Into the Coven
Into the Coven: Erzfeynd & Celestial Sword 12″ Split Premiere
Premiere for the upcoming Erzfeynd / Celestial Sword split.
Into the Coven
Into the Coven: Transilvania – “Of Sleep and Death” Review and Interview
Like their label-mates Malokarpatan, they remind of a time right before the explosion of Norwegian black metal acts, a moment in time where black metal was not clearly defined, and it was not clear how it should sound like. It is in an environment like this that the Hungarian Tormentor could release Anno Domini, a furious, scary album about, who would have guessed, Transylvania. The way Tormentor wrote riffs, bouncing, twisted but still melodic, is one important piece of the sound of Of Sleep and Death, especially on the title track of the album. However, the melodic elements are pushed much further than what Tormentor did, it is more rooted in what Dissection did.
Into the Coven
Into the Coven: Kat – 666 Review
To summarize, this album here is one of the very first black metal releases after Venom and Kat deserves a spot as a pioneer in the genre. It is fast, neck breaking, aggressive, satanic, horror evoking and completely demented album; for all of that, it remains an absolute classic.
Features
Into the Coven: The Year of the Plague (Best of 2020 Releases)
Beneath the land of warriors and magicians where Marco resides and compiles best of traditional heavy metal releases of the past, are the moldy catacombs where darker parts of Ride Into Glory dwell and the occult tunes echo. Here in our coven, we wanted to make a list of best releases of the year of the plague (Best of 2020).
Into the Coven
Into the Coven: Apochryphal Revelation – “Primeval Devilish Wisdom” Album Premiere with Interview
An interview and album premiere for Apochryphal Revelation’s new album “Primeval Devilish Wisdom”.
Into the Coven
Into the Coven: Flame – “Ignis Spiritus” Album Premiere with Interview
Nine years after the previous album “March into Firelands”, Flame is here again with this EP from Finnish label Primitive Reaction and this is, while fairly short, a very welcome addition to their discography. Even the first listen shows that their frostbitten and dark sound is still there and the steel remains.
Into the Coven
Into the Coven: Draghkar – “At the Crossroads of Infinity” Album Premiere and Interview
Full album premiere for Draghkar’s At the Crossroads of Infinity, featuring an interview with primary songwriter Brandon Corsair.
Into the Coven
Into the Coven: Transilvania – The Night of Nights Review
…A band quietly releases an album that sonically sits somewhere between the influences of Bathory, Nifelheim, Tormentor, Dissection, and Mercyful Fate, which successfully conjures the evil atmosphere of spending a night in an abandoned castle in Transylvania where shadows play mind games to trick you that you will never see the sunrise again while wolves are howling outside. And the album goes completely unnoticed, standing against all modern fads and trends, waiting to be discovered.
Into the Coven
Into the Coven: Ljosazabojstwa – “Głoryja Śmierci” Review and Interview
Something that people in underground metal circles love to do is to trace back the sound of a new band to find the origins of influences. What lies at the root is Black Sabbath if you go back enough but the trace lines at this point have branched out so wide that the full map of modern underground metal would be represented with no less than a forest. A particular branch that we are interested in here is the one that goes from ‘80s metal to Mortuary Drape, then to more extreme acts such as Cultes des Ghoules, Spite, or in today’s case, Ljosazabojstwa.
Guides and Primers
Hell Symphony: The Czech Black Metal Sound (Ft. Interviews with Master’s Hammer, Root, and Blackosh)
As black metal began to arise as a global movement in the early 1990s, regional scenes began taking hold. Beyond the infamous Norweigan one, many small regional scenes emerged in Sweden, Finland, Greece, Brazil and perhaps most curiously, the Czech Republic. The scene in this country had its origins in the 1980s as underground tape trading managed to expose a handful to the occult sounds of Venom, Bathory, and Mercyful Fate among others in spite of the restrictions under the iron curtain.