Nikolay Seredov is a (pretty young) guy from the Southern part of the small country Russia, and active in several combos out there. Besides being involved with e.g. Taiga and Stakhanovtsy, he’s also known as the sole member of Funeral Tears, an outfit which he started in 2007.
Finnish horde Gloomy Grim were formed in 1995 by Juha ‘Agathon’ Hintikka, who was in bands like Airdash and Corporal Punishment back then, and known for his membership (little later) in known acts like Thy Serpent, Walhalla and Soulgrind (of which he is still a member, like some other former or current Thy Serpent and Gloomy Grim members).
Aleksey from Satanath Records did sign the duo Lava Invocator in order to release their debut via this open-minded Saint-Petersburg located Metal label.
As you can read in my review for Necroheresy’s debut Divine Betrayal (published on June 16th 2015), I was very pleased by the intensity and craftsmanship of this Slovakian band. Those actual and former members of e.g. Karpathia, Silva Nigra, Evil Dead and Aeon Winds did convince me, so I was impatiently waiting for some new material. It took a while, but here they are, once again, with their first full length.
Soul Extremist is the very first release by a young duo (I do not know whether the members are young – just like I am – but the project was formed in 2015, and that’s what I meant with ‘young’ – except, once again, compared to my juvenile virility…). They’re called Temple Of Nihil, hailing from the Kaluga Oblast, somewhere in between Moscow at the one hand, and Ukraine and Belarus at the other.
Zurvan are an act that originates from Persian soil, but in mean time the main member moved over to Germany. Yet still, the core lies in Iran. Nowadays, there are some more combos and projects coming from those areas, and I do appreciate quite a lot of them, whether dwelling in spheres of Funeral Doom / Black Metal, or rather Drone / Ambient / Noise laden stuff. For sure, there’s a modest, somewhat hidden, yet quite potential scene going on out there in Iran. Zurvan surely are part of that current.
‘Les Fleurs Du Mal’ is the title from a collection of works by no-one else but Monsieur Charles Baudelaire, and now it is the title for a new album by Ukrainian project While They Sleep as well. This outfit of Kvolkaldur (he acted under the monikers Ildverden and Prosopagnosia too in the (recent) past) did release a first album in Spring 2016, but due to circumstances I had not the ability to write anything down about that material (yet I did listen to it several times, and I liked it).
For one reason or another, Satanath Records and sub-label Symbol Of Domination Productions have some secret passion for the Costa Rican Extreme Metal scene.
I knew an act from Brazil called ColdBlood, being active during the first half of the Nineties. And because this release (which was send to me, the kind way, by my dear colleague Aleksey K. from e.g. the Abigorum project and Satanath Records), did deal with a Rio De Janeiro based act with the very same name, I was kind of wondering: is this the very same band? So, here I seemed to suffer from a period of total amnesia.
The origins of Enoid go back to the mid-nineties, when Sergio ‘Bornyhake’ Moplat started the project Pest. This Swiss guy is or was in many extreme projects, but I think Enoid, which actually is the successor of Organ Trails, with Organ Trails being the follow-up of higher mentioned Pest, might be one of the best known ones he’s involved with, and for sure one of the best.
