New Release Radar: Dark, Heavy Winter Winds

Seven short reviews featuring Beware, Dejecter, Skaldr, Mnajdra, TFNRSH, Noctambulist, and Shagor

I don’t know about your part of the world, but it’s been a pretty frigid winter here in mine. The boreal setting accentuates this present spiritual darkness. As cold winds blow heavily across the ridges, here’s some new music that will provide an appropriate soundtrack to the throes of the season in which life lies dormant.

Beware – Never End for None of Us

Release Date: 16 Jan 2025
Location: Birmingham, England, UK
Label: independent

This EP absolutely crushes! England’s Beware blurs genre lines across noise rock, hardcore, post-metal, industrial, and death metal, casting them all into a veritable melting pot of loud, experimental heaviness. Parenthetical ambience sandwiches aggressively anguished vocals and a cargo ship load of pulverizing tonnage in the instrumentation. The release’s brevity and its tension-relieving interludes are the only things offering the listener relief from the immeasurable weight it bears.

Dejecter – Oblation Husk

Release Date: 31 Jan 2025
Location: Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Label: independent

If you thought that was heavy, brace yourself for Dejecter, an up-and-coming band that’s like Crowbar on crack laced with formaldehyde. This is mind-bending death-sludge unlike anything I’ve ever heard. Dynamic shifts, from low and slow gurgling dirges to deathly blast beats, and injections of progressive intermezzos draw the listener in like a predator lures its prey. I can hardly express with words just how hard this EP goes. Here’s hoping these guys have a full-length in the not-too-distant future for insatiable consumers of heaviness like us, dear reader.

Skaldr – Saṃsṛ

Release Date: 31 Jan 2025
Location: Virginia, USA
Label: Avantgarde Music

The sophomore full-length of Virginia-based black metal artisans, Skaldr, is, indisputably, one of the best of January in its genre. Marked by grainy vocals, intricately layered guitars, technically adept drumming, and gripping compositions, this is black metal delivered in an uncharacteristically tasteful way. The basslines anchor the melodies smoothly but come to fore at times, for example in the third track, “From Depth to Dark.” The band’s songwriting prowess shows potential to reach soaring heights, as exhibited on “Parasite,” making them worthy of following closely in the years ahead.

Mnajdra – The Lady of Verdala

Release Date: 31 Jan 2025
Location: USA
Label: Snow Wolf Records

Elements of doom, sludge, death, and post-metal seep into a palette of psychedelic, atmospheric black metal to make this two-track EP eerie yet entrancing. Unhinged vocals are low in a mix dominated by echoey effects, thick strings, and frenetic drums. Melodic keys subtly adorn As I listen, I am reminded at times of early Inter Arma, a comparison I don’t often make. That should be enough to encourage folks to give this a listen. What it lacks in length it makes up for in depth.

TFNRSH – Book of Circles

Release Date: 17 Jan 2025
Location: Tübingen, Germany
Label: independent

Book of Circles, the latest LP from German rockers, TFNRSH (short for Tiefenrausch which translates to “deepening”), will act as a lighter sort of palate cleanser at the end of a barrage of heaviness. But don’t let comparisons fool you. There’s a different sort of heaviness going on here that is tangible as you get into the opening track, “Zemestån.” The trio serves up instrumental psychedelic art rock that is atmospheric in as palpable a way as a dense mountain fog. Spacy synths are liberally deployed over equal parts dirty and clean guitars. Crisp percussion and popping bass give depth to the otherwise airy sounds occupying the treble clef. Progressive influences are evident throughout, most notably in the guitar leads and polyrhythmic drumming. They openly pay homage to bands like Elder, Slift, Tool, and Russian Circles, indicative in the quality and care with which their music is composed and produced.

Noctambulist – Noctambulist II: De Droom

Release Date: 7 Feb 2025
Location: Tilburg, North Brabant, Netherlands
Label: These Hands Melt

The second LP from Dutch post-black peddlers, Noctambulist, is a soundscape of interwoven melodic leads on a canvas of oft-punishing percussion, cavernous bass, and gnarly rhythm guitar. The band openly embraces its post-punk and shoegaze influences, while leaning lyrically into themes of hope and heartbreak amidst the mundane struggles of everyday life. The vocals are moody, appropriately shifting from gristly to clean as the context determines. This album is polished and should get be getting early AOTY attention in many circles.

Shagor – Lyksalver

Release Date: 8 Feb 2025
Location: Netherlands
Label: Vendetta Records

We go to the Netherlands again for our final offering of the day. There’s no sophomore slump for Shagor with Lyksalver. The album title is a word that means “anointing oil” in Danish, not Dutch, alluding to the kind used on corpses to cover the stench of decay. It’s a fitting title for an album that, musically speaking, is an aromatic balm of melody and harmony slathered onto a skeletal black metal cadaver that exudes dissonance and primal ferocity. The vocals are strikingly compelling, as if reanimating a stiff that, for some of us, seems never to be fully lifeless. Masterful drumming, intriguing chord progressions, ambling basslines, and high-fidelity production are thrown into a fiery cauldron. (I have to mix metaphors here to accommodate the album cover art.) The result is a spellbindingly sinister brew that is sure to have an impact on your ability to finish a coherent sentence. (Hey, maybe that’s what’s wrong with me.)