Mutant Breakfast

A chunky death metal (DM) groove can be a gateway to stank-faced ecstasy. There’s nothing quite like that moment when the drums lasso a colossal, stampeding riff: heart rates skyrocket, spines quake, and the tiny caverns of the reptilian brain flood with dopamine.  Bastard Mycosis , a new side-project from the Brits who brought us Vaticinal Rites and Vacuous , understand the visceral power of a scuzzed-out DM strut, and wield it well on The Perpetual Harvest .  The gloopy and waterlogged mix, the shambling guitars, and the zombified bullfrog croaks suggest that the band are more than just familiar with Demilich’s swamp hut hoodoo, but the duo are smart enough to know that it takes more than just tweaking the tried-and-true Finndeath formula to captivate a hardened DM fanatic.  Splattering in some curdled Danish “deathgore” a la Sequestrum or Undergang certainly doesn’t hurt, but it’s the lysergic production job by the wizards at Holy Mountain that really se...

Silvaplana is the latest of many projects to emerge from the four fevered minds of Yellow Eyes , with bassist Alexander DeMaria (of Anicon and Urushiol acclaim) drawing from the Odz Manouk playbook to debut with two albums at once. Given the well-earned underground acclaim of Sunrise Patriot Motion ’s blackened post-punk, Ustalost ’s crystalline psychedelia, and Vilkacis ’ minimalist dirges, DeMaria has great expectations ahead of him as part of Yellow Eyes extended black metal canon – a body of work rivalled perhaps only by the members of Krallice or Blut aus Nord . As if to prove DeMaria’s great range both as a solo musician and lone composer, Sils Maria and Limbs of Dionysus are two very different sides of the same cryptic denarius – one trading in desaturated, ghostly tones, the other a roiling, twisting ride. Silvaplana - Sils Maria (Augur Tongues / IARNWITH) Just like the cover art’s depiction of the iconic Hotel Waldhaus (located in the titular Swiss municipality), Sils...

Phantasmal Warfare is the eighth full-length album by raw black metal (BM) act Wraithlord , but the first to register a blip on my radar—and only because I initially mistook the old-world battle art for a new Vassus record. A grave error on my part, as the duo outhustle their peers with a quirky and quicksilver style that upstages the usual lo-fi tape hiss aesthetic with ballsy songwriting and a gauntleted fistful of stropped, sawtooth riffs. Simply put, this is raw BM for people tired of raw-BM tropes—but who also like to play air guitar. Tracks like “Konradin” and “Master of the Whores” unleash lyrical Celtic fretwork in the same vein as  Bogside Sniper Squadron ’s guerilla retro-death/thrash, albeit more blackened in its commitment to the so-called ‘dark ages.’  It’s no surprise that  Wraithlord share a member with folk BM heroes Baazlvaat ; both projects filter Scots-Irish tradition through a kvlt lens. Some agonist lo-fi BM flagellants might be repelled by the rela...

Deep in the labyrinthine abyss of Bandcamp, occupied by über-prolific artists like Colin Marston and Jared Moran , Garry Brents is a name that doesn’t come up as much as it should. Despite his relative anonymity, the Dallas sound engineer and multi-instrumentalist has been busy populating an entire desert island with his eclectic projects, standing as further proof that today’s black metal (BM) pioneers seem bound by a blood pact to release obscene amounts of music. Trhä , Asthâghul , and Déhà have all made recent and regular sacrifices at the altar once frequented by Venom . But like Jute Gyte , Brents already boasted a stacked catalog in the 2010s, thanks to his work in Cara Neir . That two-piece concocted a mix of BM and post-rock that was deliberately distinct from blackgaze, due to its synthetic textures and Bark Psycho tic bass tone corroded in rusty raw-BM production. It was in 2021, however, that he surrendered to the call of Belial for good. Since then he’s been composing, r...

Within the growing horde of synth-toting metalheads, long-running kosmische project Tangerine Dream have become an unlikely touchstone. WIST are their latest acolytes, transmogrified from a ‘mere’ progressive black metal group on their new LP Strange Balance , which teeters delicately between black metal’s moody basements and a laconic hotbox of retro-synth. The second track, “Betrayal,” is perhaps the most compelling demonstration: clean incantations echo while harsh vocals cackle atop a lattice of fuzzy guitar leads and trippy reverb plucking, before the whole tableau melts into a shimmering ambience redolent with New Age soulfulness. The guitars often lean into the atmospherics – heavier, fuzzy riffs have a whiff of the good green, while the more intricate and ethereal plucking recalls the bleeps and bloops of Klaus Schulz ’ modular synth. Of course, these elements may raise alarm bells. ‘Blackgaze,’ that largely abandoned and ultimately inconsequential trend, has perhaps tarnishe...

Consistency and diligence are great virtues in blogging, but perhaps more important than either is a conviction in having something to say. When OG Mutants Crisper, Geccho, and Trojan first conjured this happy (albeit somewhat forsaken) diner, we imagined we had forged a blood pact in the image of big-box blog outlets like Angry Metal Guy, Invisible Oranges, and the Quietus. That aspiration was always a bit of a mirage, for a couple of reasons. First and most obviously, our love of industrial metal could never translate to an industrial capacity in churning out reviews, insofar as we began as three otherwise busy fanatics without any serious ambition of mustering a phalanx of at-the-ready content creators. We’ve garnered some creepy-crawly friends along the way, and we're thrilled about that, but there was never any exchange of promises to push something out on a regular schedule. All along, our goal has been to put out quality reviews of neglected and  misunderstood  offering...

While many black metal (BM) bands were busy last year unleashing boisterous tremolo bonanzas, the lurking warlocks in Crymych carved out a niche for themselves in the crowded world of dark ambient / atmoblack. Contrary to the worn-in routine of welding vibey space drones and elongated pads to oppressive blast-beat savagery (think Kvelgeyst ), the supposed duo approach the genre from the other way around. After a debut dabbling almost exclusively in electronics, their 2022 offering, Endless Fucking Winter , let the pale and repetitive BM elements glow dimly through its fragile ambience. Less than a year later, they’ve taken things to even more dismal extremes. Songs of Sistrum is not a breakout album by any stretch of the imagination. Its chiming keys and churning cymbals are forever condemned to ring the sewers underground. As if trapped on a quarter-inch reel tape, Crymych screech and hiss, suppressed and distant, like demented wraiths under your bed. The profound atmosphere that made...