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[Eoin McLove]

Samael- Ceremony of Opposites.

[Dr Rockso]

Samael- Ceremony of Opposites.

Class album. Always gets dusted off this time of year

[Eoin McLove]

Samael- Ceremony of Opposites.

Class album. Always gets dusted off this time of year

Not too shabby.

[Anvil]

Drudkh - Handful of Stars
Kampfar - Mellon Skogkkedde Aaser
Lucifer's Child - The Wiccan
Hjelvik - Welcome to Hel
Conjurer - Unself

[StoutAndAle]

Wino - "Create Or Die"

Not great - by the numbers. Struggling with a second listen right now. Especially as Anvil's post above just reminded me that I haven't listened to the new Conjurer record yet.

[General Lee]

Nocturnus AD - Paradox

[Putrefaction]

Optimum Wound Profile - Lowest Common Dominator
Fudge-Tunnel - Creep Diets
Headcleaner - No offence meant...plenty taken

[Eoin McLove]

Zemial- In Monumentum. I am working in the Yarra Valley these days, a truly stunning location. As I was dropping down into the valley this morning, the sun disappeared as I entered a thick blanket of mist and the title track was soaring. What a song. A true epic had rock/ heavy metal masterpiece, on this morning enhanced by the epic view 

[Thorn]

Always a bonus when the elements conspire to add that little bit of a sheen to the music.

[Eoin McLove]

To be sure, to be sure.

[Anvil]

Abscession - Rot of Ages
Nasum - Inhaled / Exhaled / Revived (never heard a note of Nasum before, but decided to pick this up on CD).
Fleshgod Apocalypse - Veleno (A past acquaintance once persuaded me that this band are really good, so I purchased it on their recommendation..  Just came to hand again this morning.  Really not my cup of tea... maybe why they are a past acquaintance).
Master - Faith is in Season
Coroner - Dissonance Theory (it is very good, but perhaps not the best thing since sliced bread).
Drudkh - Blood In Our Wells

[Thorn]

With you on the Coroner, it is very good but the plaudits are a bit over the top. Unless you play it after the new Testament ,in which case it's going to sound like an absolute masterpiece.

[Taranis]

Last six:

Müür – Cauldron Bog (one of two classic demos brought out by this band in 2022 that luckily got a vinyl issue a while after; really good black metal, somewhere between that one good Horna album and some of the Bergen bands)

Deathspell Omega – The Long Defeat (always a good one to get the brain going in the morning; the best album of the year back in 2022 IMO, and one of the best in their back catalogue, even if it is quite the shift from Phase 2 of the band)

Germ – Grief (an Australian black-metal adjacent project that is a bit like marmite, especially due to the clean vocals that sound like some bad 90s Australian pop band, but some great songs on there; all four of their albums got a vinyl reissue a while back)

Earth and Pillars – Earth I (one of the best albums from the previous decade, Italian atmospheric black metal)

Öxxö Xööx – + (a band I only stumbled upon a couple of weeks back, a bananas mix of Arcturus, Solefald, Igorrr, Dødheimsgard, etc., but with something else going on too)

Thy Catafalque – Róka Hasa Rádio (possibly the best album by one of my favourite projects; great that it finally got a reissue last year)

[Taranis]

Samael- Ceremony of Opposites.

I noticed while scrolling back that you're not a fan of Blood Ritual? I was miffed when Ceremony of Opposites came out, found it a snoozefest after being a huge fan of Blood Ritual (which I bought on tape secondhand out of my Christmas money after a mate didn't like it). COO still does nothing for me, bar that killer title track, despite repeated attempts. I suppose John Kenny playing the title track on the Metal Show helped emphasise how plodding the rest of the album in my teenage brain.

For me, Blood Ritual was like nothing else around at the time, and a mixture of all the styles that I liked. I was too young to catch the first one, and I don't think I even managed to hear it until I bought it in 2002.

[open face surgery]

Nasum - Inhaled / Exhaled / Revived (never heard a note of Nasum before, but decided to pick this up on CD).

Shame they butchered the artwork. This and Human 2.0 are incredible, Helvete and Shift are great as well.