I spent a joyful day yesterday, though I was rooted in front of the TV instead of listening to metal. But the good feeling carried over into this morning as I began listening to things, and in rapid succession found music that just seemed to fit together beautifully for this column. The arc of sounds as I’ve arranged them here was almost exactly the sequence in which I heard them, and I’ve kept it that way even though not everything here qualifies as black metal.

What made the experience even more thrilling was that five of the seven bands here were new to my ears (some of the music comes from debut releases).

STORMKEEP (U.S.)

I don’t have to spend a lot of time formulating words to describe Stormkeep’s “Glass Caverns Of Dragon Kings“, because Jon Rosenthal did his usual excellent job in writing about it when Invisible Oranges premiered the track two days ago: Continue reading »