Ivan Tibos.

I can’t say much about this Portuguese band – who are they (or is it a one-man army), where do they (he / she) come from, what’s the story behind the project, and so on. The only thing I know is that Adverso did release a first demo (on tape), called Bringer Of Death, at the very end on 2017 via Purodium Rekords (also from Portugal’s black-scorched soil), and this very same label recently released the sophomore demo-tape, Ex Inanis (which is Latin for ‘from the void’, or ‘from emptiness’).

Cardinal Roark are a pretty young band from Québec, Canada. The band was formed in 2015 by Dominic ‘DooM’ St-Laurent to play some stuff he had in mind, yet which did not fit in one of the other bands he is involved with (c.f. Succubus Irons, Doom’s Day and Wrath Of Echoes).

Of Wolves And Men is the first official full length (aka EP, but the album lasts for more than thirty-five minutes, so it is not exactly an EP – yet that’s a discussion not of importance right here, right now) by DXVXDXD SXLF. The band’s name in fact comes from The Divided Self: An Existential Study In Sanity And Madness, one of the earliest works by British author / psychiatrist / philosopher R.D. Laing.

Despite being formed more than a decade ago, Krasnoyarsk-based duo Истина (aka Istina, which is Russian for ‘truth’) has not such a huge curriculum vitae. But hey, that’s all about the philosophical question: do you prefer quantity or quality? Since I do absolutely and deeply prefer the latter, quality, I am glad that this band focuses on a long-time writing and recording process rather than releasing an overload of inferior stuff.

Just two months after their grandiose debut The Syncretic Labyrinth (released via Spain’s Sphingidae and Germany’s Attenuation Circuit, home to Emerge), the Spanish project Sudaria returns with Lucid Nightmares, a monstrous successor of the debut for sure. This second effort is available digitally via the Bandcamp page of the project itself, as well as the label involved, and the latter, Russia’s finest Frozen Light, also took care of the compact disc edition.

At the feet of the Alpes, covered in snow and veiled by icy winds… A Beautiful area, unspoiled nature, nice food, splendid wines (though…) and Walküre… Welcome to Saint-Etienne…

This is a nice surprise! A new Vidres A La Sang came my way, and I wasn’t even prepared for these Catalans’ return… What a nice surprise, as I said…

Aaargh, this has been such a long time… Finally, after a hiatus of more than seven, almost eight years, Suomi-based horde Cavus finally returns with their second full length album, after the untitled EP from 2009 and their full-length debut Fester And Putrefy in Autumn 2010 (Listenable Records) – which was, by the way, followed by a European tour with no one else but the sweeties of Gorgoroth.

A short while ago, Dutch act Hadewych started a series of live performances, with an extended set of drummers and percussionists, in order to create something overwhelming and majestic. For a part, these gigs were exercised before, yet there was quite some improvisation involved as well.

It has been a long time (almost eight months – sad smiley…) that I did write a review for Distant Voices, a very unique label from the South of France. The label releases happy Pop Music… Nope, not at all! The label releases dark and obscure Music, from integer Contemporary Classical and Ambient to harsh Black Metal and DSBM. Their trademark, however, has to do with the physical formats especially: all of them, without exception, are handmade (going for both tapes and compact discs).