Frozen Soul - No Place for Warmth (2026) Review

I've been really eager to listen to this album from the moment I saw this fantastic front cover: a step further than just encouraging your fans to play MTG during your live show is to adopt the aesthetics of the legendary game. The art of third full-length album No Place of Warmth by Fort Worth, Texas mammoths Frozen Soul features a fantasy-drifting art by James Bousema, who has a stunning RPG-inspired portfolio and has also designed actual MTG cards. As per proper promotion strategy, a few singles dropped before the release date and mistakes were made, in the sense of, checking a track before the album's out (something I usually never do). Then and there, I turned doubtful.

Looking at a band with a rather clear intent for larger and larger reception, choosing a weirdly murky production that is hard to appreciate if you don't have high-end equipment is an debatable decision. Instruments sound far from each other and the guitar tone is sort of a slapstick, revealing more of itself only under perfect conditions, while otherwise being too rough around the edges. This perception is boosted by how simplistic the compositions are, and essentially left out there exposed by the record's mixing. To me, No Place for Warmth sounds like what musicians and producers think old school death metal with a radically natural production would sound like. If you have the chance, choose best headset possible to listen and enjoy it.

The album's eleven tracks barrel through in about 36 minutes of direct, mostly middle-paced death metal that's effective at a handful of moments, never unforeseen and often indolent due to a familiarity that's more to its detriment than credit. One of its most engaging moments immediately hits with the opening, self-titled track and the wonderful vocal addition of My Chemical Romance's Gerard Way (yes), who offers legitimate higher-pitched lines along Chad Green's usual inhuman growls. Tracks like "Ethereal Dreams" and "DEATHWEAVER" also succeed at feigning menace, adopting a cogent Bolt Thrower stance that Frozen Soul have re-iterated only that much across their whole discography. 

Even the presence of Robb Flynn (Machine Head) does little to salvage a track as generic as "Invoke War", and yet the rampaging bass and snare tone (again, remember to get a peak sound system) that erupts at the beginning of "Dreadnought" (with Devin Swank of Sanguisugabogg) are impactful enough to distract the listener from the otherwise substandard response of these compositions. Elsewhere, the slower tempos between "Chaos Will Reign" and "Eyes of Despair" tend to blur into indistinction if one excludes the hackneyed solo of the latter. Here, direct comparisons to previous efforts sadly favor the band's past. The penultimate piece, "Frost Forged", is a great example of a track aspiring for impactful conclusion, but frustratingly wears out halfway through and resorts to stereotypical one-note groove dragging.

Lastly, I am sure crowds will enthusiastically chant along the shouted lines of "Killin Time (Until It’s Time to Kill)" in concerts, but really this last track lands with a hook as thorough as the title's Scary Movie-level word play. For its guest appearances, guitar solos or extra little elements, previous albums had a punch I didn't find on No Place for Warmth, which often exalts hardcore grooves in a way that is meant to appeal to the hardcore sphere rather than to death metal fans. Time will tell, but this might be one of the most accessible death metal albums of the recent years and a possibly excellent entry listen for people unaware of the genre's dismal depths. With its real dungeon-crawl, dragons-and-sorcery vibe, and the neat pulp-fantasy sensibility, it is however worth to have a go with No Place for Warmth, which lands at a sweet spot that somehow doesn't let you be that mad at Frozen Soul in the end. 

Release: May 8th, 2026 | Century Media Records
Rating: 3 out of 5

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Immolation - Descent (2026) Review

Instances of monumental awe are so rare, that they remain unforgettable. Only at a handful of cases have I had so rapid a transition from analytical to overwhelmed when first listening to an album, one of them being my introduction to Immolation and their 1996 masterpiece, Here In After. For a band of this magnitude and everyone else, time has carried with it no small measure of change. To fast forward to the twelfth full-length album, Descent, bypasses a lot of context. Related at least to most recent affairs, it's the third installment in a loose thematic arc following Atonement (2017) and Acts of God (2022), in what seems to be a period of growth and opulence under the wings of Nuclear Blast Records. 

Everything about Descent is as formidable as the circumstances demand. Stunning artwork by Eliran Kantor reflects the album's hellish plunge into the complex of spiritual degradation and anti-religious sentiment, which Immolation discuss as adroitly as ever. The production sets the bar for modern crystalline extreme metal, and the record's duration has been adjusted to the algorithm-favored perfect ballpark of around 40 minutes, something I am sure they noticed and fixed compared to the slightly excessive length of Acts of God. Staggering precision in delivery and bona fide metaphysical suffocation by the band that itself shaped these landscapes of death metal.

I still find myself confronting a familiar paradox, listening to another admirable work by one of the genre's most meaningfully successful names ever, that somehow stops just short of arete. Immolation moves efficiently with a lean but expressive album that directly presents the rather specific elements that make them great, spearheaded by the idiosyncratic and dominating compositional style of guitarist Rob Vigna and the frightful growls of leader Ross Dolan. The band has never quite fitted the Tampa mold or the Stockholm royalty, and Descent is full of both aggressive and mournful guitar lines alongside marvelous solos on a multiplex of tempos, bending death metal's common sense with great aplomb.

Scanning through the tracks of the album, as systematically tailored for impact as they are, makes me miss the infernal darkness I was forced into with past releases. Descent gives me an impression that not an extreme amount of effort is required from Immolation to amaze the audience (including me), who now follow a familiar immediacy that forcefully works. The ominous clean guitar notes of the opening piece "These Vengeful Winds" rapidly announce the tone, as the track soon unleashes the first salvo of ferocious riffs and dissonant contours you know and love Immolation for. The tension of the album's first half speaks more to me, as both the notable "The Ephemeral Curse" and "God's Last Breath", or even more so the clearest highlight "Adversary", are the ones that tend to speed alterations and unfolding melodies the best.

For these standards, the mid-paced main guitar lines of "Attrition" are so catchy that you might miss just how stripped down to the basics the track is, and I felt the same for "False Ascent" as well as Descent's weakest, "Host". That's where Immolation is at their slowest, where they almost narrate the album's topics rather than fluently communicating them with kinetic energy through the tracks - it works only if I shut down part of my brain that tries to break each second of the composition down to its decisions. "Bend Towards the Dark" is still limited, but commendably more epic than adjacent tracks, while the highly discussed piano / guitar instrumental "Banished", is to me just a filler. 

Thankfully, Descent ends with the compulsive, punishing self-titled rocker and not only leaves a sweet aftertaste, it magically achieves what Immolation always does for me: whole fully enjoying the album despite the criticism. I have returned to it repeatedly these weeks with a feeling of certainty and comfort, proving it quite possibly may be one of my most-listened releases for the year. I don't even know what I think I expect from the band, if not a polished and potent record as this, maybe a little bit more uniform nerve, surprise, or a challenge. Taking into account the fantastic aesthetics, lyrical direction and their attachment to a cathartic presentation of worldview, it all ultimately coalesces into substance.

Raise these walls
Of blood and stone
This Kingdom you've built
Becomes our tomb

Release: April 10th, 2026 | Nuclear Blast Records
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Gadget - Coerced (EP, 2026) Review

First of all, The Funeral March is one of the best grindcore albums of its time. Secondly, I hope Gadget doesn't make it a habit to put out a major release once per decade, as The Great Destroyer came out 10 years later, and now this new EP, ten years after that. There hadn't been complete silence all this time if you think about the split release with Retaliation in 2021, but I don't mind being patient if it's to witness evolution and artists refusing to rest on their laurels. A comeback after a not so linear timeline (departure of original vocalist, pandemic struggles) sees Gadget in their most audacious form, with a mini-album of eight tracks and a duration as long as Unsilent Death - a golden standard.

The band pre-released "Gnistan" for the EP's promotion, the shortest track and a true grindcore speed stalwart, but Coerced isn't merely a collection of such bursts of aggression. Opener "Nonsense" instantly explodes into blast beat fury, which is maintained at maximum capacity across the remarkable guitar lines of "No Sense of Self" and the massive middle-paced groove on "Who Doesn't Serve You". New vocalist Emilia Henriksson (who has previously screamed her lungs out in Radium Grrrls) does a remarkable job on all tracks, and along the presence of new guitarist Kristofer Jankarls (Livet Som Insats, Axis of Despair) brings a fresh ferocity to Gadget, still testing the levels of intensity the band can reach with this new lineup.

An older track, "Funerary Rites", finally found its appropriate release space, and slaps the face as much as the fast-paced "Flatline", which has a wonderful open chord introduction and a slightly noisy ending that connects perfectly with the most experimental piece on Coerced, the five-minute "False Pulse". Here, Gadget expand upon a fully noisy / dark ambient texture that gets more and more uncomfortable as it moves on and reaches the second longest track of the EP, "Violenty Silent". The doomy sludge inclinations of this piece would surely make Eyehategod giggle in happiness, and concludes a rather bombastic and interesting work by these grindcore legends.

If you've tripped with the bizarre album covers of Pyrrhon, know that the stunning artwork of Coerced was done by the same artist, Caroline Harrison, who apparently mixes repulsive imagery with unexpected beauty as if it's sugar with coffee. The EP is short enough to leave you wanting more, but it's also notably diverse for its kind and hints how Gadget's new configuration is a work in progress, and at a period of renewed, and even darker inspiration. Let's hope for the next full-length to not be a product of distant futures and distant galaxies.

Release: May 8th, 2026 | De:Nihil Records
Rating: 4 out of 5

Werwolf - Satanic Terror (2026) Review

Formed back in 2005 and only sporadically active until recent years, you would prove to be a real book worm if you had Werwolf (no relation to the Finnish pseudonym of similar spelling) from Freiburg, Germany in your listening archives. The thread of releases in smaller formats the project in the current decade should have suggested an impending buildup to a full-length album, yet I still never saw Satanic Terror coming. The record sounds exactly like something that has been rotting far away for far too long, and plants itself in the soil of the earlier era with the fearlessness of a band with more experience than it might seem.

Satanic Terror is burrowed in the basements of the oldest Scandinavian school, yet more reminiscent of 20th century bands like Celestial Bloodshed and Cornigr, while in pursuance of black metal sanctity as treated by, e.g. Watain or Chaos Invocation (with whom they share a member too, as far as I understand). The production is predictably cold and the tremolo is honored throughout, as Werwolf don’t feel the pressure to consistently boost speeds to norsecore, but instead lay out mid-paced sections often in the album. Of course, it has its accelerated feral moments, like e.g. in “Whore of Dead Heaven” (damn) or the opening of “Temple of No Light”, but the slower anguished parts (“Unholy Trinity”, “Infernal Devotion”) occupy more of the album’s space. 

Apart from the notable self-titled opener, one of its finer moments is when the band combines the frantic and hypnotic tension like in the track “...of Cursed Places and Desegrated Graves”, which takes its time to start and then is slowly adorned with thunderous, memorable guitar melodies. Here and there, Werwolf possibly (and intentionally) sounds just a little bit too familiar (“Shrine of Faith”) but I didn’t find myself disillusioned with it, especially by how disciplined and palpable of its intentions the whole of the record is. Its uniformity of buzzing guitars, harsh vocals and coarse sound gives Satanic Terror a nostalgic quality, but only in the sense of reasserting old doctrines at just about the ideal album duration of ~30 minutes.

You won't be sucker punched by this album if you have the idea of what it is about, but it's efficient enough to bash you to submission. Mostly aggressive and fairly immersive at its slower turns, Satanic Terror is as blunt as its title, and a statement that could go on a banner about the state of black metal, or what it should be. Werwolf proceed to engage using mostly the same tonal palette across all their tracks, but it wouldn't make sense to shuffle things up. Terror.

Release: April 24th, 2026 | Dominance of Darkness Records
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 

Black Cilice - Votive Fire (2026) Review

At what point does organic consistency become its own form of artistic statement? Seven full-length albums in (not thinking of all the demos, splits and EPs in between) since 2009 clearly accentuate Black Cilice’s absolute indifference to expectations of progression, a project convicted to a certain vision from day one, and having stood its ground from that very moment. I discovered this Portuguese hermit somewhere around Banished From Time (2017) and Transfixion of Spirits (2019), and worked my way both backward and forward to get the full idea of what this is about, a noble practitioner of the dark arts as utilized by compatriots such as Vetala, Mons Veneris, and later Candelabrum.

With four songs, and none shorter than seven minutes, Votive Fire still carries the devotion of the project to obscurity, and presses further into its own essential nature. Despite the apparent strata of lo-fi haze and the intentionally smothering production, I found the album’s sound to be the least impenetrable to date, as it’s now even possible to decipher riff sections a bit more clearly even from the first listens. Black Cilice has achieved compositions with distinct borders, yet still bound to a seamless, standoffish flow that the band exercises for the last 15+ years now. Isolated and deeply esoteric, Votive Fire doesn’t casually deploy its imagery, yet it might be the “easiest” starting point for someone getting into this soundrealm. 

Under the thick chunks of raw black metal distortion lies genuine melodic presence, and the guitars manage to stay descriptive and evocative while generating texture. Melancholic, compelling riff work is a cornerstone of artists in this territory, and Black Cilice’s energy manipulation has repeatedly kept me hooked in the past, even more so now with its slightly more flagrant posture. Parallels to our own Μνήμα can be drawn, but Votive Fire never bellies up to that much outward hostility, instead it burns quietly by handling monotony in moderation and with a steady hand. The record opens with a load of echoing tremolo on its longest piece, “Released by Fire”, and the uniformity, for its own sake, never really breaks for the next 36 minutes.

Tracks “Vows Sworn for Centuries” and “Into the Inner Temple” advance with various levels of velocity, as the forlorn guitar lines towards the end of both these tracks approach the numinous and are among the album’s most memorable moments. These kinds of melodies bleed straight from raw black metal’s main arteries, and Black Cilice has tapped into them. Woeful howling vocals waver at the edge of perception and feel like transmitting from somewhere unreachable, while the drums also occupy their own space in the project, not embedded but not separated from the mix at the same time. On the middle part of the last track, “Deconstruction of All Realities”, the guitar leads are lifted briefly to the surface with a small gesture, and march firmly toward Votive Fire's noise-boosted outro.

At first blush, there’s no obvious development in the formula of the album, which looks like it doesn’t reach beyond established framework, as great as it is for those attuned to the style. From my standpoint, the slight change in production makes for a significant difference in outcome, as the project withholds way less than before while remaining as hot-blooded for dreadful black metal as before. By gaining this sharper contour, the inner mechanics of Black Cilice’s mystique are more evident, but it’s still grim as hell. Still for fans only, and plainly recommended. 

Release: May 1st, 2026 | Iron Bonehead Productions
Rating: 4 out of 5