(Andy Synn prepared this trio of reviews for new albums by three German bands.)

Synchronicity can be a strange thing indeed. Case in point, coming hot on the heels of my recent (and surprisingly well-received) column on “Black Metal” here we have a triple-header feature on three bands who all sit somewhere under the big black umbrella, but whose actual adherence to the term “Black Metal” varies pretty drastically.

Not only that, but they all just happen to be German in origin, which means I can collect all three groups under the “Best of German” banner which I first used (here) back in May, and pretend like this whole thing was part of some grand plan of mine, rather than a completely random sequence of events that just happens to have lined up in a way that appears to be thematically significant.

But I’ll take what I can get, because these three albums are all absolutely hervorragend… Continue reading »