MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW 2011

Infernal Hails Athenar, finally the first Midnight full leght is out, are there any particular reasons you make us wait so much long?
IT'S ALL ABOUT TIMING AND WHEN I JUST FEEL LIKE DOING SOMETHING.

How did you get the band started? 
I STARTED IT BECAUSE I HATED BEING IN BANDS SO I JUST MADE UP THE SONGS AND RECORDED THEM MYSELF. I STILL HATE BEING IN BANDS!

I must say that the sound and the production of Satanic Royalty it`s really great, how much time took to write and record all the stuff? 
NOT LONG AT ALL. ABOUT A WEEK FOR THE MUSIC, ABOUT 2 WEEKS FOR THE LYRICS AND 3 DAYS TO RECORD AND MIX. I DON'T LIKE TAKING TOO LONG FOR SOMETHING THAT SHOULD BE NATURAL SOUNDING.

I saw that the CD version contains a bonus DVD. What kind of blasphemies can we expect? 
IT'S SOME LIVE GARBAGE AND A STUPID FUCKING COMMENTS BY MYSELF AND LORD ZIGAR WHILE SITTING ON MY COUCH LISTENING TO TESLA LIKE IN CLIFF EM ALL.

In April this year you split up with your previous label Nuclear War Now. Is there any specific reason or simply Hellsheadbangers offer you better conditions?
HELLSHEADBANGERS IS MUCH CLOSER TO MY HOME AND THEY JUST WOULD KEEP THINGS IN PRINT. NWN DID A GREAT JOB WITH ALL THE OTHER MIDNIGHT RELEASES THOUGH.

Your stuff it`s long time sold out. Do you plan to repress some of your cult releases on Hellsheadbanger? 
YES. BUT NOT THE DEMO BONUS TRACKS THAT WERE ON SIDE 4 OF COMPLETE AND TOTAL MIDNIGHT.

Who Is The main Artist behind your albums covers and is there any meaning behind them? 
THE GUY WHO DID THE NEW COVER IS A FRIEND FROM NYC NAMED WILLIAM LACEY. I'M SURE THERE'S SOME KINDA MEANING BEHIND IT BUY I DIDN'T DRAW IT SO WHO KNOWS?

Do you plan any tour to promote Satanic Royalty? 
YEAH WE'D LOVE TO DO SOME EURO GIGZ AND PLAY PLACES WE'VE NEVER BEEN BEFORE.

Tell me something about the japanese benefit split with Toxic Holocaust, how did you come up with this idea?

FOR ME I WANTED TO DO SOMETHING BECAUSE WE JUST GOT BACK FROM JAPAN AND HAD SUCH A GREAT TIME, EVERYBODY INVOLVED IN THE GIGS WERE FANTASTIC AND I PERSONALLY LOVE JAPANESE HEAVY METAL. SO I REALLY DIDN'T DO IT BECAUSE I THINK I'M BETTER THAN ANYBODY AND PEOPLE NEED MY HELP BECAUSE THAT'S NOT THE CASE AT ALL, IF ANYTHING I COULD REALLY USE THEIR HELP! LIKE IT SAYS IN THE LINER NOTES ON THE RECORD IT WAS JUST TO PRESERVE JAPANESE HEAVY METAL. 

Athenar thanks for your availability. Any last words on your side? 

THANKS FOR THE INTEREST IN THE BAND.

Impiety is recording a new album

Impiety are currently recording the new 8th full lenght album in Singapore at Studio 47

Enthroned to release ˝Obsidium˝ in March

Brand new album from Belgium’s ENTHRONED, Obsidium, is coming out on 20.03.2012 in Europe and on 10.04.2012 in the North America.

Obsidium is an incantation of new wisdom strengthened  by 19 years of controlled fury. In terms of improvement, the band has decided not to manifold their recent effort (Pentagrammaton, out in 2010), but to explore the unique Black Metal gemstone further down the line, polishing it to its grim, deep and fierce colorus.

Seeking new grounds and  holding to their twisted vision, ENTHRONED managed to combine an impressive legacy with insane vocals, speed granted energy, melody and dark yet swift background. “Obsidium" may turn out to be highly explosive for those blissfully unaware!

The band has confirmed 3 live appearances so far:

17/05 : UK - Bristol - The Croft
18/05 : UK - Derby - Old Bell
19/05 : UK - London - The Underworld

Obsidium was recorded and mixed in ENTHRONED’s own studio, Blackout Multimedia. Their ninth full-length to date will be released on a noble digipack CD and 12-inch heavy black vinyl. There’s also a limited to 100 copies special coloured vinyl edition, that will be available via Agonia Records Webshop exclusively.

Altar to unleash ˝Dark Domains˝ Compilation

The long-defunct Swedish Death Metallers ALTAR unleashes the most complete compilation of recorded tracks during their six-year existence from 1989 till 1995, featuring 17 re-mastered tracks by legendary multi-instrumentalist / Death Metal extraordinaire Dan Swanö at Unisound Studio, Sweden and a brand new exclusive album cover artwork and layout by Kontamination Design, Poland.

This "Dark Domains" compilation CD is dedicated in loving memory of the late Mieszko Talarczyk (Nasum / ex-ALTAR).

 Tracklisting:
1) Nothing Human (1992 CD)
2) Lifeless Passion (1992 CD)
3) Daymare / A Message From The Grave (1992 CD)
4) Decapitated (1992 CD)
5) Ex Oblivione (1992 CD)
6) Sleeping Prophet (1993 Demo)
7) Floodgates Of Emotions (1993 Demo)
8) Darklight (1993 Demo)
9) Violent Acts (1994 Demo)
10) Days Forever Grey (1994 Demo)
11) Severed On The Attic (1991 Demo)
12) Decapitated (1991 Demo)
13) Hallucinations (1991 Demo)
14) No Flesh… (1991 Demo)
15) Instrumental (1995 Demo)
16) Severed On The Attic (1992 CD)
17) No Flesh… (1992 CD)



In sinister co-operation with Konqueror Records, one of Sweden's oldest Death Metal demons ALTAR is now resurrected with “Dark Domains”, spanning their short-lived but impactful career in the Swedish underground Death Metal scene.

 Remastered by none other than the Lord of Swedeath Metal Dan Swanö at Unisound Studio, Sweden and finally packaged in a professional CD format, “Dark Domains” features entirely remastered tracks together with rare and never-before-seen band photos carefully hand-picked by the band, “Dark Domains” is the ultimate ALTAR collector's gem that every old-school Death Metal fans will ever need to possess!

Abigail to unleash live album in February

The Japanese thrash/black horde Abigail, will unleash in February via Agonia Records their new live album entitled ˝Evil Metal Massacre˝ featuring the collaboration of Joel grind from Toxic Holocaust.

Burzum to release "Umskiptar" album in May 2012

Burzum persists. A new Burzum album, titled "Umskiptar" (Metamorphoses), is scheduled for release in May 2012 on Byelobog Productions. "Umskiptar" consists of 65 minutes of skaldic metal, recorded in Grieghallen Studio in Bergen in September 2011.

"Umskiptar" track list:
Blóðstokkinn (Soaked in Blood) (1:16)
Jóln (Deities) (5:51)
Alfadanz (Elven Dance) (9:22)
Hit helga Tré (The sacred Tree) (6:51)
Æra (Honour) (3:58)
Heiðr (Esteem) (3:02)
Valgaldr (Song of the Fallen) (8:03)
Galgviðr (Gallow Forest) (7:16)
Surtr Sunnan (Black from the South) (4:14)
Gullaldr (Golden Age) (10:20)
Níðhöggr (Attack from Below) (5:00)

The lyrics on "Umskiptar" are all taken from a Norse poem, Völuspá. For an English translation of the lyrics see the book "Sorcery And Religion In Ancient Scandinavia". The original Norse lyrics for "Umskiptar" can be found here

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The Return of Bestial Mockery

Bestial Mockery will reunite on April 27 to play a special show in Sweden with the brazilian thrash black metallers Vulcano.

Decibel Magazine Tour Lineup Announced, confirmed Behemoth, Watain, the Devil's Blood and In Solitude

Decibel Magazine Tour Lineup Announced
Behemoth, Watain, the Devil's Blood and In Solitude take part in
premier heavy metal magazine's inaugural tour starting in April


photo by Ester Segarra
Blackened clouds are gathering overhead, and it's all our fault. North America's premier heavy metal magazine is launching the maiden edition of its annual earth-scorching tour this April. The inaugural Decibel Magazine Tour will feature not just the long-awaited stateside return of Polish blackened death metal overlords Behemoth, but support from Swedish black metal provocateurs Watain, Dutch prog mystics the Devil's Blood and Swedish old-school occultists In Solitude.

Beginning in April and laying waste through a gargantuan 26-date run, the Decibel Magazine Tour (presented by Metal Blade Records, IndieMerchStore.com, FYE, ESP Guitars and Good Fight Entertainment) not only offers four diverse European artists hand-picked by the magazine, but doubles as Behemoth's first U.S. tour since vocalist/guitarist Adam "Nergal" Darski's well-documented battle with - and triumph over - leukemia.

Gruesome visual evidence of this tour package is forthcoming: We went all the way to Sweden to capture the frontmen and women of all four bands for our special Decibel Magazine Tour cover story, streeting in April. "Considering the fact that we'll be sharing the stage with the most evil and uncompromising bands around - Watain, the Devil's Blood and In Solitude - this already makes it a legendary bill that you can't miss out on!" promises Nergal. "Watch out. We won't show up - we will ARRIVE with all the strength and might!"

"Part of Decibel's mission is to push the boundaries of what a metal publication is capable of doing," adds Decibel editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian, the tour's principal curator. "By bringing bands like Watain, the Devil's Blood and In Solitude to larger stages in the U.S., we create an additional vehicle to help raise their profiles. It's another way to infect the mainstream with the power of the underground."

It only makes sense that Decibel would present a tour package with a sense of integrity, purpose and history. "It is a joint force of artistic adversity and sinister creativity," assures Watain frontman Erik Danielsson, "which makes me think of the glorious days when bands like Venom, Metallica, Exodus and Slayer toured together like a great middle finger raised towards their sheep-minded contemporaries."

Proclamation to release “Nether Tombs of Abaddon”

Out in mid-January 2012 under Nuclear War Now!/Ross Bay Cult

And thus spoke the impious fraternity of the heinous ones. AMEN! And so the blasphemous acrostic was completed, as the fourth wind finally came blowing with razer destructive wrath what once spawned among profaned graves and defiled temples, completing the circle of the ancient and early initiation rites.

Proclamation prophesied their major rituals as four pillars of supreme desecration and unbearable turpitude, being “Nether Tombs of Abaddon” the last one and the vilest of them all.

While some bands evolve expanding their creative horizons intruding further on wider fields, this unholy trio isolates itself on the obsolete, the conservative, the orthodoxy, the tradition and their maniacal idolatry for the authentic underground cult. Paradoxically, such a static creative dirge doesn’t necessarily mean that this new and final tormenting opus of naughty beastliness is a plain violation attack. In fact is their most distinctive and diverse assault. Without denying nor abjuring even a single code of their narrow minded integrity, they’ve evocated a ritualism of slightly less reverberating vociferations but have certainly evoked a hundredfold infernal armageddon on which is their definitive and most unchaste offence.

Just succumb and kneel before the swarm of the possessed chained avernal voices that rape everything in sight throughout its entire length. Feel the grinding punishment of those prehistoric primitive drumming reminiscent of the Brazilian hammering. Follow the mesmerizing and bow to the simplicity of those hurtfulness bass lacerating lashes. Adore the anti liturgic rudeness of their crude riffing and the abyssal shrieks of their unmistakable solos. Adhere to the imagery of their graveyard marauding which is in fact as unique and as much of their very own by decree, as the Ross Bay and Bonfim sects. Surrender to a venomous vocational offering which as the apocalyptic final manifest it is, grows on an in crescendo of truculence which culminates on an orgy of mayhemic onslaughts of unpredictable proportions, due to the total lack and unallowance of niceties, brought mercilessly by this amoral horde.

The cursing conventicle that unchristened their style as Ritualistic Black Death Hecatomb in the initiating stage of their demo days, has surpassed on their climax of vengeance the threshold of the macabre and the unbelievable by far, achieving a sound which is more than music: the deafening muttering roar of hell itself.

Daniel Rabadán

LP/Picture LP : Mid Jan 2012
CD: Early Feb 2012

Carpathian Forest “Bloodlust and Perversion” DLP reissued by Nuclear War Now

NWN and Neseblod Records is pround to present:

Carpathian Forest “Bloodlust and Perversion” DLP
ANTI-GOTH 207

(Description by J. Campbell)
Throughout their long history, Carpathian Forest have covered a wide range of sonic territory. This double LP collects the earliest demo material that the band released, and it is easily among their best output. Despite the fact that they were all released nearly contemporaneously, the two demo recordings and a studio rehearsal on this compilation – “Bloodlust and Perversion” (1992), Rehearsal (1992), and “Journey Through the Cold Moors of Svartjern” (1993) – cover a vast spectrum within the Black Metal genre. The tracks on the “Bloodlust and Perversion” demo are predominantly mid-paced and, at times, even doomy evoking a sound more akin to Samael, Hellhammer or even Goatlord. The atmosphere that Carpathian Forest attains with this sound is distinct from those or any other band’s output, however. While more sludgy and visceral than much of the Norwegian Black Metal of that era, Carpathian Forest still manage to create the sense of isolation and solitude characteristic of the Norwegian landscape that is so often associated with that region’s output in the early 1990’s. The “Journey Through the Cold Black Moors of Svartjern” is even more atmospheric in that it eschews most of the traditional elements of metal in favor of a pure descent into the sensory realms. The first track is a keyboard-laden, militant dirge that, but for the vocals, could nearly be characterized as dark industrial or neofolk. The two tracks that follow are even more folkloric. This sound, while uncharacteristic of most of Carpathian Forest’s work before or since, is arguably some of their darkest and most melancholic work. This demo recording reveals that much of what is relevant and intriguing about Black Metal is the atmosphere of the music rather than the aggression that is often associated with it. The last tracks on this compilation, however, show that Carpathian Forest were equally adept at channeling the aforementioned aggression inherent in Black Metal. These tracks, taken from the obscure rehearsal recording from 1992, are predominantly primitive Black Metal as one would expect. More furious and raw than the other two demos, these tracks are a step closer to the sound evolving in Norway during the rise of the second wave of Back Metal. Carpathian Forest’s style on this recording is not quite fully realized, however, and the band seems to rely heavily upon the first wave bands that inspired them. Indeed, this demo features cover tracks by both Bathory and Venom as well as stylistic nods to Hellhammer/Celtic Frost. Overall, these early recordings capture not only a band in the process of defining its own style, but of the emergence of an entire genre of music and the diverse potential inherent within it.

Die hard red vinyl version includes a huge 12″ wide embroidered logo back patch and vinyl sticker.

NUCLEAR WAR NOW - An Interview With the BOSS (YK INSULTER)

1.Infernal hails Yosuke how it`s going with Nuclear War Now? Would you like to reveal some of your next releases?

Things are going well over here.  I have many new releases planned for 2012 including new albums from Revenge, Proclamation, Embrace of Thorns, Wrathprayer, Sacriphyx and reissues such as OFC boxset, Carpathian Forest bloodlust and perversion DLP, Hadez demos boxset, Varathron old stuff triple LP, Rotting Christ triple 7", and many other projects.


2.When you set up a record label and what were the reasons that make
you start doing this?

I got the chance to release a live album by Blasphemy so I started a label.  It just continued in the same spirit and vector for 11 years.  I basically release stuff that I want to own on vinyl.

3.What kind of features must have a band, to sign with your record label

This is very simple.  I must like the band and they must have integrity.  I will not work with christian bands for example.

4.what are the five most important things that a label must have to be successful?

Anyone involved in the label "business" can tell you how much time it takes up.  One must scrifice all personal time and dedicate all resources and effort into the label.  Basically you have to have passion for it or it won't work.  Greed or need for cash will not be a good motivation since metal does not have much money to give.

5.Which are labels best sellers ever?
Blasphemy, VON, Bone Awl and Dead Congregation all do very well.

6.When did you become interested in metal?

When I was in 7th grade.  I heard underground music like Carcass, and Napalm Death from a Peruvian friend.

7.Tell me your five favorite bands?

Sarcofago INRI LP, Blasphemy Fallen Angel of Doom.... LP, Messiah Hymn to Abramelin LP, Master's Hammer Ritual LP, Sabbat Envenom LP and many many others.

8.I saw on your page that the NWN fest is postponed to the next year,
why you took this decision?

Time and resources.  I did not have enough time to organize it properly in 2011 so we skipped one year and decided to do the next one in 2012.

9.Some suggestions for people who want to start a label?

There are too many labels as is.  Don't start one unless you have a good reason to release quality music.  Don't just do it because you're bored or want scene points.

Lo-Fi Creatures reveals the official website

The extreme Italian label Lo-Fi Creatures reveals the official website.
http://www.loficreatures.com/
Support or DIE!!!

BEHEMOTH, WATAIN And THE DEVIL'S BLOOD To Join Forces For North American Tour?

There is a rumor that Behemoth, Watain and The Devils Blood will join forces for a Decibel mag. sponsored North American Tour for this spring.

In an October 2011 interview with Full Metal Jackie's nationally syndicated radio show, BEHEMOTH vocalist/guitarist Adam "Nergal" Darski stated about his band's U.S. tour plans, "We're putting final touches to a U.S. tour which will start on April 12. The lineup is still a secret, but probably within days or weeks it's going to be revealed to the world. All I got to say now, because I'm not really allowed to reveal any names, but it's like a dream team tour for me. It's going to be very underground, very dangerous and when we go on tours, especially in the U.S., we've always compromised to be on a bill with bands, bigger bands, smaller bands it doesn't matter. But sometimes it's just politics, it's labels involved, it's money and stuff that we need to compromise and there's bands that we hate, good guys, you know, but a lot of music that's on the bill it's shit, and this time, for the first time ever, it's my favorite bands on the bill. Just wait and see — it's going to be a huge surprise. It's going to be massive. It's very underground, but people will fucking love it. People are dying to see this kind of bill; it's going to be super-evil. It's going to be the most satanic tour that's going to invade the U.S in a long time and there's going to be no tour like that in years. That's a promise; just wait and see. I can't wait for this to happen."

ENSHADOWED Signs With PULVERISED RECORDS

The Greek blackmetallers ENSHADOWED have signed a record deal with Pulverised Records. The band later in the year, will release their third full-length , entitled "Magic Chaos Psychedelia", is "which is the ultimate combination of orthodox black metal with experimental grotesquery parts. Chaos, ritualism, paranoia — the formulas of how it can be harmonized with the chaos and the utter," according to a press release.

"Magic Chaos Psychedelia" track listing:

01. Stary Throne Of It
02. Is Venit Ex Abyssus
03. Black Holes, Death Planets
04. The Scenario
05. Surrealistic Shade Of Color Black
06. Dethroned
07. Inner Psy-Trip
08. The Dual Hypostasis Of Nihil
09. Magic Chaos Psychedelia

MORGOTH To Release First Live Album/DVD

The cult German death metallers Morgoth are currently working on their first live album/DVD which will be released this summer on Century Media.

BORKNAGAR: 'Urd' Cover Artwork and Track Listing Revealed

The norwegian avantgarde black metallers BORKNAGAR have finished the work on their new studio album featuring Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios (OPETH, PARADISE LOST, KATATONIA) in Örebro, Sweden. Entitled "Urd".
The release date is set on March 26 in Europe and March 27 North America via Century Media.

The artwork was designed by Marcelo Vasco, who worked on the band's previous "Universal"

"Urd" track listing:

01. Epochalypse
02. Roots
03. The Beauty Of Dead Cities
04. The Earthling
05. The Plains Of Memories
06. Mount Regency
07. Frostrite
08. The Winter Eclipse
09. In A Deeper World