Ashenheart: Tales From Eternal Dusk (2025)

From a purely sonic perspective, cassette might be the ideal format for black metal. I started with CDs, dabbled a bit in vinyl for my favorite bands in the genre, but lately I’ve been grabbing cassettes from Bandcamp (usually from the excellent Fiadh Productions), connecting the threads of collaborations until I found Ashenheart and their latest, Tales From Eternal Dusk. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect: had I discovered them earlier, I might have been turned off by their former adherence to FromSoftware video games for their thematic inspiration. But when the band channels second-wave energy with a more modern, intentional spirit this well, I guess you can lay your Bloodborne fanfic on heavy as you please.

ChrisDecember 15, 2025December 16, 2025Leave a comment

agriculture - the spiritual sound album cover

Cassette

Agriculture: The Spiritual Sound (2025)

Welcome to an experiment. As I write this, my brief take on The Spiritual Sound, the phenomenal sophomore LP from California’s Agriculture, I’m actually listening to their self-titled debut – an album I really, really did not care for. Summoning the joy and fervor the new album gave me while revisiting a debut I found anonymous and cowering behind a wall of bricked production, I began to identify fragments of the things that would fully bloom two years later. I won’t say I’ve come around yet, but man: what a giant leap this album takes – and lands – successfully.

I think.

ChrisDecember 4, 2025December 4, 2025Leave a comment

Cassette

Satan: Suspended Sentence (1987)

Everything about Suspended Sentence, the sophomore album from the UK NWOBHM pioneers Satan is a little rougher than their stellar debut four years earlier. The artwork feels a little rushed, the logo almost an afterthought. The production sounds muted, compressed and thin in sections, maybe overcompensating for songs that didn’t quite catch the fire Court In The Act did. And perhaps the most glaring change if you’re a fan: Brian Ross is missing on vocals, replaced for this one album by Michael Jackson (not “that” Michael Jackson) of Pariah. It overall makes for a more rough and tumble album, but though it doesn’t come up for listens that often, I still find moments of excitement in the way Satan build out their riffs and songs, so to kick off 80s metal week and close out March 2025 let’s dig in and see what’s behind the bones.

ChrisMarch 25, 2025March 25, 2025Leave a comment

Cassette

Auriferous Flame: The Insurrectionists And The Caretakers (2024)

Wrapping up extreme metal cassette week by moving away from the death/thrash and charting blacker waters. I definitely recall where I heard of Auriferous Flame, the one man black metal entity purveying in old school but decidedly anti-fascist black metal: Banger TV’s Cassette Cult – the top 10 underground releases off 2023. Mainman Ayloss is also the sonic mind behind Spectral Lore, but the music he peddles as Auriferous Flame is much more second wave worship, albeit with modern melodic flourishes, which is definitely my thing. The Insurrectionists And The Caretakers is listed as an EP with only three songs, but when your first track is an epic 15 minutes and the whole album clocks in at close to a half hour, those labels become meaningless. This thing rocks, so let quickly get into it.

ChrisMarch 7, 2025March 7, 2025Leave a comment

Cassette

Noxis: Violence Inherent In The System (2024)

Another day, another cassette. Another debut, this time Cleveland, Ohio’s Noxis, bringing forth the primal, grimy technical death with Violence Inherent In The System. Once again discovered combing through various end of year lists (pretty sure it was Last Rites) I was immediately taken with the cover art – some things never change. But then I heard the music, the band trotting out some supremely slimy Morbid Angel and other 90s inspired death metal and I was hooked. Had to have it, and cassette just felt like the perfect format.

ChrisMarch 6, 2025March 6, 2025Leave a comment

Cassette

Sovereign: Altered Realities (2024)

Yeah…remember when I mentioned DBC as a sonic touchstone when I reviewed the Demoniac album? That really should have been applied to Altered Realities, the debut from Oslo’s Sovereign. Echoing the best of late 80s, early 90s technical death/thrash, it’s a marvel of a metal record, so good that even though I caught really late in the year it made my overall end of year list. A little DBC, a little Leprosy-era Death and you have the makings of my favorite kind of album. 100% technicality tied with 100% groove and 100% badass cover art, making for 500% of pre metal glory, if my math is right…

ChrisMarch 5, 2025March 5, 2025Leave a comment

Consuming the Tangible

We are what we consume

Category: Cassette

Ashenheart: Tales From Eternal Dusk (2025)

Agriculture: The Spiritual Sound (2025)

Satan: Suspended Sentence (1987)

Auriferous Flame: The Insurrectionists And The Caretakers (2024)

Noxis: Violence Inherent In The System (2024)

Sovereign: Altered Realities (2024)