Satanhartalt - Forscr​í​fan tape

Fuck yes new Satanhartalt tape after like 5 years and it's still as ominous and cavernous as ever revolving around an unbelievable dissonant chord. Amazing shit, much better than all that sketchy and untalented bm, punk or whatever Legion Blotan does. 2022 tape on Legion Blotan.

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Unkerd Wood - Demo II tape

 

Second release for this creepy doom/black metal North-East England project, playing subterranean crawling invocations with slow funeral-like drums and guitar/bass creating a thick foggy noise that cannot be escaped from. It's great that these guys can invoke such enveloping darkness just by playing live with three instruments and making good use of reverb, without any keyboards or studio tricks. Track three has this extremely spooky and depressive e-bow melody morphing into black metal arpeggio combined with heavy gruff caveman vocals-definitely a must hear. 2012 tape on Legion Blotan.

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Unkerd Wood / Pact Of Ash / Gammal Sed ‎– Northern Retaliation split tape

3-way split tape by three projects with overlapping memberships: Lee Stokoe's Pact Of Ash begins the program with a 9-minute instrumental slow barrage of black metal riffing and dead-slow drums that somewhat reminds me of that awesome Murmuüre album in 2010. Unkerd Wood consists of Mike Simpson (Xazzaz, Oppenheimer, Dark Bargain, and Satanhartalt - all of which have been covered here) on bass & vocals, Jamie Stewart (Wrest, Fuckin' Amateurs Records, Oppenheimer, Dark Bargain, and Satanhartalt) on drums, and George Proctor (Legion Blotan/Turgid Animal Records, Mutant Ape, Inseminoid, ex-Skullflower) on guitar & vocals. I already liked their ultra-lo-fi, dungeon-sounding, black-hole black/doom metal, but this track is just UNBELIEVABLE,. It's a 16-minute epic of slowly grinding drums and bass, wailing and dissonant guitars, and some of the most seriously scary vocals I've heard invoking terrible swampy creatures and seems to me like a more structured version of the ritual darkness of Satanhartalt. At the 9-minute mark, everything stops and an ominous ritual dark ambient drone takes over, only to give its place after 2 minutes to one of the best riffs black metal has ever experienced, a reverbed cacophonous arpeggiated anthemic thing sustained by crushing drums and noise and a blurry psychedelic doom/blues vibe behind it that simply crushes everything. I think that this tape must be bought/listened to even just for this track. Finally, there's Gammal Sed, a solo (I think) project of George Proctor, where he plays catatonic, depressive but loud and noisy black metal revolving around a great arpeggiated riff eventually morphing into a noisy industrial/ambient chaos. All three of these groups are great, and they have released other stuff on Legion Blotan and Matching Head that deserve listening/buying. 2017 tape on Legion Blotan.

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Pact Of Ash - Demo tape (2012, Legion Blotan)

Yet another solo project of the ever-active Lee Stokoe of Culver/Matching Head, this time playing instrumentral, guitar-only black metal noise. This is a both sinister and mournful mix of cacophonous, oft-kilter fierce tremolo riffing with layers of fuzzy noise/drone in the background, not too dissimilar of early Burzum, but without the metally attitude. Late 2000s Skullflower is an obvious reference, as Lee played in that incarnation of SF, along with George Proctor who has released this tape. Highly recommended, as is the case with most of Stokoe's oeuvre. 2012 tape on Legion Blotan.

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Satanhartalt

This is another project involving Mike Simpson of Xazzaz and Jamie Stewart, who plays with Mike in Oppenheimer and Dark Bargain. This is an unsettling, dungeon-like, lo-fi mix of psychedelia, drone, black metal, doom metal and ritual music that became less metal-y with the years (fortunately) and which creates an atmosphere of enveloping and oozing, walls-closing-in darkness. All of their tapes have been released by Legion Blotan.

2010 - Hæðenfolc


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2011 - Carcernþéostru


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2011 - Féondscipe

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2012 - Déaþscufærgewinn


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2013 - Sigeléas



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2017 - Ágenslaga




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