Hailed as ‘The European Metallica’, the 1995 masterpiece solidified the British band’s position at the top table of British metal. With some success already in the bag, the band’s rising status allowed them to deliver their most accomplished sound to date, and a collection of songs that are magnificently heavy, but with a cool, gothic sheen. It remains Paradise Lost’s most acclaimed and adored body of work, and era of the band. The CD also sees the band open their vaults and provide a version that comes with an extra disc of bonus and rare, unreleased material from the Draconian Times era. The 25th Anniversary edition features the re-mastered mix of 2011’s Legacy CD. It also comes furnished with new liner notes from journalist and long standing fan Nick Ruskell, a never seen before deep dive into the record’s lyrics and themes from vocalist Nick Holmes, and memories from the band.

The Wizards come from Bilbao in Spain. They were originally formed in the spring of 2013. After having recorded a four-track demo the band started gigging for earnest in February 2014. Since then The Wizards have released two studio albums and toured mainly in Spain but also in France, Portugal and Germany. Rise Of The Serpent is the band's third album. The band's slogan is "Occult Heavy Metal Warriors", what's that supposed to mean and how would The Wizards describe their overall musical style? "What we play is a totally unconscious mix of styles we all share and like. There definitely is a strong and obvious heavy metal background in our music, but if you scratch the surface you will also find some 1970s hard rock, a piece of the doomy element and even some punk.

“As an artist in this time of significant upheaval, society seemingly having reached the end of its current iteration, it’s of critical importance to absorb and interpret this process of dissolution - and of the transformation that hopefully follows it” says Aaron Turner, guitarist and vocalist for the expressionistic metal ensemble SUMAC. “While I don’t believe we’re on the brink of collective destruction precisely now, this is clearly a pivotal stage in the story of humankind - and there is something that feels right about this music at this exact and very uncertain moment.” In this case, the music in discussion is May You Be Held, the latest album for the American-Canadian trio.

In 2018, European progressive extreme music outfit the Ocean Collective released Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic, the first half of a sprawling concept offering based on paleontology. Its companion, Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic, closes the evolutionary cycle that spans all periods during the Phanerozoic Eon. The first album documented the Cambrian explosion that ended with the pre-Triassic extinction event. This chronological sequel begins at the dawn of the dinosaurs, then continues in the present epoch. Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic garnered acclaim for its relentless heaviness and straightforward musical progression. Phanerozoic II is far more experimental and eclectic. Its sounds, words, and atmospheres are pursued in ever-expanding circles, employing varied tempos, abundant electronic textures, melodic compositional frames, and selective orchestration to create something that borders on the exotic, yet remains heavy as hell.

Ever since the band's founding in late 2004, AHAB have been exploring the deep dark sea, while becoming the true masters of solemn melancholy. Not only did the four-piece create their very own subgenre, Nautic Funeral Doom, but never has pessimism sounded so beautiful. AHAB's impressive live show at Death Row Fest 2017 in Jena, Germany was recorded by the festival's in-house sound engineer, who handed the band their footage on a USB-stick after their intense and memorable gig. Now, and as a special highlight in the band's history mastered by Role Wiegener at Tonmeisterei, AHAB have chosen a finest selection of live tracks, originally released on their pathbreaking, 2006 album, The Call of the Wretched Sea! Live Prey, the first live release by the nautical doom heavyweights, is gracefully nestled in between slow-motion grooves, big riffs, and haunting melodies accented by the angelic but guttural vocals of Daniel Droste, in an apocalyptic live sound as you would experience it only from the front row at an AHAB show. Featuring five blackened doom anthems such as “Below the Sun”, the majestic beast “Old Thunder”, or the almost 17-minute long magnum opus “The Hunt”, Live Prey is the ultimate live record by the undisputed sailors of slow heaviness! An indispensable must-have album that belongs in every well-sorted Doom, Black Metal, and especially AHAB record collection.

PALLBEARER are back with new album, »Forgotten Days«. Carefully plotted throughout 2019, the quartet's fourth long-player eschews the compositional maximalism that hoisted predecessor »Heartless« aloft for the heaviest groove and the most visceral hooks to come out of the Arkansans to date. Spread across eight towering tracks, »Forgotten Days« sees PALLBEARER embracing their roots again, but this time with a doom-infused metallic spark that's infectious and transcendent. Indeed, this album is everything a PALLBEARER fan could love. It is a raw and riveting evolution, filled with emotion and the unique downcast exuberance that has defined the band's storied career.

Hopkins (The Witchfinder General) was released by Lee Dorrian’s doom metal band Cathedral in 1996 on a 5-track E.P. Formed in Coventry, England in 1989 from ex-members of Napalm Death (Dorrian) and Acid Reign (guitarist, Gaz Jennings), the band sought to ditch the punk and death metal directions their previous bands were heading in and explore slower, ‘doomier’ sounds, being influenced by the likes of Black Sabbath and Pentagram.

And though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death… Almost five years after their sixth long-player "Sovran", DRACONIAN once again cast their breathtaking veil of melancholy over the world. This second full-length release featuring singer Heike Langhans delivers a captivating mélange of dreary doom and contrasty vocals and mixes Heike's angelic female voice with Anders Jakobsson's death growls. The one-hour long album, graced with haunting cover artwork by Natalia Drepina, is carrying the legacy of gothic doom metal à la My Dying Bride or Trees Of Eternity into the new decade and will drag the listener into a sorrowful cosmos right with the first notes of the spellbinding opener "Sorrow Of Sophia" that interweaves beauty with crippling depression. After crushing slow rhythms and the fragile "Sleepwalkers" that leads through barren soundscapes, the band - founded in Säffle / Sweden in 1994 – rises up to their best in the nine-minute long "Ascend Into Darkness", which will echo in the listener's ears long after the final chord has died away.

Stemming out of an offer from Roadburn Festival organizer Walter Hoeijmakers, mutual acquaintances, and a shared love of each other’s output, May Our Chambers Be Full is the first recorded document of collaboration between Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou. While their solo material seems on its face to be quite disparate, both groups have spent their respective careers lurking at the outer boundaries of the heavy metal scene, the artists having more in common with DIY punk and its spiritual successor, grunge.