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…
I did not know the band with the unpronounceable name H, even-though they were already formed in 2015 or so. But that can be, for they did not release anything official yet until now. This Italian act was ‘born with the idea to create something extreme that fits both their musical inspiration and tradition’. The main intention was to establish a concept based on John’s The Apocalypse - the biblical epos, if you want to - written by one of the ‘legendary’ evangelists.
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.
A short one…
It would be a waste of time to spent my time and energy in writing a biography / discography about one of Portugal’s best known and most notorious bands. Personally, I do follow Corpus Christii as from their debut Saeculum Domini, more than two decades ago (though, I admit that I do not have all of their releases in my collection (yet), apparently). And now they have returned with a ninth full-length album after signing to Immortal Frost Productions, a Flemish label with a limited yet enormously cool roster.
About nine years ago, two friends joined forces under the banner of Lichtblick. In 2015, founding members M. and A. and newly recruited musicians J. and D. recorded and released their debut, i.e. the independently released EP Feel Free To Lose Your Life. Some line-up changes happened, but with a renewed stable line-up, Lichtblick released their first full-length in 2018. Phrenesis too was independently released by the band itself.
I won’t go too deep at all into this band’s biography / discography, because you do know this Italian act for sure (in two years, these guys will celebrate their three decades of existence!), and it would bring me too far. I’ll go to the content immediately, and this time it deals with a compilation, actually, i.e. a collection of new and live tracks gathered as Rustworn.
Introduction: after a very long time of abyssal emptiness and silentium, Muert finally come back with a fourth full-length album; the first new studio release after 2017’s Ye Canariae Abezan (released via the mighty and quite ‘old’ Dutch Extreme Metal label Hammerheart Records).
Despite having some Gotmoor members in its ranks, it would be too easy (and incorrect) to consider Darkest Mind as a side-project of aforementioned top-act. The story started in 2014 or so, when Yuri ‘Y’ started this outfit as a solo-expression of the ideas he had. Actually, he wasn’t part of Gotmoor’s line-up yet, back then, which proves my former statement (about the ‘side-project’-thing).
When it comes to the name ‘Gurthang’ in terms of Tolkien worship, I won’t go too deep into the matter this time. ‘Gurthang’ was a legendary sword owned by Túrin Turambar, hero and protagonist in a tragic story – but even-though I am a dedicated Tolkien-fan, this review does not deal with the great books of that writer.
