Ivan Tibos.

Poland’s Genital Putrefaction are a Death Metal band that existed for a couple of years during the era 1989-1992. They recorded three demos (FYI: Chinese (!) label BrutalReign Productions compiled them on CD in 2013 with The Unholy Decade as working title), but then they split up. However, in 2009 the band was reformed, and in 2012 they released their debut full length, Stworzony Przez Bogów. It was recorded and mixed at the Berlin-based GL Studio and produced by Lech Glogowski in 2010.

Skrømt are a pretty young band (formed in 2011), originally acting as a trio, and now being a quartet. In the beginning Skrømt were meant to be a hobby-project to the members’ other bands (like Lotus, Slug Syndicate or Fatal Frequency). Very recently they recorded their first album, which was originally meant to be a demonstrational recording.

Almost twenty years ago, some artists / musicians from Russia, sharing a common interest in traditional and ritual Music, decided to create stuff that stood miles away from electronic Music. Alexey Tegin studied ancient musical cultures from ancient Egypt, Iran and Tibet, and since he was interested in the Buddhist culture in general, and the BON-tradition more specifically, he named this project after one of the five tutelary deities of the Father Tantra, Phurpa.

Cyclic Law, one of the greatest Ambient / Industrial labels from our era, recently started up a new division, Cyclic Press. It will not focus on sonic supremacy, yet rather on another aspect of spirituality and occultism by releasing books and stuff. And their first release is Inlumaeh, a collaboration in between Krist Mort and Lamia Vox.

Imagine my cosmic joy and happiness… I thought this Swiss band did not exist anymore, since their last album (Dark Space III) was released in 2008. But no need to mourn, because the trio (still the same line-up as in the early years) returns with their fourth album, called Dark Space III I (which sounds more original, let’s admit, than IV, isn’t it). Mind the space in between the first ‘III’ and final ‘I’, by the way…

One of Belgium’s finest (in quite an impressive list of splendid bands and projects, of course) must be Saille, once formed by Dries Gaerdelen in order to pay tribute to bands like Keep Of Kalessin, Tartaros and Limbonic Art. The band recorded two fabulous albums before, Irreversible Decay (2010) and Ritu (2012), both of them released via Code666.

An Unending Pathway is the third album by Atriarch (they released stuff before via same-minded labels Seventh Rule and Profound Lore), and it clocks forty minutes. This album, a seven-tracker, was produced by one of the greatest names within the scene, Billy Anderson. The quartet once again created a very distinctive, own-visionary form of Aural Art, which cannot be labelled as ‘Metal’, yet with pertinent, persistent metalized basics anyway.

Existencial Delirium Records are a very young label from Russia from the Krasnodar-region at the Black Sea and Azov Sea, very close to the Crimea peninsula, and known for the Olympic Winter Games 2014 (in the city of Sochi, at the South of this krai). The label houses several Black and Doom projects, and with several of them label manager Gweld Anobaith is involved.

I knew a Spanish Punk act called Siniestro (a long time ago), but this review deals with a band formerly known as Graverape Ritual. This Swedish project’s name changed into the current moniker in 2012, if I am not mistaken, and Oppression Of The Sunlight is the first release under the current constellation. At the same time it’s the third release on Berlin-based Bleeding Heart Nihilist Productions, a young label that focuses on Extreme Music in general, i.e. Punk, Metal, Crust etc.

Most Black Metal releases that refer to ‘tradition’ are inspired and / or influenced by the so-called Second Wave. Nothing wrong with that, I think, because that early nineties’ current created hundreds of marvellous acts all over the globe, with truly thousands of excellent recordings, back then and still now. But the First Wave isn’t as ‘big’ as the second one. That’s a pity, because without that first wave there wouldn’t be a second one, would it?... However, once in a while my eardrums get satisfied by stuff that just breathes the purest essence of the eighties’ scene.