AZURE EMOTE present the video clip ‘Disease of the Soul’ as the next single taken from their new full-length Cryptic Aura. The fourth studio album of the American progressive death alchemists has been slated for release on July 25, 2025.
AZURE EMOTE comment: “The dichotomy of silver and gold is forever entangled in our lives and pulling our proverbial strings”, mastermind Mike Hrubovcak states. ”This world suffers from an oppressive wealth corruption that engulfs every human soul. A landscape of crushed hopes is polluting our intentions and confusing our innate senses. When we relinquish control over to fear, the uncertainty slowly erodes our focus from what is meaningful to that which is an endless struggle. Much like the quick glimmer of silver and gold, it quickly passes like our reflection in the mirror over time. This hell that we try to erase, reflects on us face to face, as we observe this daily calamity and struggle with the agony of reality.”
AZURE EMOTE drop the video clip ‘Feast of Leeches’ as the first single taken from their new full-length Cryptic Aura. The fourth studio album of the American progressive death alchemists has been scheduled for release on July 25, 2025.
AZURE EMOTE comment: “The first single ‘Feast of Leeches’ is a frantic release of anger and madness”, mastermind Mike Hrubovcak writes. “For far too long have we suffered the pressure of outside vultures feeding off our personal energies. It’s fitting that this video was created by ‘Drain Hope’, because it visually expresses the frustration of being surrounded by leeches and parasites that are sucking on our lifeblood, while leaving us ultimately drained and lethargic. It’s like suffocating under dirt but still crawling through the mud in hopes of getting out. We are all waiting to breathe, but always holding our breath, and continually striving to be, while awaiting our death.”
DESERTED FEAR unleash the music video ‘At the End of Our Reign’ as the final advance single taken from their forthcoming new full-length Veins of Fire. The sixth studio album of Germany’s leading death metal act has been chalked up for release on April 25, 2025.
DESERTED FEAR comment: “The song ‘At the End of Our Reign’ describes a world that has reached the end of its existence through the failure of civilization”, guitarist Fabian Hildebrandt explains on behalf of the band. “It’s a final glance back before everything collapses and we are crushed by our own history – and we are all a part of this! We should ask ourselves, what do we want to leave behind?”
NIGHTBEARER launch the crushing performance video ‘His Dark Materials’ as the first single taken from their new full-length Defiance. The third studio album of the German death metal bookworms, which is based on a concept inspired by Sir Philip Pullman’s fantasy book trilogy "His Dark Materials", has been scheduled for release on June 13, 2025.
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NIGHTBEARER comment: “The tell-tale title ‘His Dark Materials’ is both, lyrically and musically, an excellent represantation of what were are about to unleash with our third album Defiance in 2025”, vocalist Michael Torka declares. “We hurl ourselves into the millennia-old war against the tyranny of a god who never existed, against his corrupted earthly and celestial vassals. It’s a fight against brutal oppression that is carried out in the name of liberation from superstition. This is the final, relentless battle for freedom!”
ANTROPOMORPHIA unleash the sinister performance video ‘Cancerous Bane’ as the first single taken from their new full-length Devoid of Light. The sixth studio album of the Dutch death metal veterans has been scheduled for release on May 16, 2025.
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ANTROPOMORPHIA comment: “The first advance single ‘Cancerous Bane’ represents Devoid of Light well, although it is one of many faces that our forthcoming album shows”, frontman Ferry Damen writes. “The track opens with a ruthless maelstrom of riffs accompanied by violent wailing screams to set the tone. ‘Cancerous Bane’ refers to a path of spreading blackness, the waging of war against the betrayal of earthly flesh and its futile struggle against the timeless slumber.”
Having just embarked on their European tour, RATS OF GOMORRAH also drop the video single ‘Swarming Death’, which is also the opening track of the German death metal duo’s forthcoming debut full-length Infectious Vermin. The album is scheduled for release on January 17, 2025.
RATS OF GOMORRAH comment: “This track is an amalgamation of everything that we have to offer: a lot of ‘blegh’, grooves, hard hitting drums, and a catchy chorus!”, frontman Daniel Stelling writes. “The lyrics of ‘Swarming Death’ spin a tale that began with the track ‘Rats of Gomorrah’ on the 2021 Oblitherion EP of our predecessor band Divide. It deals with no less than world domination!”
Check the video here:
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Here they come: a crawling, sprawling, gnawing mass of vicious rodents on a rampage. RATS OF GOMORRAH unleash their debut full-length "Infectious Vermin" onto a horrified world.
If the image of a malicious horde of rats does not give you the creeps, maybe the fact that "Infectious Vermin" is the result of the German duo’s frustration with the metal scene and its reluctance to any change does. No worries, although RATS OF GOMORRAH are averse to simply regurgitating all the tired clichés of an average death metal album, they have not completely abandoned that ship. They just took some detours into heavy and speed metal territory, kept vocal pitching varied, and added some hot spices such as crust-infused riffs and catchy choruses.
As with their previous releases, RATS OF GOMORRAH diabolically wrapped environmental, social, and even political issues into Lovecraftian horror themes. A gnawing feeling that there is a rat in everything does also persist. And for the first time, some lyrics are even intimate and personal.
RATS OF GOMORRAH are one of those bands that have a much longer story behind them than their emergence under that name suggests. Strictly speaking the German duo only crawled out of their hole with a new rodent moniker in 2023. Yet they also started out with over a decade of death metal experience under their pelt.
Guitarist and vocalist Daniel Stelling and Moritz Paulsen on drums had already been a part of the internationally active Northern German death metal trio DIVIDE since 2009, which had become a duo in 2016. In this formation the musicians that have claimed BOLT THROWER, CARCASS, and VADER as major sources of influence managed to establish an excellent name in the death metal underground. In fact their standing in this scene grew to such an extent that DIVIDE was able to tour not only throughout all of Europe, but also in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and even in India. In 2022, they even won the German competition of the Wacken Metal Battle and were awarded a slot at the largest and most famous metal festival of this planet.
Despite their legacy and all the hard work that it took to establish their name, the duo was not content to remain within the limitations of their stylistic mould. Although they stayed true to death metal, they already started to make their music more rough and dirty, expanded their horizon with elements from black, thrash and other influences from extreme music, and even added a healthy dose of weirdness. Out of respect for their previous works and acknowledging the changes, the two Germans decided to change the band name to RATS OF GOMORRAH. As befits such rodent vermin, you may expect deep growls, thrash-infused riffs, blast beats and of course: rat-like shrieks!
Hopefully, by now there is an itchy feeling on your skin, and rustling noises from behind your walls, while a sense of dread and panic is spreading. The best antidote: blast Infectious Vermin on ten – and never a rat will you ever see more. Well, maybe a neighbour or four knocking on your door. So what?! Tell them all that RATS OF GOMORRAH rule supreme!
Berlin based CARNAL TOMB detonate the massive title track of their forthcoming new album Embalmed in Decay into the death metal hungry ears on this planet. The third full-length of the German old school death dealers is slated for release on November 3, 2023.
CARNAL TOMB comment: “I wrote the title track of our new album, Embalmed in Decay, shortly after our first album Rotten Remains was released", guitarist and singer Cryptic Tormentor lets on and continues; "It is a classic death metal song in the sense that it was heavily inspired by old bands that we all know and love. The track comes with fast and furious heavy riffing and a catchy melody in the chorus. The lyrics were inspired by the movie Tombs of the Blind Dead, which was also the main influence for the cover artwork. It took us some time to decide which track should become the title of the new album. We finally settled for ‘Embalmed in Decay’ because it features everything that should be in an old school death metal song: It is a straight forward and hard hitting song which to me are the very qualities that the eponymous song of an album should have.”
Berlin based CARNAL TOMB reveal the crushing single ‘Defiled Flesh’, which is taken from the German old school death dealers’ forthcoming new album Embalmed in Decay, which is scheduled for release on November 3, 2023.
Listen here:
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CARNAL TOMB comment: “Starting off with a dive bomb followed by fast riffing, ‘Defiled Flesh’ is one of, if not the fastest song that we have ever written”, guitarist and singer Cryptic Tormentor enthuses. “The track is filled with tempo changes, various melodies, and zombie fueled lyrics. Written by the guitar team, i.e. Goat Eviscerator and myself, it is hardly surprising that ‘Defiled Flesh’ is quite riff-driven and arrives with heavy rhythm patterns and was influenced by Swedish acts such as Bloodbath and Grave. ‘Defiled Flesh’ is also guaranteed to find its way into our live set.”
‘We are living in troubled times and it is hardly surprising that this is reflected in any form of art including music. On Mazzaroth, Sodomisery have spun a dark lyrical yarn about mental illness in society, religion, and the struggle of the individual, which is running like a red thread through their sophomore full-length. The Swedish melodic death four-piece are underlining their loosely conceptual approach with a remarkable musical evolution’, says the bio which accompanies this album.
There’s no misery like Sodomisery. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. For reasons I haven’t explored, while society has progressed – and I do mean this broadly and generally, being most aware of the fact that homosexuality and many things more widely accepted remain not only illegal but subject to severe punishments in a large number of countries – the word ‘sodomy’ carries brutal connotations which continue to hold currency in the circles of the
blackest of metal and industrial and power electronics. It’s true that Whitehouse’s Erector (with its blatantly unsubtle ‘cock’ cover) was released in 1981 and things have moved on a bit since then, but how much? Many of these bands are, as far as I can discern, less concerned with contemporary perceptions of anal penetration, whereby in permissive western society, it’s generally accepted regardless of sex or sexuality, and in pornography, it’s more or less considered essential, and more preoccupied with the harsh, perverse connotations of the writings of The Marquis de Sade – one of the few writers whose work still has the capacity to truly shock. And in this context, sodomy connotes the worst of sexual tortures, the infliction of pain, a statement of the ultimate power dynamics. It all seems appropriate given the band’s objectives.
This album had an interesting evolution, too: ‘When all the new tracks were written and pre-produced, SODOMISERY decided to create two versions of the album. One mix included keyboards and orchestration, while the other version had no such additions. After an extensive period of deliberation and many listening sessions, the Swedes decided that the new dimension and cinematic feeling added by the keyboards was exactly what their songs needed.’
Without hearing the two versions side by side, I’m in no position to comment, but the fact of the matter is that the keyboards certainly have not transformed this into some twiddly prog-rock effort: instead said keyboards are low in the mix but serve to fill out the sound with elongated droning tones against the relentless, thunderous fury of frantic fretwork and double-pedal drumwork that’s faster than the eye or ear can process.
There are some moments of such tunefulness that one has to take pause and breathe for a moment. We’re not just talking clean vocals or tuneful; there are moments, albeit brief, of outright pop sandwiched between the furious rage and overloading distortion. But rather than diminish the album’s power, I find myself respecting the band all the more. To have a softer breakdown in a song is one thing: to be so unashamedly clean and crisp and tuneful is bold.
‘Delusion’ balances all of the various elements nicely, coming together to forge a blasting yet grand and graceful dirty monster of a track which even packs in a heroic guitar solo near the end. Juvenile snickering ensues here with ‘A Storm Without Wind’, and I know it’s not funny and the delivery is entirely serious. Not least of all the lung-ripping bass that prefaces the throat-ripping vocals which snarl over guitars which alternate between old samples and snippets stolen from the present.
It feels scary, like being left alone on a platform and staring into the abyss. Any minute and it could retreat, and leave you falling into the void, and on the evidence here, you’d incinerate in seconds. Ultimately, we’re all scared. Mazzaroth is a worthy soundtrack to that fear.
We are living in troubled times and it is hardly surprising that this is reflected in any form of art including music. On Mazzaroth, SODOMISERY have spun a dark lyrical yarn about mental illness in society, religion, and the struggle of the individual, which is running like a red thread through their sophomore full-length. The Swedish melodic death four-piece are underlining their loosely conceptual approach with a remarkable musical evolution.
Check ‘Delusion’ here:
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SODOMISERY are expanding their original sound that combines the power and precision of death metal with the frenzied and cold aggression of black metal, and they have now added a layer of dramatic depth by including keyboards. It is hardly surprising that the Swedes, who are counting DIMMU BORGIR, CRADLE OF FILTH, and CHILDREN OF BODOM among their major sources of influence, came to steer towards such a course.
The band from Stockholm did not take this decision lightly. When all the new tracks were written and pre-produced, SODOMISERY decided to create two versions of the album. One mix included keyboards and orchestration, while the other version had no such additions. After an extensive period of deliberation and many listening sessions, the Swedes decided that the new dimension and cinematic feeling added by the keyboards was exactly what their songs needed.
The speed with which SODOMISERY expand and mature their sonic nature is breathtaking, particularly since the band was born out of a studio project originally envisioned by Stockholm based guitarist Harris Sopovic in 2015, who enlisted the help of NETHERBIRD frontman Johan Fridell, bass player Niklas Sandin (KATATONIA, LIK) and drummer Pär Johansson, who is best known for his work with CRAFT and DIABOLICAL This resulted in the eponymous 3-track EP "Sodomisery”, which was digitally released in 2017. When the EP was heaped with massive praise, Sopovic recruited new members and decided to continue the band under the name SODOMISERY. Their debut album "The Great Demise" (2020) can be viewed as a deliberate statement of intent, not to blindly follow in the giant but also somewhat worn out footprints of the legendary Stockholm death metal scene. Instead, these Swedish newcomers favoured a more melodic and versatile approach.
In the short time period from their inception to the forthcoming second album, SODOMISERY have progressed by leaps and bounds and Mazzaroth is the audible proof of this bold statement!
Aural Aggravation 