Being inspired by the combative spirit and the pristine wilderness of his homelands, being the region of Novosibirsk, Nikolay ‘SiN’ created an eighth full-length that goes on in the vein of the past. Active since 2005, Astarium did create an own approach of Atmospheric Ambient Black Metal; but I’ll go deeper into the matter immediately. First some details about this album’s administration.
I did mention the name of Vladimir Prokofiev a couple of times before. However, this was linked to his visual art for cover paintings / drawings. Vladimir is the guy behind the famous Paint-It-Black Design, known for his works for albums by bands like A Thousand Sufferings, Taiga, Vehementor, Ethir Anduin, Istina and many more.
(older release, yet always worth being promoted and supported)
Ángel Chicote is a talented musician from Spanish soil, whom you might know from his current or previous collaborations as / in e.g. Graveyard Of Souls, Mass Burial, Aural Butchery or Ad Nebula Nigra, amongst others. Ángel is also the human being behind Ornamentos Del Miedo (meaning something like ‘ornaments of fear’), a project that was formed somewhere in 2017.
After several digitally self-released tracks, the Australian outfit MaziKeen (an archaic Hebrew word meaning something like deleterious soul or detrimental spirit) signed to Satanath Records from St. Petersburgh in order to release their first official full-length album; it’s a cooperative happening with Iron, Blood And Death Corporation from Mexican soil.
The Russian outfit Ethir Anduin was formed about fifteen years ago (2006) by some Alexey Veselov aka Fenrir. He’s also in Bestial Deform and very recently he joined Atra Haeresis. Throughout the years, Ethir Anduin did release more than a handful of full-lengths, quite some EP’s and some digital singles. I have not always been the biggest ‘fan’ of this act, yet as from a couple of years, the evolution is remarkable; at least, that’s my personal opinion, for what it’s worth.
Due to health-related circumstances within my family, I am working / I try to work away my delayed reviews for a label, or better, a cooperative of labels, that I adore for several reasons: the varied sonic approaches, the open-minded support, and last but not least, the wonderful guy behind these labels, Mister Aleksey ‘Satanath’ Korolyov. Anyway, whatever, thank you, and stuff…
Even-though it’s been more than a year, I will write several reviews on stuff released by GrimmDistribution (and the sister-labels involved) from ‘back then’. Mártír is one of those releases that does deserve any additional support by undersigned (for what it’s worth).
Hailing from Rome, Italy’s capital city, Invernoir is quite a young band that includes current and former members of e.g. Ars Onirica and Black Therapy. As a quintet, they independently released a three-track EP in 2018 (actually three tracks and an outro, to be honest), aptly titled Mourn – a title that surely points the musical direction where we have to define this band. After a few line-up changes, the band decided to enter the studio in order to record their debut full-length.
Haissem is a solo-outfit by some Andrey V. Tollock, whom you might know from another one-man army too, i.e. Doom-Death project Sunset Forsaken. Haissem however is more productive and diverse, and throughout six years of existence, more than a handful of somewhat differing recordings got released. Amongst those last year’s Kuhaghan Tyyn, available physically via Saint-Peterburg’s Satanath Records.
