Ivan Tibos.

I admit that I had not heard of Zohamah before. Apparently it is an outfit by Hezi Menashe, whom you might know from his collaboration with Folk / Pagan band Romuvos or Death Metal act Spawn Of Evil.

I am a ‘fan’ of Debemur Morti Productions’ roster for almost two decades. No, not every single release is a classic-to-be, but this label did release so many excellent albums in the meantime. One of those was A Sigil Burnt Deep Into The Flesh by Helel, originally released on compact disc (and digital) in very early 2009. It is the band’s sole release until now, except for a compilation (tape + digital late 2014), but officially they did not split up, I think. Never mind…

Vladimir ‘Wolfir’ Prokofiev is a very productive designer and musician. As visual artwork artist, he did create the cover paintings for tens of bands / albums (which I am going to list up), and as musician he worked under different pseudonyms before. But his most active outfit surely is In Tenebriz, which he started in 2005. Throughout the years, In Tenebriz recorded and released more than ten full lengths, many EP and several split-releases, especially during the first half of this decade.

I can’t say much about this Portuguese band – who are they (or is it a one-man army), where do they (he / she) come from, what’s the story behind the project, and so on. The only thing I know is that Adverso did release a first demo (on tape), called Bringer Of Death, at the very end on 2017 via Purodium Rekords (also from Portugal’s black-scorched soil), and this very same label recently released the sophomore demo-tape, Ex Inanis (which is Latin for ‘from the void’, or ‘from emptiness’).

Cardinal Roark are a pretty young band from Québec, Canada. The band was formed in 2015 by Dominic ‘DooM’ St-Laurent to play some stuff he had in mind, yet which did not fit in one of the other bands he is involved with (c.f. Succubus Irons, Doom’s Day and Wrath Of Echoes).

Of Wolves And Men is the first official full length (aka EP, but the album lasts for more than thirty-five minutes, so it is not exactly an EP – yet that’s a discussion not of importance right here, right now) by DXVXDXD SXLF. The band’s name in fact comes from The Divided Self: An Existential Study In Sanity And Madness, one of the earliest works by British author / psychiatrist / philosopher R.D. Laing.

Despite being formed more than a decade ago, Krasnoyarsk-based duo Истина (aka Istina, which is Russian for ‘truth’) has not such a huge curriculum vitae. But hey, that’s all about the philosophical question: do you prefer quantity or quality? Since I do absolutely and deeply prefer the latter, quality, I am glad that this band focuses on a long-time writing and recording process rather than releasing an overload of inferior stuff.

Just two months after their grandiose debut The Syncretic Labyrinth (released via Spain’s Sphingidae and Germany’s Attenuation Circuit, home to Emerge), the Spanish project Sudaria returns with Lucid Nightmares, a monstrous successor of the debut for sure. This second effort is available digitally via the Bandcamp page of the project itself, as well as the label involved, and the latter, Russia’s finest Frozen Light, also took care of the compact disc edition.

At the feet of the Alpes, covered in snow and veiled by icy winds… A Beautiful area, unspoiled nature, nice food, splendid wines (though…) and Walküre… Welcome to Saint-Etienne…

This is a nice surprise! A new Vidres A La Sang came my way, and I wasn’t even prepared for these Catalans’ return… What a nice surprise, as I said…