Release
date: 31.10.2025
Formats: CD / LP / Digital
Genre: Black Metal
Country: Brazil/Germany
Born in São Paulo in 2015, Outlaw began as an eruption of defiance, a
reaction to the rot of conformity. The band’s early fire quickly grew beyond
Brazil, finding a new home in Dresden, Germany, where it evolved into a
sharpened entity of disciplined aggression. Across their previous works, Outlaw carved a reputation for channeling raw
black metal through an unflinching vision, violent, transcendental, and
spiritual. “Opus Mortis” continues this path, pushing further into their unique
union of fury and devotion.
From the
first seconds, “Opus Mortis” burns with deliberate direction. Outlaw’s sound here is mature, not in limitation,
but in focus. The guitars blaze with that cold, northern bite, and there’s
something definitely Brazilian beneath the wild pulse that refuses to be tamed.
D.’s vocals remain the axis, rising venomous
and falling like invocations. T.’s drumming
is relentless, detailed, and thunderous, pushing the songs forward with violence
and grace.
The guests
add new colors to the inferno. Jelle Soolsma (Dödsrit) lends haunting tones to “The Crimson
Rose”, while Lucas Veles’ solo on “A Million
Midnights” burns with eerie beauty. Georgios
Maxouris’ appearance on “Those Who Breathe Fire” deepens the album’s
ritualistic energy, a true communion of kindred spirits across borders. Production-wise,
“Opus Mortis” benefits from Daniel Souza’s
ear for balance and Tore Stjerna’s
mastering, which gives the chaos a tangible form. The sound remains feral but
every instrument holds its space. It’s an album that knows its own strength, just forged in black fire and shaped with
determination.
Across its
forty-two minutes, “Opus Mortis” unfolds like a storm with memorable melodies not
softening the violence, and the atmosphere rises from true belief. Outlaw’s fusion of southern heat and European
discipline results in something fierce and human, a work that channels death,
faith, and transcendence through sound. “Opus
Mortis” confirms Outlaw’s place among modern
black metal’s most authentic voices. It’s the sound of a band that no longer
needs to prove anything, only to burn brighter.
Release
Date: 17 October 2025
Format: Digital / CD
Genre: Experimental Death Metal
Country: Poland
Czart is the creation of Michał
Chrościelewski, an artist from northeastern Poland who blends heavy
music with experimental visual storytelling. His debut album, “Czarty Polskie”,
is a strange and fascinating descent into the folklore of Polish demonology,
brought to life with guitars and algorithms. The project uses artificial
intelligence not as a gimmick, but as a symbolic mirror of the “unnatural,”
tying perfectly into the old Polish myth of devils shaping bodies from vapor.
The album’s
concept is rooted in Julian Tuwim’s 1924
book “Czary I Czarty Polskie Oraz Wypisy Czarnoksięskie”. That literary
connection gives the work a sense of historical weight and poetic eeriness. The
lyrics, sung entirely in Polish, add a haunting layer of authenticity. They
sound like fragments of ancient incantations carried through heavy distortion
and primal rhythm.
Musically,
“Czarty Polskie” is an intense hybrid. Death metal and sludge form its
backbone, while hints of 70s psychedelic rock give it an unpredictable, almost
dreamlike texture. The songs are short, raw, and packed with motion, often
under three minutes, which keeps the experience brisk and feverish. “Ballada O
Spalonych Kwiatach” and “Czarcia Kołysanka” are prime examples of how the
project balances heaviness with eerie melody. “W Głębi Boru Ciemnego” feels
like a night walk through a cursed forest, brief but unsettling.
There’s an occult
aura in the entire album, an impression that every sound is part of some
forbidden invocation. The AI-assisted production adds a surreal glaze to the
sound, giving it an otherworldly shimmer that blurs the line between man and
machine. “Czarty Polskie” is not an easy listen at all, its roughness and
brevity work in its favor, creating a concentrated dose of chaos that’s authentic
to its mythological subject.
Blaze’s story goes back to the end of the 90s in
Osaka, Japan, when guitarist Hisashi Suzuki teamed
up with Wataru Shiota, Kenichi Kuwahara, and Tsuneo
Shibatani. Their beginnings were humble, playing local shows and
releasing a two-song demo, “See The Light”, in 2001. Over the years, Blaze became known to heavy metal collectors for
their debut album “Blaze” (2007), an album that echoed the classic energy of
bands like Scorpions, Rainbow, and Heavy
Load. With time, a few lineup changes, and some long gaps between
releases, Blaze has kept a loyal following
in the underground scene. Now, nearly two decades later, they return with their
long-awaited second full-length, “Out Through The Door”.
“Out
Through The Door” runs for about forty-five minutes and continues the band’s
devotion to melodic, riff-driven heavy metal with a clear 70s and early 80s
heart. There’s only straightforward songwriting with a lot of honest charm. The
opening track “1335” gives the first impression of what the album is about; instrumental
mid-tempo hard rock energy, and vibrant guitar melodies leading the way.
Blaze’s guitar
work remains their most distinctive element. Suzuki’s
playing balances warm melodic solos with strong, memorable riffs that keep the
songs grounded in the old-school metal spirit. The rhythm section, driven by Kimura and Funabiki,
keeps everything steady, giving the songs a tight and energetic backbone. “The
Man In White Boots” and “Thrilled To Pieces” have the kind of lively energy
that could have been written during the golden age of heavy metal, while
“Picture On The Wall” stretches over nine minutes and gives the band space to
explore their melodic instincts without losing focus.
Vocally, Wataru Shiota brings a lot of personality. His
singing is not much that classic Japanese heavy metal tone but enough emotional,
a bit theatrical, and full of life. He knows how to lift a chorus and how to
deliver softer moments, as heard in “Someone Special” and “Fort Of Sand”, which
balance the album’s harder edges with a more reflective touch.
Production-wise,
the sound stays natural and warm, the way an old hard rock album should. The
mix keeps the guitars forward without burying the rhythm section, and
everything sounds genuine, as if recorded by a band that simply enjoys playing
together. The closing “1335 Reprise” ties the album together nicely, bringing a
nostalgic end to the journey.
“Out
Through The Door” is an album made for listeners who grew up loving classic
metal and hard rock melodies. It may not surprise but may to satisfy, and it
succeeds at that. Blaze delivers a mature
and passionate return that shows their dedication to a style that never fades.
It’s the kind of album you put on when you want to remember why heavy metal
felt so good in the first place.
Niphredil from Ecuador is a band built on
atmosphere and intensity. Their music walks a fine line between haunting beauty
and crushing despair, merging doom metal’s cavernous weight with black metal’s
melodic aggression. Founded with the vision of creating elaborate yet accessible
compositions, the band draws from literary and mystical imagery, making their
music both immersive and deeply reflective.
Their new
release, “Fractures In The Crystal Vault,” contains two tracks. “The Masked
Seer” and “Death By Dreaming.” Together they form a compact but expressive
listen, stretching across 13 minutes that cover a wide emotional and sonic
range. The band uses a combination of synths, programmed elements, and
traditional instruments to build soundscapes that feel vast, heavy, and
sorrowful.
“The Masked
Seer” opens with slow, suffocating doom passages, where guitars grind beneath
thick layers of atmosphere. The rhythm is ritualistic, and the synths move like
dark fog over the composition, adding a supernatural depth. As the song
progresses, the tempo shifts, revealing more melodic patterns that resemble the
melodic black metal influences Niphredil mentions,
Emperor and Altar
Of Plagues come to mind for the melodic phrasing and tension-filled
progressions.
“Death By
Dreaming” expands the vision further. It introduces tremolo-picked sections
that move with urgency, while the doom foundation remains underneath. The
vocals are harsh, distant, almost buried within the mix, giving the impression
of a voice lost inside the music rather than dominating it. The use of melody
here is more pronounced, where the guitars paint an emotional arc that fades
into ambience near the end.
The
production is raw but balanced. It keeps the sound organic and avoids
artificial polish, letting every instrument sit naturally within the haze. The
synth layers are especially well-placed, weaving through the distortion and
rhythm like echoes from another dimension. Even with programmed percussion the
flow remains human.
As a
release, “Fractures In The Crystal Vault” is compact but rewarding. Its 13
minutes leave a strong impression of what Niphredil
is capable of. Grand soundscapes, thoughtful compositions, and a focus
on atmosphere that never collapses into monotony. The music progresses with
intent, and even in its most oppressive moments, it stays engaging.
Niphredil has
managed to condense a wide creative vision, proving that intensity and depth
don’t depend on duration. “Fractures In The Crystal Vault” stands as a striking
example of atmospheric metal delivered with passion and imagination, a brief
descent into a world where sorrow, mysticism, and heaviness coexist naturally.
Formed in 2020, Heteropsy
comes from Japan and share members with Frostvore.
While Frostvore go for the straight Swedish
death metal sound, Heteropsy describes their
approach as “mourning death metal,” combining the heavy buzz of the Boss HM-2
pedal with the slow, dragging sadness of doom. Their sound mixes the bleak
atmosphere of bands like Autopsy and Rippikoulu with the melancholy of Switzerland’s Sadness and the violent edge of early Naglfar. After several short releases, “Embalming”
marks their first full-length album, released via Caligari
Records.
The eight
tracks that make up “Embalming” run for nearly fifty minutes and are drenched
in distortion and decay. The guitars are tuned to sound like machinery from a
forgotten age, grinding and humming through every riff. The drums stomp along
with a ritualistic pulse, creating a sense of repetition that suits the
death-and-decay theme. The bass hums beneath everything, adding weight to the
already oppressive sound. The vocals are buried deep within a tomb, as an
instrument within the chaos.
The
production captures the old Swedish style in its filthiest form, but it’s
handled with enough clarity for every element to sit together without blurring
into chaos. The guitars dominate the mix, buzzing like a swarm of insects over
an open grave. There’s a kind of cold sadness in the melodies that crawl
through “Asphyxia” and “Memento Mori,” while “The Sodomizer” and “Seventh
Damnation” lean on more traditional death metal aggression. The closer, “Old
Friends,” stretches near ten minutes, moving between dirge-like tempos and
sudden eruptions of faster sections, giving the album a fittingly grim
conclusion.
“Embalming”
sounds like a tribute to the death-doom tradition that rose from the Nordic
underground in the 90s, filtered through the strange precision of Japanese
musicianship. The atmosphere is heavy, mournful, and unrelenting, and doesn’t
rely on experimentation. Instead, it locks into its chosen path and follows it
with discipline. The result is an album that drags the listener through its
world of rot and sorrow, one slow riff at a time.
For those
who appreciate their death metal thick, cold, and steeped in despair,
“Embalming” delivers exactly that. It’s not an album with deep analysis but that’s
absorbed in a dark room, where the sound of decay becomes something grimly
mesmerizing. Heteropsy’s debut is a solid release
from a band that clearly understands the bleak power of death and doom merged
into one mass.
Formed in Münster, Germany, Außerwelt has been shaping their sound quietly
since the early 2010s through local shows and short releases that hinted at
something larger. Their debut full-length "Breath" delivers that
promise with precision and emotional gravity. This is a band that has learned
patience, allowing ideas to grow across years of rehearsal rooms and live
experimentation before committing them to tape. The four members—Manuel Klein (guitars, lead vocals), Kris Lucas (drums, piano, clean vocals), Meredith Schmiedeskamp (guitars), and Steffen Wolter (bass)—have built something deeply
personal and unmistakably their own.
"Breath"
unfolds as an immersive hour-long journey through heavy soundscapes that blur
the borders between genres. There’s a strong foundation in post-metal and
blackened textures, but Außerwelt color it
with progressive turns, restrained melodic touches, and moments of fragile
introspection. The contrast between the storm and the calm is central to how
the album works. It’s an experience designed for full immersion, not casual
listening.
The
production, handled in-house and finalized by Dennis
Koehne, gives the music a grounded power. The guitars surge in wide
waves, while the drums punch through with an earthy immediacy. The quieter
passages, piano and subtle atmospheric layers, draw the listener inward before
the heavier passages return like a tide. Nothing sounds overworked, there’s
honesty in how the music interacts, a presence that keeps the album alive.
Lyrically
and conceptually, "Breath" revolves around the act of breathing as a
metaphor for endurance, rhythm, and release. It’s not a rigid concept album,
but a reflection on how the simple act of inhaling and exhaling connects
survival to emotion. Across songs like “Old Dreams Of The West,” “Whiteout
Solace,” and “Eyes To The Sea,” the band moves from meditative calm to moments
of near-chaotic intensity. Every passage contributes to an atmosphere that’s
human and raw. Außerwelt uses heaviness not
just as aggression but as catharsis. There’s weight in the guitars, but also
space for silence and decay. The closing track, “In The Night’s Coating, We
Contemplate Hope,” stretches that idea further, balancing sorrow and renewal in
equal measure.
What gives
"Breath" its strength is not only its musical precision but its
emotional truth. It’s an album about persistence, resilience, and connection,
without falling into sentimentality. Außerwelt’s
approach to extreme music is mature and self-assured, grounded in experience
and introspection.
In a scene
often dominated by noise for its own sake, "Breath" speaks softly and
powerfully. It invites the listener to pause, to listen carefully, and to be
present within its world. Außerwelt has
created something that resonates beyond the genre, music that reflects
struggle, survival, and the strange calm in between.
Kyiv’s Vøvk returns
with their second full-length album, “Litera”, a concept-driven work that binds
together emotion, symbolism, and the raw pulse of Ukraine’s current era. The
trio has always balanced structure with emotional chaos, and this time they
sharpen that contrast through a story told in cycles, drought, fire, flood,
renewal, and back to drought again. It’s less an album of separate tracks and
more an emotional landscape shaped by shifting seasons and inner weather.
From the
first minutes, “Litera” opens like a ritual. The atmosphere is thick, driven by
earthy percussion and layers of guitar that feel organic and unforced. The
production by Roman Bondar (Lizard Audio, Kyiv) gives the songs a physicality,
every bassline hits with the pulse of a living organism, every drumbeat like a
heartbeat echoing in the soil. The sound is neither minimal nor overblown, just
dense enough to hold its weight.
Vøvk’s songwriting
walks a line between accessibility and experimentation. The band draws
inspiration from sources like Mastodon, The Mars Volta, and Deafheaven
but never mimics them. The songs rise and fall in unpredictable waves,
sometimes glowing with melody, sometimes dark and jagged. The rhythm section
holds everything together with a quiet precision, even when time signatures
twist in unexpected ways. The guitar lines act less as leads and more as moving
textures, guiding the listener through each transformation.
The
presence of guest musicians brings depth rather than decoration. Johannes Persson (Cult
Of Luna) appears on “Promin”, his deep voice adding gravity to the
song’s portrayal of perseverance and love for one’s homeland. “Okean”, with Anton Slepakov, closes the album in an
introspective tone, tying the story back to its beginning. The use of choir and
spoken word parts adds warmth and humanity, making the album’s concept feel
communal, not just personal.
This is not
an easy-listening album, and its rhythm is that of inner struggle, sometimes
repetitive, sometimes chaotic, always honest. What keeps “Litera” engaging is
its sense of movement. The awareness that destruction and rebirth are
intertwined. There are no grand conclusions, only cycles that keep turning,
like the seasons or history itself.
For a band
coming from a country living through war, “Litera” feels like a quiet act of
endurance. It’s poetic without being pretentious, heavy without being
oppressive. Vøvk has crafted an album that
speaks less through words and more through textures and emotions. It doesn’t
reach transcendence, but it remains deeply human, a mirror to the world’s
instability and a reminder that renewal always begins in silence.
