Forestfather: "Hereafter"

Boundless admiration that would have been an immense recording if released at the right time

Forestfather, a band of Chilean descent, has its origins in the 1998 band Eternal Winter. Since its creation at the hands of Kveldulf Bjalfason, the debut - Hereafter - has been underway, awaiting the completion of the lineup in 2012 with the addition of drummer Jared Moran and vocalist Michael Rumple (of Desiderium).

The band "met" through the Metal Archives forum, and as such the band's reach stretches from Chile in South America to both Mississippi and North Carolina in the US. Many may already be acquainted with Moran's drumming, as he has performed in somewhere around 40 bands.

Master Fury: "Circles of Hell"

Obscure heavyweights on CD for the first time

No doubt the US played an essential role in the rise of thrash metal in the 80s. While bands like Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth, Testament, Overkill, Flotsam & Jetsam, Forbidden and more are usually the first that come to mind, hidden gems like Holocross, Heretic, Powerlord and Master Fury must not be forgotten.

Gates of Eternal Torment: "Imprisoned Beneath the Ice of This Cold Black Void"

Uncultivated tremolos with too little substance

Though the whole mysterious obscurity deal in black metal is now little more than a token shtick, it does at times add to the whole atmosphere surrounding a band. Little is known about Gates of Eternal Torment - Its only member, Firthornn, hails from USA's garden state New Jersey. His lyrics and music revolves around a blackened core of dark subjects, the mass of which pulls in all light like a cosmic black hole.

Black Chalice: "Submission"

On the right track to the apocalypse

The sonic versions of burdening depression and imposing matters is exactly what you would expect from a project named Black Chalice, and the project delivers. The undertaking of one Patrick Hasson, a resident of Maine, USA, continues to return with more outings of mind-crippling doom.

Okketaehm: "Stones"

The wintry grey north has never looked or sounded better

I was on my way out the door one early winter morning in freezing Denmark. I got in the car to go to work on the hitherto coldest and snowiest morning that year, and like so many times before I was going over my CDs to find a couple to bring on the trip. I was going to go with some Entombed and Darkthrone, feeling like listening to some old school stuff, but then I found Okketaehm's 2012 demo Stones from Contaminated Tones Productions and thought I might as well give it a listen on the way to work. Though the total play-time of Stones is a mere 18 minutes in length, those 18 minutes consist of the most grey, wintry, space-like ambience and raw black metal imaginable. The demo never left the car's CD player that day.

Diseased Oblivion: "Portals of Past & Present"

With compelling evidence the corrupting duo sign your death sentence

From the dismal darkness of some obscure, long forgotten chasm in the depths of the earth came Diseased Oblivion in 2009. With them the ominous duo brought several incantations of enigmatic, arcane droning metal in the forms of various blackened processions of funeral doom metal. The sixth incarnation of Diseased Oblivion's music is found on the 4-track demo from 2012 entitled Portals of Past and Present, which features songs from the very initiation of Diseased Oblivion in 2009 to some of their newer material from 2011.