Atavistic Passage - Demonstration Two (Demo, 2025) Review

Second demo of strongly similar philosophy as the first, laid out by UK black metal project Atavistic Passage, an one-man entity by the same person behind Hibernian Abyss (you may not be familiar with either, but it's high time you looked into them). Continuing the necro-sonic path paved out by the 2024 demo Demonstration One, the template is familiar - two main tracks between an intro and outro, cohesive and direct at just over fifteen minutes of lo-fi prayer.

The central pieces “Ecstatic Power” and “Physical Manifestations of Psychic Spite” scratch speakers and headphones with the abrasion of quality raw black metal, as the guitars surge on a trance of distortion, and the vocals screech atop the din with determination. It's cold and secluded, rooted in the classiest of the genre's classics, echoing skeletal chants in cavernous halls accessible only to the ears most devoted to this music.

With a handful of rudimentary harmonic shifts, the demo's simplicity is its identity. Buzzing ambient threads of the opening and closing tracks, give it a spatial depth that belies their minimal framework. Demonstration Two is sincere and epigrammatic in delivery, with a certain intrigue that justifies its existence within the raw black metal underground. Every bond is a bond to sorrow.

Rating: 3.5/5

Albums of the Year 2025

When we take stock of the events of any given year, we discover that our judgements are shaped not by what has occurred, but by the way in which we have been compelled to interpret it. The process of reflection is never a transparent window into the past, but rather a re-construction of reason out of the debris of experience, as an attempt to distinguish the essential from the ephemeral. There is, of course, a perennial temptation to value according to familiar hierarchies, to relegate what cannot be comprehended easily to already known categories. Yet, the real task of art critique is the confrontation of the uncomfortable, in resistance of the easy consolations of convention. While doing so, resulting verdicts are rarely uniformly agreeable, but always uncompromisingly authentic. Inside everyone's little mental pond of twilight, suddenly a music list makes sense.

Top 12 EPs of 2025

 

12. Soul Hater - Astral Malefactor

death metal, hardcore

listen

 

11. Skelethal - Transmogrification

death metal

listen

 

10. Fluisteraars - Grunsfoort

post-black metal

listen

 

9. Dripped - Utopia of Euphoric Envisionment

brutal death metal

listen

 

8. Panopticon - The Poppies Bloom for No King

atmospheric black metal

listen

 

7. Suffering Hour - Impelling Rebirth

avant-garde death / black metal 

listen

 

6. Disfiguring the Goddess - Galapagos

slam / brutal death metal, electronic

listen

 

5. Omnicidal Instinct - Catharsis in Blight

brutal death metal

listen

4. Crown Magnetar - Punishment

deathcore

listen

 

3. Profanatica - Wreathed In Dead Angels

black metal

listen

 

2. DEATHFUCKINGWOUND - Void MMXXV

black / death metal

listen

1. Imprecation - Vomitum Tempestas

death metal

listen

 

Fauna - Ochre & Ash (2025) Review

Some years ago, I went on to put a few words together about Fauna's then latest and final album Avifauna, but was so oversatisfied with their own description, that I quoted them in full instead. This time, to urge you to visit their Bandcamp page and support this once in a lifetime kind of artistic entity, I won't take the whole text as is, but instead I'll define some important terms:

• Animism: The belief that natural objects, places, and beings possess a spiritual essence.
• Shamanism: A spiritual practice in which a healer or mediator communicates with the spirit world to guide or heal a community.
• Atavism: The reappearance of traits or behaviors from distant ancestral origins, often seen as a throwback.
• Ochre: A natural earth pigment, usually reddish or yellowish, used by humans since prehistory for art and ritual.
• Ash: The powdery residue left after something is burned, often symbolizing both destruction and the possibility of renewal.

The rest of my review, would actually be the Bandcamp description itself, and a 5/5 rating. That's all there is when it comes to this band's presence in black metal.

Extending much further than the conventional atmospheric or ambient black metal template, unfurling in long, organic movements that breathe 9000 year old air and with an overwhelming focus on the element of atmosphere, Ochre & Ash is a ritual for both performer and observer. You may have seen the words atmosphere and ritual being passed around with a light heart elsewhere, but this here is the epitome of their essence.

The album art itself nods: Cueva de las Manos, old hands stencilled into rock inside Argentina, some older even than agriculture. In that image lies the soul of Ochre & Ash, symbolizing the human animal as more than craft or survival, but belonging to earth, to spirit, to what endures beyond the blood-letting of time.

I often mention how the interludes are the first to skip in these albums, yet here they are stunning in their own right. Weaving field-like sounds, drones, and subtle textures that conjure the presence of forests, caverns, and the ghost of ancient ritual fires, they're as effective as the three main (and seriously long) compositions. 

Each one of these three, requires a separate post. Until then, I'll just say that there's no band in this sub style, that feels more real than this. And to think, we haven't even recovered from the return of Volahn last week, and now this...

Nature and madness

Rating | 4.5 out of 5 [Brilliant]

Malthusian - The Summoning Bell (2025)

 

Black / Death Metal

Dublin, Ireland

 

 1. Isolation

2. Red, Waiting

3. Between Dens and Ruins

4. The Summoning Bell

5. The Onset of the Death of Man

6. Eroded Into Superstition

7. Amongst the Swarms of Vermin

8. In Chaos, Exult

 

Read about it

Lo-fi lowlife - May '25

Parasitic Infestation - Killzone

 

 

 

Brutal Death Metal / Slam | New Zealand | EP, 2025

 

1. Buckshot
2. Violence Ensued
3. G.D.F.T
4. Blunts
5. Bobcat Defense Tactics
6. Hammer Time
7. Hollowpoints

 

Listen

 

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Nuclear Hammer - Black Mass Invocation

 

 

War Metal | Russia | EP, 2025

 

1. Intro
2. Black Mass Invocation
3. Nuclear Blast from Hell    
4. Goat Vomit Command
5. Molested Corpse
6. Chainsaw Christfuck
7. Ritual (Blasphemy live cover)

 

Listen

 

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Spekter - Upon the Stronghold of Crimson Flesh

 

Raw Black Metal / Dungeon Synth | Brazil | Demo, 2025

 

1. I

2. II

3. III

4. IV

5. V

 

Listen

 

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Enthrallment - Enthrallment

 

Death Metal | United States | EP, 2025

 

1. Enthrallment

2. Those Who Crawl

 

Listen

 

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Alienated Inhumanity - Irrevocable Doom

 

 

Dark Ambient / Deathstep / Industrial | 2025

 

1. Insensitive

2. Transfiguration

3. Disappearance

 

Listen

 

Bullet Ratings - Jan '25 [II]

Anhedonist - Netherwards (2012): In the cave, Cyclops just blocked the entrance. [3.5]

Anvil - Juggernaut of Justice (2011): Old geezer rock that I will never care about whether it’s good or not. [2]

Blood Feast - Kill for Pleasure (1987): Not Pleasure to Kill, but still O.G. and the realest. [4]

Cognizant - Cognizant (2016): Snapped necks, pretty crazy overall. [3.5]

Cytotoxin - Gammageddon (2017): Hacksaws the kvlt out of you. [4]

Eyehategod - Dopesick (1996): If you weren’t in a bad mood, well you are now. [3.5]

Rot - A Cold Dead Stare (2002): Legendary grindcore band from Brazil, with a handful of full lengths and infinite splits / mini-albums since starting in 1990. [3.5]

Vacuous - Dreams of Dysphoria (2022): Murky but standard. [3]

While Heavent Wept - Sorrow of the Angels (1998): Thus with a kiss I die, into the well of sorrow, the death of love. [2.5]

Bullet Ratings - Jan '25

Barshasketh - Antinomian Asceticism (New Zealand, World Terror Committee): The album starts very potently but starts losing its direction towards the middle / ending part. Still quite enjoyable, well-written stuff. [3.25 / 5]

Harvst - Mahlstrom (Germany, Onism Productions): I would prefer not to. [2.25 / 5]

Infernal Cross - Blood Red Triumph (Sweden, Self-released): Devilish black / thrash metal with everything at the right place. [3.25 / 5]

Luring - Malevolent Lycanthropic Heresy (Ohio / US, Iron Bonehead Productions): Nice melodies, lo-fi approach and comes off as punchy and as evil as needed. Fine, but I might not come back to it. [3 / 5]

Mooondark - The Abysmal Womb (Sweden, Pulverised Records): Released on demo in the early nineties and then disappeared, this is their debut full length after getting back together two decades later. Like the aesthetics, but sadly nothing special. [2.5 / 5]

Necromaniac - Sciomancy, Malediction & Rites Abominable (England, Invictus Productions): The most literal and accurate definition of “morbid metal” I have ever seen. [4 / 5]

Revolting - Night of the Horrid (Sweden, Xtreem Music): Has been heard thousands and thousands of times, yet another one. [2 / 5]

Rudra - Antithesis (Indonesia, Awakening Records): Legendary Indonesian band, with many releases since 1992 and I haven’t talked about them that much here. A bit of black and a bit of death metal, but totally their own sound, and quite decent. [3.5 / 5]

Skagos - Chariot Sun Blazing (Canada, Self-released): Look who’s back. I have really enjoyed their previous two in the past, and the new one is no exception. Hope for more activity from one of the best Cascadian black metal bands out there. [3.5 / 5].

Uulliata Digir - Uulliata Digir (Poland, Self-released): What did I just listen. Amazing. [3.75 / 5]