to swallow you whole, and the charring heat of the firestorms of hatred smelting your skin. There’s no mistaking the animosity and brute force with which this band consumes you with, my skull is throbbing. Experience it for yourself: http://www.myspace.com/svartcrown.

Wormsblood – Mastery of Creation Demos (Barbarian Records)

Although not a new release, this is an essential listen for those into the obscure and bizarre raw black metal and left field metal stuff from Finland (Ride for Revenge, Dead Reptile Shrine, Fleshpress, Skullfuck, Circle of Ouroborous, Irritate, Anguished, etc.). Thankfully not out of print yet and available from retailers like Crucial Blast and Hells Headbangers, you’d be an ass not to jump on this one now if you like any of the already mentioned bands and even throw in some Urfaust for that matter.

The atmosphere is skeletal and spacey, like a deserted dead forest after a huge blaze and the mixture of very stark pagan melodies and simple snare drums help bring a sense of the supernatural to these tracks. Creepy, grim, raw, occult, and just awesome stuff, now that I’ve had the time and am scoring this stuff on vinyl I’m revisiting it and remembering all the chills and shivers from the frosty and barren sounds contained within this album.