Skaphos – The Descent (Self-Released)
Tag Archives: death metal
Reeking Aura – On The Promise Of The Moon (Profound Lore Records)
Label Description:
REEKING AURA, a 5 piece death metal group made of seasoned veterans from the NY/NJ underground scene, returns in 2026 with their second album On the Promise of the Moon to be released on April 17th via Profound Lore Records. Tracked at OK Studios in Kinderhook, NY then mixed and mastered by the legendary Dan Swano, On the Promise of the Moon builds on the “Fires in Deep Frost” EP released in 2025 with a dark, melodic atmosphere that does not compromise their brutal, guttural NY roots.
Returning from the first album are guitarists Terrell Grannum (Thaetas), and Rick Habeeb (Grey Skies Fallen) as well as vocalist William Smith (Afterbirth). Drummer Hudson Barth and bassist TJ Coon (both also in Trog) round out the lineup and bring fresh blood to the band, with all members having contributed to the writing process.
The album also features contributions from guest vocalists Eston Browne (Vulnificus) and Jon Berg (The Path) as well as string arrangements by Ben Karas (Slaughtersun).
Returning from the first album are guitarists Terrell Grannum (Thaetas), and Rick Habeeb (Grey Skies Fallen) as well as vocalist William Smith (Afterbirth). Drummer Hudson Barth and bassist TJ Coon (both also in Trog) round out the lineup and bring fresh blood to the band, with all members having contributed to the writing process.
The album also features contributions from guest vocalists Eston Browne (Vulnificus) and Jon Berg (The Path) as well as string arrangements by Ben Karas (Slaughtersun).
Aduanten – Apocryphal Verses (Self-Released)
Label Description: Aduanten, the melodic death metal project featuring members of Obsequiae, Vex, Panopticon, and Horrendous, unleashes its full power on the new album, ‘Apocryphal Verse.’ Combining ferocious, intricate riffs with a profound sense of sorrow and hopelessness, Aduanten crafts a sound that is both aggressive and beautifully melancholic. This is melodic death metal at its most potent and atmospheric. As a bonus, all CD and vinyl purchases will also include the band’s acclaimed debut EP, ‘Sullen Cadence,’ as bonus tracks. For fans of Dissection, Eucharist, Sacramentum, and Obsequiae.
Tribal Gaze – Inveighing Brilliance (Nuclear Blast)
Noise Trail Immersion – Tutta la Morte in un solo punto (I, Voidhanger Records)
Label Description:
NOISE TRAIL IMMERSION are back on the scene with “Tutta La Morte In Un Solo Punto,” a visceral and uncompromising album that wants to get straight to the listeners’ stomachs rather than their heads, channeling all the pain, chaos and inscrutability that characterize the depths of the human soul into extremely chaotic and short tracks.
A new turning point in the musical journey of NOISE TRAIL IMMERSION, “Tutta la Morte in un solo punto” transfigures the spiritual component added by “Curia” (2021) to the Italian band’s music, in some ways resuming the cavernous, furious and desperate approach of “Symbology of Shelter” (2018), but without its more nihilistic component.
The idea was to express a deep suffering, even violent and furious, but still an integral part of a cathartic vision, which sees the human experience at its center, in a continuous dialogue and clash between matter and spirit.
Musically, the research focuses on condensing the climaxes of the tracks in specific moments, in which intricate but memorable guitar riffs take center stage, with refined harmonies and continuous interlocking, suspended in a perpetual tension between dissonances… more
All music and lyrics by Noise Trail Immersion
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Andrea Fusini at Fusix Studio
Cover artwork by Bodyhaters
Visual design by Francesco Gemelli
Tribunal – In Penitence and Ruin (20 Buck Spin)
Label Description:
Tribunal returns with their sophomore album, ‘In Penitence and Ruin’, an elegy most grievous and forlorn, descending deeper into the solemn abyss of woe. 2023’s debut ‘The Weight of Remembrance’ set a high bar for the Canadians becoming one of the year’s most notable and praised Doom releases, leading Decibel Mag to include the band’s new album in their annual list of most anticipated releases. Tribunal have taken their time and crafted an opus of enormous scope to echo evermore through halls long abandoned.
Conjured by the band’s new form as a fully fleshed out five-piece, ‘In Penitence and Ruin’ has a wider lens of cohesion and maturity weaving together the widow’s wail of doleful strings, chilling keys and percussion that tolls like the iron bell of fate. These elements ornament the monolithic foundation of crushing dirge and funereal melodies hewn from the marrow of sorrow itself. A conceptual piece, the songs form a cycle that ruminates on justice and punishment, centering on a guilty Penitent who cannot escape what they have done. The duality between the wistful, impassioned singing of vocalist / cellist / bassist Soren Mourne and agonized growls from guitarist / vocalist Etienne Flinn bind with resolute tread and stride forth into darkness, traversing a path lit only by the pale glow of distant lament.
Tribunal hath wrought a requiem most dire where beauty and ruin become one and in doing have forged a second album beyond expectations, bold in its exploration of timeless human flaws and eminently listenable as a scripture of loss. Like ivy upon the tombstone, ‘In Penitence And Ruin’ winds slowly but inexorably towards spectral grandeur and eternal oblivion.
credits
released April 18, 2025
Tribunal is:
Soren Mourne – bass, cello, vocals
Etienne Flinn – guitar, vocals
Jessica Yang – guitar
Dallas Alice – keys
Julia Geaman – drums
Additional vocals performed by Rory Say
Produced by Tribunal and Jesse Gander
Drums recorded by Jesse Gander at Rain City Recorders
Mixed by Jesse Gander at Rain City Recorders
Mastered by Greg Chandler at Priory Recording Studios
All music and lyrics written by Tribunal
Cover painting and lettering by Soren Mourne
Layout by Chimere Noire
Photography by Sav Bagshaw
Nails – Every Bridge Burning (Nuclear Blast)
Label Description:
For the first time in over 8 years, the blistering assault on our nervous system that can only be described as the sound of NAILS, has reemerged. With Carlos Cruz on drums, Andrew Solis on Bass, Shelby Lermo on Guitars, and Todd Jones on guitar & vocals, the upcoming studio album, EVERY BRIDGE BURNING, will be revealed August 30th, 2024 via Nuclear Blast Records.
For this 4th full length album, NAILS have channeled raw emotion into tracks like “Imposing Will”, a seismic event in the realm of sonic aggression; igniting the pulse, and fueling a fire of hostility. “[This track is] special to the record in that I knew we wanted it to be the opener,” explains founder Todd Jones. “We wanted it to have the effect of an urgency; an immediacy in the music itself. When you push play, you get smacked in the face.”
Similarly, “Give Me the Painkiller” hints at an intricate groove while simultaneously causing the urge to peel your skin off. There exists a wild energy that according to Jones is the band’s “most expressive guitar playing” in their history. Plunge into “Punishment Map”, and confront the decades of misery brought about by Golden State serial killer Joe D’Angelo—a relentless descent into the abyss of human suffering. The guitar work on EVERY BRIDGE BURNING is an expansive force in its own right, epitomized in tracks like, No More Rivers to Cross. Here, NAILS masterfully navigates
a spectrum of moods, showcasing fluidity and intensity that is quintessentially NAILS yet profoundly evolved.
The album artwork, a creation by Jeff Whitehead, serves as a visual prelude to the auditory chaos—a stark representation of the aural brutality that NAILS delivers. “I really wanted to work with Whitehead again,” explains Jones. “I wanted the artwork to represent the sound of NAILS visually, and to reference the same figure from our last
album cover.”
The writing process for this album was no different than in record cycles of the past. The foundations of songs are born from riffs, and it is around these riffs that entire tracks are eventually composed. “Our writing process is about building songs,”
explains Jones, “not just sitting down and writing them straight through all at once.”
Recording for the album commenced in Massachusetts at God City Studio with Kurt Ballou (of CONVERGE), whose contribution is integral to the NAILS sound, as elucidated by Jones: “we’ve recorded every album with Kurt. He’s such an important ingredient as to how we present our music. When our fans want to hear NAILS, they
want to hear something that is through the filter of Kurt’s engineering.”
Most importantly, EVERY BRIDGE BURNING was born out of unwavering dedication to NAILS fans and the underground music scene. It echoes their commitment to authenticity and raw power. NAILS remains a beacon of rebellion and resilience in a
world hungry for genuine expression. With no shortage of effort or meticulous song
arrangement, the time has arrived to become engulfed in the ferocity of NAILS once again as EVERY BRIDGE BURNING unveils a new, but familiar chapter in extreme music.
“This band was modeled after some of my favorite bands; the type of bands where, when they put out an album, you know what it’s going to sound like,” describes Jones, “it’s the delivery of the expectation.” The sensory destroying musical onslaught that we’ve all been missing is back. NAILS is Todd Jones, Carlos Cruz, Andrew Solis, and
Shelby Lermo.
Civerous – Maze Envy (20 Buck Spin)
Label Description:
Upon hearing ‘Decrepit Flesh Relic’, the first album from Civerous, one was left with a feeling of intense suffocating weight and agonal(sic) prostration in the service of bone-breaking death hymns. With the towering new album, ‘Maze Envy’, LA’s most creatively destructive Death / Doom ensemble let loose a freshly evolved but no less brutal conflagration of immersive horror and morbid lamentation.
Where Death / Doom may often stay in safe and unadventerous realms of narrow focus, Maze Envy’ presents a more far-reaching breadth of ambition, where unusual technicality, progressive atmospheres, string flourishes and chaotic mysticism radiate a purple light of the soul’s ascension from the black oceans of dread Civerous inhabit. Chain-dragging dirge, blackened blasting, and the savage ferocity of Lord Foul’s hellish vocal exorcisms exalt ‘Mazy Envy’ with a hellish grandeur within its myriad paths to oblivion.
With a massively crushing sound, ‘Maze Envy’ is end times music for an age in which that reckoning feels unfathomably close. Civerous batter the senses into a state of labyrinthian turmoil from which emergence is ever more implausible.
Editor’s Note: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
