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Osculum Infame - Dor-nu-Fauglith

An under-rated classic, along with the EP. Under the Sign of the Beast is one of my favourite songs from the 90s.

Not so gone on the post-reformation stuff.

Saw them live in October 2020 with Paragon Belial, both were excellent.

The last album Axis of Blood is very good but of course nothing even close to Dor-nu-Fauglith. They did a one off show earlier this year with Vlad Drakul and now according to MA he is back in the band which if true is great news. When I saw them with Deviant fronting in 2014 he threw a load of syringes into the crowd.

No syringes that night, thankfully.

Axis of Blood was good, but I much prefer the atmosphere of the pre-break-up stuff.

It will be interesting to see what they do next with Vlad back on the mic.

Osculum Infame - Dor-nu-Fauglith

An under-rated classic, along with the EP. Under the Sign of the Beast is one of my favourite songs from the 90s.

Not so gone on the post-reformation stuff.

Saw them live in October 2020 with Paragon Belial, both were excellent.

A load of Marduk vinyl box sets are coming out next year.

Nice one! I think I only have Heaven Shall Burn on vinyl, so this will fill a gap.

I got some great bargains in the big Osmose sale the other day (first Glaciation, first Impaled Nazarene finally, last Ondskapt, third Minenwerfer), some of the vinyls (unbelievably) were down to €5. I had only visited the site to get the recent Hate Forest and ended up with loads of killlllerrrrrr stufffsss!!!!!!!!!!!!! (to quote their 90s catalogues).

Death - Human
Atheist - Unquestionable Presence
Cynic - Focus

Why fuck around?

That is a mighty trio, in fairness. I might put the three of them on now too.

Last six:
Throne of Ahaz – On Twilight Enthroned (1996, Swedish black metal full of great riffs. I was a bit late to the party on this band, only buying the two albums in 2007 due to the track on Blackened I probably being the worst thing they've done; embarrassingly, I reckon there are three direct matches for some of the riffs in some stuff I recorded before that...).

Mundanus Imperium – Ode to the Nightsky (1997, class atmospheric black metal from Norway, bought this EP after hearing it on a compilation the Cardinal gave me. I think this is a real under-rated gem that got lost in the crowd. Ended up signing for Nuclear Blast, but the album was nowhere near as good).

Hades – Again Shall Be... (1994, plodding Norwegian black metal. Year on year, I oscillate between seeing this as over- or under-rated. A bit different from some of the bands around the time, with the slow place and focus on creating an atmosphere).

Ancient – Svartalvheim (1994, probably the last Ancient album people can agree on being good. Cool atmosphere and again a bit different from the other bands. I also like the next album, but many hate it, as it is a bit cheesy).

Obtained Enslavement – Witchcraft (1997, keyboard-laden atmospheric Norwegian black metal. Features Pest, Gorgoroth's best vocalist, full of cool riffs and arrangements and might be one of the best albums of this style. Next one was muck, and it annoyed me so much that I never bothered to listen to the fourth album).

Godkiller – The Rebirth of the Middle Ages (1996, keyboard-laden atmospheric black metal from Monaco, of all places. I bought this on CD years ago for the novelty of having something by a band from Monaco, found it boring and proceeded to go 25 years or more without listening to it. Prompted to give it another go when I saw this week that it had been re-released a while back. I was wrong, it is great stuff, not sure what I was thinking. Supposed I had better give Mithotyn another go now as well...).

Class artwork! Looking forward to hearing the album: best of luck with it.

They release some tasty stuff.

They do indeed. They're doing some great work.

Last six:
 
Kalmankantaja – Waldeinsamkeit (2016. Atmospheric black metal from Finland, great for this time of year. Spent along time tracking down a physical copy of this, as various distros had sent me albums named Waldeinsamkeit by other bands, but I see that it has recently been re-released by a German label on digipack. The only excellent release from this band/project).

Hail Spirit Noir – Fossil Gardens (2024. Poppy Greek BM-adjacent stuff sort of similar to the likes of Solefald, this one was a real return to form after dipping a bit after their top-class 2012 debut. Like Solefald, this sort of thing is not for everyone, but it really hits the spot for me).

Darkside – Nothing (2025. Not metal-related in any way, but this due captured lightning in a bottle with the first album, but the bottle is very much in shards on the kitchen floor now; glad I listened to it it online before buying it).

Dråpsnatt – Hymner till undergången (2010. Swedish atmospheric black/pagan metal with a mixture of harsh and clean vocals; I had completely missed out on this band when they were still active, but this is one of the best ever albums of this sort of style in my opinion).

Aran – Pimeyttä Vasten (2021. Finnish atmospheric and often epic black metal; another fantastic album for this time of the year, and it must have been a year since I listened to it, due to overplaying it a bit when I bought it. The second track has one of the best changes in any song ever [for me at least]. The vinyl sounds and looks great, but it is possibly an album best listened to in a single run).

Nocternity – Onyx (2003. Slow atmospheric Greek black metal a bit too obsessed with A Song of Ice and Fire. Every time I put on a Nocternity album, no matter which one it is, I think to myself "ah no, it must be one of the other albums by them that I really like", but this one is probably the best of the bunch – I think).

Also @Anvil, Blood in Our Wells is one of my top-ten albums, if not top-five. I surely am not alone in that opinion, I'd imagine/hope.

Samael- Morbid Metal 7" boxset. I would ideally have liked to pick up the picture disc edition but I missed it at the time- it disappeared too quickly. The black vinyl will do nicely.

I really have to start opening more of these DSR emails. I totally missed this was out.

It really does sound like something that came out of Oz in the mid to late nineties, or maybe France or the US in the early noughties. Not exactly my cup of tea, but it is very well done and I am sure they must be a ripping band to see live.

I've just picked up both the demo and the album. The demo is class (hard enough to track down a copy without ending up on a watchlist), and I've high hopes for the album. Thanks for posting this band!

My copy arrived in the post yesterday (it only had to come up the road to Bonn from Mannheim, so I'd imagine I'm a couple of days ahead).

I will give it a whirl this evening after I finish working, along with the three other tapes I bought.

My copy was numbered 62/66, so it would probably be a good idea to act fast to buy it.

https://youtu.be/NIACYaez7AM?si=6qZvf3D9mn_q88tq  a 48 minutes set. Crowd loving it!
 I have a Frupp Best of CD,thanks for the recommendation on the German band

Thanks for the link. Ah, I didn't realise there was a best of. They've reprinted all the albums on CD, and I think just Future Legends on vinyl, seemingly in response to the huge number of plays of FL on a YouTube channel for forgotten prog. You can't go wrong with that second Frumpy album IMO. My German father-in-law is a big fan, and he lived through the wave of prog and cosmic rock bands (Guru Guru even played at his secondary school—how mad is that?).

Bought a Greatest Hits album by 'Focus' from NL,
went down the rabbit hole of searching up their stuff on YouTube; came across a live gig from The National Stadium in the 70s.
Hocus Pocus is some piece of music

Great band! I think I have all their stuff on vinyl at this stage. I've not seen the National Stadium gig, must look it up.

If you're looking for some 70s prog/prog-adjacent recommendations outside of the usual, check out Fruup (especially Future Legends) from Belfast and Frumpy (especially Frumpy 2, fucking class altogether) from Germany.

Agreed on most of the old bands doing things by the numbers, especially when it gets to the second album after the comeback.

I will give the Coroner album another few listens and hopefully it will click even more than it has.

We'll have to disagree on Grin (like Spheres and a couple of other albums from that time, it is always a case of loving or hating them, with few falling between those poles).