Purification through fire! Rebirth through flames!
For an introduction on this Italian act (like ‘formed in 2020 as a duo’, and that kind of interesting stuff), I’d like to refer to my review on this band’s debut-EP, ingeniously called Pyra (link: see below).
Dutch act Infinity started almost three decades ago and still consists of two of the original members: Draconis (okay, he left this project for a while) and Balgradon Xul. During the first decade of this millennium, they did record four albums, yet as from then on, they did take their time before releasing new material. In this case, we, the impatient audience, had never awaited so long, for it has been six years (and a couple of times) before we could now, finally, bit welcome to this band’s seventh full-length studio album.
Since I was quite impressed by Blood Oath and (especially) by With Hoof And Horn, I did look forward to listening to this newest album by the trio Rituals Of The Dead Hand. Well, after a couple of listens, my appreciation for this act has not disappeared; on the contrary.
Country (for what it’s worth): Italy
Members: Xes (vocals), Nekroshadow (guitars), Apsychos (guitars) and new (on this recording) members Postmortem (drums) and Asdraeth (bass guitars)
Engineering / mix / mastering: Christian d’Onofrio (Atrocity Exhibition Studio)
Artwork: Zizi Amri (cover artwork) / Apsychos (layout & design; adjusted by WrathDesign)
Quite recently, Immortal Frost Productions introduced me to a new project, which is called Bloedmaan. It’s Dutch for blood moon, by the way. I did not know this act, but apparently it is a new outfit by no one else but Ronarg, whom you might know from Antzaat and Ars Veneficium as well. Both these two bands are signed to Immortal Frost Productions, and the owner of this label, S., is part of the Ars Veneficium line-up too.
The Canary Islands (Tenerife, Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, La Palma etc.) are usually associated with hot bitches, sorry, hot beaches, happy-hour-cocktail-binge-drinking-sh*t, and mass tourism. Okay, this has somewhat of an exaggeration, for there are some calm traditional villages out there, as well as truly beautiful national nature parks / wildlife, and above all, a guy called Ronald Rodriguez.
Expect nothing, receive nothing!
I will keep it short and concise, for this Finnish act does not need any introduction anymore. It would be a waste of (my precious) time right now. The same goes for the fine Flemish label that is responsible, once again, for this release. My devotion and dedication go for both band and label, but I’m too lazy right now (haha) to go deeper into their history, biography or discography.
The history of Stuttgart, Germany-based act Beyond Helvete goes back to the second half of the first decade of this century. At that moment, this project was the main outfit by Sven ‘Natrgaard’ Krause and could be considered a renewed direction on top of his (now defunct) outlets Nachtfrost and Zwenz. After some mini and full-length recordings, things went silent. An immense emptiness remained…
When Osmose Productions (not a small player within the scene) offered us the album I - The Serpent at the very end of 2016, the world could make acquaintance with a new Dutch / Italian project, Liber Null. Unfortunately, this project, with members of e.g. Frostmoon Eclipse, faded away for a while, and nothing spectacular did happen anymore.
