ICICLE

I'm a big fan of the lo-fi black metal stylings of MOONKNIGHT, and while it seems like it's been a spell since we last got new music from them, they recently recorded some new tunes under the moniker of ICICLE, feeling the songs were not the right fit for their primary project.  And so we have the "Demo #1" EP and some lo-fi, black metal-tinged, shoegaze jams.  Check out "November Light" below and get the cassette here from Rising Beast.

Dargar

It's Saturday, and beautiful outside here in Austin.  What better time then for some gloomy, sludgy, celestial black metal to bring you back into the doom-filled void.  Featuring members of Moonknight and Harassor, Dargar make funereal passages to take you to the mysterious unknown on the other side.  Listen to "Cities in Ashes" below from the band's "The Shores of Space" album, out now on Rising Beast.

Vorpal Sword

A couple weeks ago, i discovered a wonderfully dark and lo-fi black metal EP from a band called MOONKIGHT.  The "Zhora" EP is quickly becoming one of my favorite releases of the year, so naturally i wanted to find more music from the group.  It appears that MOONKNIGHT is actually a one-man show, courtesy of someone named Horus, and, aside from other MOONKNIGHT releases, i also came across some other music that's even noisier and bleaker, a black metal project called Vorpal Sword.  Listen to the utterly epic "Pain" below, a fuzzy mess of crunched and crackling distortion and shredding, shrieked vocals, that somehow improbably still managed to sound ultimately uplifting.  Go figure.  Check out even more from the man here, courtesy of Rising Beast.

Moonknight

Melodic, atmospheric, lo-fi black metal?  Yeah, that sounds like something i'd listen to.  Listen to "Valley of Torment" below, a track from new album "Zhora" by black metal band Moonknight.  It's a dusty, crunchy, and somber affair, a perfectly fitting kind of dirge for the impending death of the European Union and the inevitable worldwide fallout that will come along with it.  Download the album here, courtesy of Rising Beast.