HDR 2017

HYPNOTIC DIRGE RELEASES • 2017

Melankolia - Vividarium Intervigilium Viator
Release: December 12, 2017
Style: Atmospheric Dark Ambient
Format: 4 Panel Digipack with 8 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

The nights are long, the air is cold, and winter's firm grasp is upon us. This is the season of contemplation and reflection. Vividarium Intervigilium Viator is the perfect soundtrack for solitary introspection allowing you to feel mourning, loss, resentment, as well as hope for optimism. The physical album is presented in a 4 panel digipack with an accompanying booklet of photography from the composer Mike O’Brien and Silvana Massa.

French-Canadian band Norilsk is back with a captivating new album, as thick and heavy as permafrost. Le passage des glaciers follows in the footsteps of 2015's The Idea of North, but expands the sound considerably. From a sludgy slab of doom-death, the band has carved further into the icy influences of dark metal, to emerge with a blackened doom-death album with frozen melodies, misty atmospheres, and reflective lyrical passages.

Ah Ciliz / Chiral - Origins
Release: November 6, 2017
Style: Atmospheric Black Metal
Format: 6 Panel Digipack (Co-release with Throats Productions)
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Hypnotic Dirge and Throats Production presents the release an intense nature-themed atmospheric Black Metal split record entitled "Origins" between two great atmospheric bands - Combining the dreamy and hypnotic atmosphere of Lustre with the breathless wonder of Falls of Rauros' , and the wild raw guitar lines of Wolves in the Throne Room. Highly atmospheric split album based on indigenous culture, nature and the cosmos.

Odradek Room - A Man of Silt
Release: October 12, 2017
Style: Progressive (Doom) Metal
Format: Limited 6 Panel Digipack with Booklet (Co-release with Solitude Productions)
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Odradek Room is a four-piece progressive metal band from Mariupol, Ukraine. Named after Franz Kafka's short story The Cares of a Family Man [1919] Odradek Room uses doom metal as a base, but explores other musical genres to paint a rich palette of texture and atmosphere. Lyrically rooted in spiritual and philosophical themes, this is music that should appeal to introspective souls and deep thinkers.

Kval - Kval
Release: July 27, 2017
Style: Atmospheric Depressive Black Metal
Format: 6 Panel Digipack
Order CD | Order Pack | Digital | Album Reviews

Kval, like a thick fog prevailing over an ancient forest, carries the last pangs of hope below this ominous landscape. Cold guitars and tortured screams roll over slow-bleeding drum patterns like walls of icy wind, only interrupted from time to time by a short interlude. three minimalistic ambient songs. For fans of Burzum, Forgotten Woods, and Mortualia.

Kassad - Faces Turn Away
Release: July 6, 2017
Style: Urban Black Metal
Format: 4 Panel Sleeve / 8 Page Booklet
Order CD | Order Pack | Digital | Album Reviews

From the onset of “Faces Turn Away”, an all-encompassing sense of existential terror and claustrophobic anxiety hits you and builds to a crescendo before everything descends into dread and finally nothingness. An album about the misery, futility, and madness of modern urban life that feels both urgent and cavernous. For fans of netra, Burzum, and Darkspace.

Mavradoxa - Lethean Lament
Release: June 22, 2017
Style: Atmospheric Black Metal
Format: 4 Panel Digipack / 8 Page Booklet
Order CD | Order Pack | Digital | Album Reviews

Laurentian Black Metal band Mavradoxa returns with their second album “Lethean Lament” - an introspective and majestic album that is expansive, atmospheric, and melancholic. The entire album encapsulates a whirlwind of emotion from raw carnal aggression, nature reverence, despair, longing, and bliss. Honest genuine music for fans of Agalloch, Alda, and Falls of Rauros.

Vin de Mia Trix - Palimpsests [2CD]
Release: May 31, 2017
Style: Progressive Extreme Doom
Format: 6 Panel Digipack / 36 Page Booklet (Co-release with Cimmerian Shade Recordings)
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Palimpsests is an album about archetypes, the stories and characters that exist deep inside our collective subconsciousness, stories so significant and influential that they appear in various peoples' and cultures' mythology. Musically, “Palimpsests” is rooted in Extreme Doom, venturing occasionally into the territories of Prog Rock and Post-Metal.

NONE - selftitled
Release: April 11, 2017
Style: Atmospheric / Depressive Black Metal
Format: 6 Panel Digipack
Order CD | Order Shirt+CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Chilling and despondent music from the Pacific Northwest. Make no mistake, this music is fucking cold and would serve as a perfect soundtrack to your death. An endless blizzard in a vast tundra. An album that will certainly appeal to Atmospheric Black Metal and DSBM listeners of such groups as Shining, Coldworld, and Woods of Desolation.

*This is an "internet" cover.
The printed booklet has two different
covers - one for each band.

Black Tremor / Sea Witch
Release: March 24, 2017
Style: Progressive Folk Doom / Atmospheric Doom
Format: Jewel Case / 8 Page Booklet (Reversable Covers) (Co-release with Sunmask)
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Sunmask and Hypnotic Dirge present a split release from two of the best heavy instrumental bands out of Canada: The stoner folk doom of the prairies - Black Tremor, and the atmospheric nautical doom of the maritimes - Sea Witch. Presented in a jewel case with reversible covers as well as a limited edition cassette through Sunmask.

netra - Ingrats
Release: March 9, 2017
Style: Experimental Black Metal / Darkwave / Trip-hop
Format: 4 Panel Sleeve / 8 Page Booklet
Order CD | Order "Ingrats" Pack | Digital | Album Reviews

The third full-length album“Ingrats” (french for “ungrateful ones”) is filled with raw and honest music that speaks to a common despair, internal psychosis, and the monotony of modern life. The Black Metal feels urgent and sharp as ice, while the heavily distorted guitar tone is absolutely perfect as a contrast juxtaposed against the ominous darkwave melodies.

Obitus - Slaves of the Vast Machine
Release: February 16, 2017
Style: Apocalyptic Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 4 Page Inlay (Co-release with Black Plague Records)
Order CD | Order Shirt+CD | Digital | Album Reviews

'Slaves of the Vast Machine' conveys human aimlessness and desperation amidst total social control with some brilliant icy riffs and dissonant tones. This is harsh progressive post-Black Metal that is relentless and chaotic from start to finish with some really solid tremolo-picking melodies, inexorable atmosphere, and a complete disregard for humanity.

Official Releases - Digital Only
2017

Mavradoxa / Deafest [Split]
Release: November 12, 2017
Style: Atmospheric Black Metal
Format: Digital Only
Stream / Download

Mavradoxa and Deafest present a new autumnal themed split album from two sides of North America!
Mavradoxa is an atmospheric black metal band rooted in the Laurentian region of upstate New York. The music of Mavradoxa is expansive, atmospheric, and melancholic. Deafest is a project founded by Chase Ambler in Denver, Colorado. Deafest plays an instrumental ode to the beauty and awe of nature.

Ancient Tundra - All Light Has Since Escaped Me
Release: February 6, 2017
Style: Atmospheric / Ambient Black Metal
Format: Digital Only
Stream / Download

Digital-only single track from the ambient / atmospheric Black Metal project Ancient Tundra.

Ancient Tundra is an old project of label founder N Skog, which has been reborn in the fall of 2016 and is now working towards a new full-length album.

Guest Vocals from Damian Smith from Altars of Grief.

Official Releases - Physical Media
2016

Harrow - Fragments of a Fallen Star
Release: November 8, 2016 (Re-issue)
Style: Dark Folk / Cascadian Black Metal
Format: 4 Panel Digipack / 4 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Crafting a cathartic experience through introspective yet raw music, “Fragments of a Fallen Star” explores space by combining psychedelic drone, acoustic passages, and energetic atmospheric black metal. An album rooted in claustrophobic and raw, yet atmospheric and infectious black metal, interlaced with haunting synth, and transcendent folk melodies.

Frigoris - Nur ein Moment...
Release: August 25, 2016
Style: Post-Black Metal
Format: 4 Panel Digipack / 12 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Frigoris is a post black metal band rooted in the heart of the ruhr-area, Germany. The combination between Black Metal riffing and craftsmanship as well as a postmodern approach towards atmosphere and lyrics form a synthesis that results in long, atmospheric but melodious songs. Lyrical concept of a protagonist who faces the consequences of suicide in an interior journey.

Subterranean Disposition - Contagiuum and the Landscapes of Failure
Release: June 13, 2016
Style: Experimental Doom-Death Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 8 Page Booklet (Co-release with Solitude Productions)
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Nearly four years after releasing the debut self-titled album, Melbourne based Experimental Death-Doom band Subterranean Disposition returns with a massive new full-length album entitled “Contagiuum and the Landscapes of Failure.” an unmistakably bold, creative, and forward-thinking album that incorporates as many elements and techniques outside doom as within.

Negative Voice - Cold Redrafted
Release: April 11, 2016
Style: Melodic Blackened Doom / Post-Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 12 Page Booklet (Co-release with Solitude Productions)
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

“Cold, Redrafted” builds upon what is found on the debut and adds a lot of new elements as well. At its core, the album is still Blackened Doom in the vein of the genre giants, but on this album Negative Voice expands, adding clean vocals, experimenting with song structure and textures, and including influences from other genres, enthralling melodies and a progressive sound.

Immensity - The Isolation Splendour
Release: March 21, 2016
Style: Gothic Doom/Death Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 8 Page Booklet (Co-release with Solitude Productions)
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

A mature sound emanates from the memorable melodies and captivating atmosphere in “The Isolation Splendour” combining the essential feeling of early 90’s doom metal such as early-Paradise Lost, and My Dying Bride while also providing the melancholic gothic-tinge of bands such as Draconian or The Foreshadowing. A thick wall of sound soaked in melancholy and grief.

Official Releases - Digital Only

2016

Subarctic Nocturnes : Below the Wilted Grove [Volume III - MMXVI]
Release: November 26, 2016
Style: Compilation Album [Mostly Dark Neo-Folk / Acoustic Rock]
Format: Digital Only
Stream / Download

For those who revel in the simple yet brilliant sounds of acoustic medleys, haunting vocals, trance-inducing rhythms, and droning violins, this is a collection not to be missed! Fit for the rustic scenes of this dying season, “Below the Wilted Grove” is sure to ease you into the most bitter of months ahead, as we’re lowered once again into the cold grave of another merciless winter.

Official Releases - Physical Media
2015

Womb - Deception Through Your Lies
Release: November 30, 2015
Style: Atmospheric / Funeral Doom Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 8 Page Booklet (Co-release with Solitude Productions)
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

"Deception Through Your Lies” is heavy but melancholic music filled with endless melody will appeal to anyone who appreciates not only the outer side of doom death metal consisting of catchy riffs and dense guitar sound, but also its sensual side awakening thoughts and feelings. Atmospheric and deep doom with a pulse.

*This release has two album covers.
The image above is a mosaic of both.

Nachtterror / Altars of Grief - Of Ash and Dying Light
Release: July 22, 2015
Style: Black Metal / Blackened Doom Metal
Format: 10" Vinyl with insert. Printed by Pirate Press
Order Vinyl | Digital | Album Reviews

A split record between two of the best Blackened Doom bands coming out of Saskatchewan! Nachtterror focuses on creating an epic Black Metal soundscape with an intense concentration on storytelling while Altars of Grief draws from an eclectic background, weaving soaring choral arrangements with powerful, driving death metal; morose doom and frantic black metal passages.

Verlies - Le Domaine des Hommes
Release: May 28, 2015
Style: Black Metal
Format: 4 Panel Digipack / 12 Page Booklet (Co-release with Throats Productions)
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Based out of the French city Lille, Verlies is an avant-garde Black Metal band playing dark, strange, and experimental music. Ranging from piercing and uncompromising Black Metal, to experimental jazz melodies, to post-rock sensibilities, and everything in between, the music is raw, bold, and truly exceptional.

Orphans of Dusk - Revenant
Release: May 4, 2015
Style: Gothic Doom-Death Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 4 Page Booklet (Co-release with Solitude Productions)
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Orphans of Dusk is a gothic death/doom band being projected into the stars from the South Pacific Ocean, New Zealand/Australia. Immense, powerful, and atmospheric doom riffs coalescing with soft melodic textures and melancholy! For fans of Type O Negative, Woods of Ypres, My Dying Bride, The Foreshadowing, Swallow the Sun, etc.

Norilsk - The Idea of North
Release: March 10, 2015
Style: Sludge / Blackened Doom Metal
Format: 4 Panel Digipack / 12 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

“The Idea of North” is a doom-death album crafted for the winter season: it has slow and crushing riffs, death growls, and atmospheric arrangements. An evocation of an ominous presence over a vast wasteland, Inspired by the multi-faceted Canadian experience of the North, the album explores themes of darkness, isolation, identity, archaism and persistence.

Atten Ash - The Hourglass
Release: February 19, 2015
Style: Atmospheric Death-Doom Metal
Format: 4 Panel Digipack / 12 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

A three-piece atmospheric/melodic death-doom band from North Carolina. Those pining for genuine melodic/atmospheric death-doom for the dark and cold days ahead, and especially fans and listeners of bands such as Daylight Dies, Slumber, Katatonia, Woccon, Doom:vs, October Tide, and Helevorn would be wise to heed attention.

*This release has two album covers.
The image above is a split of both.

Lycanthia / Atten Ash - Split 7"
Release: January 22, 2015
Style: Gothic Doom Metal / Melodic Death-Doom Metal
Format: 7" Vinyl With Insert
Order Vinyl | Digital | Album Reviews

Doom bands Lycanthia and Atten Ash have collaborated to deliver a new limited split 7" this winter. Featuring “The Harbinger” for Lycanthia, and “City in the Sea” for Atten Ash, this split will serve as a prelude to each band's forthcoming full-length albums as well as present a very first vinyl release for everyone involved!

Official Releases - Digital Only

2015

Subarctic Nocturnes : Within the Ice [Volume II - MMXV]
Release: April 2, 2015
Style: Compilation Album [Black Metal]
Format: Digital Only
Stream / Download

A few weeks ago, we released the compilation under the Subarctic Nocturnes banner. Now, we present to you "Subarctic Nocturnes: Within the Ice [Volume II]", a collection of Black Metal and associated genres! Including songs from Sorcier des Glaces, netra, Veldes, Epitimia, Harrow, Obsidian Tongue, and Numenorean.

Subarctic Nocturnes : Doomed to Be [Volume I - MMXV]
Release: February 13, 2015
Style: Compilation Album [Doom Metal]
Format: Digital Only
Stream / Download

Presenting the latest Hypnotic Dirge digital compilation album! This year, we are releasing something more comprehensive than before, with a compilation series which will have a different genre focus on each volume and which we will release over the course of the next few months. We are pleased to unveil the first album in this series now, with a focus on all things doom!

Official Releases - Physical Media

2014

Epitimia - (Un)reality 2CD
Release: February 15, 2014
Style: Post-Black Metal / Blackgaze
Format: 6 Panel Digipack / 12 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Epitimia's new double-album "(Un)reality" is a culmination of over a year's hard work. Tortured black metal screams alongside a progressive and experimental cacophony of sounds combine to create a memorable and complex album taking various elements from many genres including post-rock, black metal, blackgaze, ambient, and jazz to create a sonic palette for this conceptual story.

Windbruch - No Stars, Only Full Dark
Release: February 1, 2014
Style: Atmospheric / Melancholic Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 8 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Cold and mesmerizing atmospheric black metal from the Siberian region of Yugra in the city of Nizhnevartovsk, Windbruch presents their second full-length album “No stars, only full dark” an album with a strong cinematic component. An ode to all things cold, bleak, and distressing, “No stars, only full dark” is the perfect soundtrack for lonely cold winter nights.

In my Shiver - Delicate Poison
Release: January 17, 2014
Style: Melancholic Blackgaze / Post-Rock
Format: Jewel Case / 12 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

In my Shiver is an experimental black metal/shoegaze band from Camerino, Italy with conceptual themes about the loneliness and sadness of modern life, cityscapes, and a critique of the dominant culture. Combining oppressive and ferocious black metal with melancholic modern depressive rock, In My Shiver blends these sounds to give these songs a strong melancholic aura.

Official Releases - Physical Media

2013

Ekove Efrits - Nowhere
Release: December 16, 2013
Style: Neo-classical / Down-tempo / Atmospheric Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 16 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Ekove Efrits, the atmospheric project hailing from Tehran, Iran returns with his fourth full-length album, entitled "Nowhere", offering fifty minutes of twisted, dark, sombre, and atmospheric music intertwined with black metal stylistics, female vocals, and electronic/trip-hop elements. “Nowhere” will deliver a total trip for the mind and promises to be a visual experience as well as a sonic one!

stroszek - wild years of remorse and failures [2CD]
Release: December 7, 2013
Style: Melancholic Dark Folk Rock
Format: Double Jewel Case / 16 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

The acclaimed early works of the folk/acoustic project stroszek presented in the form of a special double-album reissue with a complete remastering of all the tracks, as well as rerecorded vocals on the “songs of remorse” album. Originally released between 2007-2009, this reissue, featuring new album art allows you to embrace the darkness and melancholy of stroszek once more.

Vin de Mia Trix - Once Hidden From Sight
Release: August 26, 2013
Style: Death-Doom Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 12 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Lengthy mid-tempo opuses with crushing funeral riffs morphing into melancholic acoustic passages create a mysterious and dark atmosphere with songs rooted between Funeral and Death/Doom Metal, but incorporating bits of Black Metal, Post-Rock, Progressive Metal, Blues and more. “Once Hidden From Sight” offers every fan of dark music something for the soul!"

Obsidian Tongue - A Nest of Ravens in the Throat of Time
Release: July 29, 2013
Style: Atmospheric Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 6 Page Inlay
CD SOLD OUT | Digital | Album Reviews

Cold, unwavering, primal black metal - “A Nest of Ravens in the Throat of Time” is a psychedelic and introspective journey through the collective unconscious of Man and the dark half of the emotional spectrum; A sonic depiction of the spiritual affirmation and personal evolution attainable only through sorrow, anger and disillusionment.

Galaktik Cancer Squad Ghost Light
Release: June 21, 2013
Style: Progressive Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 8 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

From the vacuous depths of space, the great pathogenic force of Galaktik Cancer Squad will once again return to haunt the aural realms of the earth with their first ever physical release, ‘Ghost Light.’ Aggressive, and experimental post-black metal with cacophonous discordant vocals combine with moments of soaring post-rock melancholy that make you soar to other dimensions.

Nethermost - Alpha
Release: June 14, 2013
Style: Death-Doom Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 4 Page Inlay
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

The name Nethermost refers to the lowest point of existence and is also the name of the melodic death-doom band hailing from south Texas. Mid-paced melodic doom metal with an emphasis on atmosphere conjure up an honest organic sound rooted in the mid-90's death-doom sound. Alpha should also appeal to fans of bands such as Katatonia, October Tide, and Daylight Dies

Frigoris - Wind
Release: June 7, 2013
Style: Atmospheric Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 8 Page Booklet
CD SOLD OUT | Digital | Album Reviews

Frigoris' second album, entitled "Wind" is a big step in the evolution and development of this band. The over fifty minute piece was filled with a surpassing emotional intensity that created a bond between pure aggression and deep melancholy. For fans of Agalloch, Wolves in the Throne Room, Fen, and Imperium Dekadenz

Lycanthia - Oligarchy
Release: April 7, 2013
Style: Atmospheric / Gothic Death-Doom
Format: 4 Panel Digipack / 8 Page Insert
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Lycanthia is a six-piece gothic death-doom metal band from Sydney, Australia. Their music can be described as dark, aggressive and emotional Gothic Doom Metal. Consisting of grim male and dual female vocals, violins, keyboards, guitars and drums, Lycanthia continue that "golden age" traditional-doom sound with influences such as My Dying Bride & Theatre of Tragedy.

Odradek Room - Bardo. Relative Reality.
Release: March 9, 2013
Style: Psychedelic Death-Doom Metal
Format: 4 Panel Digipack / 12 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Creating dynamic and profound music, rich in tempo and mood variation, Odradek Room has crafted an extremely strong debut combining slow plodding riffs, soaring emotional melodies, and a psychedelic touch to create a rich canvas of sonic majesty. A conceptual album based on the ideas of the Tibetan Book of the Dead and surreal images of the subliminal consciousness.

Official Releases - Digital Only

2013

Hypnotic Dirge 2013/14 | The Wild Haunts Us Still; Disillusionment and Indifference
Release: December 3, 2013
Style: Compilation Album [Doom Metal]
Format: Digital Only
Stream / Download

The fifth annual Hypnotic Dirge Records digital compilation album which is separated into two distinct albums and tracklists. This is the doom metal collection, entitled "Disillusionment and Indifference" Includes material from Lycanthia, Odradek Room, Vin de Mia Trix, Subterranean Disposition, Wine From Tears, Cuukoo's Nest, Negative Voice, and others.

Hypnotic Dirge 2013/14 | The Wild Haunts Us Still; Decay and Atrophy
Release: December 3, 2013
Style: Compilation Album [Black Metal]
Format: Digital Only
Stream / Download

The fifth annual Hypnotic Dirge Records digital compilation which is separated into two distinct albums and tracklists. This is the black metal collection, entitled "Decay and Atrophy", ncludes material from Obsidian Tongue, Frigoris, Galaktik Cancer Squad, In my Shiver, Ekove Efrits, netra, Windbruch, Epitimia, Zgard, Psychotic Gardening, and Dråpsnatt

netra feat. We'rewolves - Dreading Consciousness
Release: November 18, 2013
Style: Trip-Hop / Black Metal
Format: Digital Only

Stream / Download

A strange and unexpected collaboration between the black metal/trip-hop hybrid netra and the unconventional rap duo We'rewolves. Always present to a certain degree, the trip-hop elements in netra's music are given full reigns on "Dread Consciousness". The dark undertones of urban life, boredom, and depression remain but are instead presented through a totally different approach.

Australasia - Sin4tr4
Release: May 11, 2013
Style: Post-Rock / Post-Black Metal
Format: Digital Only

Stream / Download

Australasia is the place where unusual soundscapes come to life: ethereal guitars mix with blast beat drums and black metal riffing, giving birth to strange and fast-flowing tunes.
Here subterranean streams alternate with tidal waves, turning into cinematic pictures that can last just the blink of an eye. A path distant from the typical instrumental music clichés.

Depicting Abysm / Windbruch / Gmork - Silentium!
Release: April 11, 2013
Style: Atmospheric / Melancholic Black Metal
Format: Digital Only

Stream / Download

3-way split between three atmospheric black metal bands from Russia! Depicting Abysm, Windbruch, and Gmork each contribute three tracks to a comprehensive work entitled "Silentium!" Silence – it is a pause between two emotional strikes, but even there a “scream” can take place. In this case, the choice of the song order is not accidental.

Truthseeker - Weightless at Dawn
Release: January 12, 2013
Style: Instrumental / Atmospheric Rock
Format: Digital Only

Stream / Download

Truthseeker is an instrumental rock band with a dense and atmospheric sound. Their debut EP "Weightless at Dawn" features 5 slow, cinematic tracks characterized by reverb-soaked lead guitars, huge drums, textural rhythm guitars and a thick distorted bass sound. There are traces of Prog-Rock, Metal, Post-Rock/Metal, Doom and Ambient music throughout the record.

Official Releases - Physical Media

2012

Subterranean Disposition - selftitled
Release: October 27, 2012
Style: Progressive Death-Doom Metal
Format: 6 Panel Digipack / 8 Page Booklet (100) | Jewel Case / 8 Page Booklet (400)
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Subterranean Disposition is an experimental death-doom project from Terry Vainoras, The debut self-titled Subterranean Disposition album explores the use of dissonance and ambience, lending more dynamics to the long passages of darkness and light, crafted from the influence of early 90’s doom and modern sludge with forward thinking embellishments in song writing.

netra - Sørbyen
Release: September 29, 2012
Style: Trip-hop / Black Metal / Alternative Rock
Format: Jewel Case / 8 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

With influences ranging from the moodiest jazz music to black metal and trip-hop, netra has always been about challenging the listener's open-mindedness and 'Sørbyen' shows netra continuing to evolve its experimental sound using a palette of varying musical and artistic influences to create an album that is claustrophobic, organic, and unmistakably depressing.

Silent Path - Mourner Portraits
Release: July 28, 2012
Style: Depressive Black Metal / Funeral Doom
Format: Jewel Case / 16 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Silent Path is another musical project from Saman Nu, the musician from Tehran, Iran behind the atmospheric Black Metal project, Ekove Efrits. With Silent Path the sound is grittier, darker, and much less optimistic and brings together elements of down-tempo depressive black metal, funeral doom, and ambience.

Epitimia - Faces of Insanity
Release: July 14, 2012
Style: Atmospheric Black Metal / Post-rock
Format: Jewel Case / 8 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

A three-piece atmospheric Black Metal, post-rock band from Saint-Petersburg, Russia, Epitimia's 'Faces of Insanity' album is the band's third full-length album. Combining an intriguing blend of atmospheric post-rock, and depressive black metal, this band has a strong capability for heavy doom, ambience, raw black metal, and a deep melancholy.

stroszek - sound graveyard bound
Release: March 10, 2012
Style: Neo-folk / Alternative Rock
Format: Jewel Case / Insert
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Mixing various influences including Tom Waits, and Johnny Cash, Stroszek is certainly not a typical band you'd expect to hear from someone coming from a black metal background. Instead, Stroszek is often described as "old music for old people" with its trademark sound mixing melancholic acoustic rock with american folk music and (real) country music.

Old Forgotten Lands - Primal
Release: March 10, 2012
Style: Ambient / Neo-Folk
Format: Jewel Case / 8 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

The new material of Old Forgotten Lands shows a nice progression and has a much more natural and organic feeling. Making use of various unique instruments such as a Tibetan singing bowl, a tambourine, wooden flute, violin, timpani, maracas, among others, Primal is a fantastic album which shows maturity in a genre which can sometimes become repetitive and mundane.

Official Releases - Digital Only

2012

Hypnotic Dirge Records Compilation 2012/13 : Solipsist Anthems
Release: December 15, 2012
Style: Black Metal / Doom Metal / Ambient / Other
Format: Digital Only
Stream / Download

The fourth annual free digital compilation from Hypnotic Dirge Records. Over 2 and a half hours of music from all of the current projects on the label, as well as some outside guests from Solitude Productions, collaborative work, and more. Also comes with over 30 minutes of video, full album artwork, notes from all of the artists, and photography.

Ekove Efrits - Hypermnesia
Release: September 13, 2012
Style: Neo-Classical / Trip-hop
Format: Digital Only
Stream / Download

This is conceptual album with different genres from Ekove Efrits. the style is mainly experimental with elements of trip-hop, electronic music, and classical music. The voice on the track "Moonlight Departure" is from "Ahmad Shamlou" the great Iranian contemporary Poet (1925-2000). The model on the front side of cover art is Erato. Predicate sounds have been taken from real radio archives.

Galaktik Cancer Squad - The Gathering [Compilation]
Release: May 29, 2012
Style: Progressive Black Metal
Format: Digital Only
Stream / Download

The Gathering is a compilation album from Galaktik Cancer Squad including remastered songs of "Oceans of Piss and Blood" Split, "Isolation/Separation" Split, "Ewig Wachend" EP and two new tracks.

Official Releases - Physical Media
2011

Ov Hollowness - Drawn to Descend
Release: July 29, 2011
Style: Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 12 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

After self-releasing a debut album in 2010, Ov Hollowness returns with a sophomore album one year later entitled 'Drawn to Descend'. Building upon the foundations of the 'Diminished' album, 'Drawn to Descend' is a fairly straight forward album with strong use of eerie guitar solos, effective drumming, catchy melodies, and thrash riffs which all combine to make a solid black metal album.

Ekove Efrits - Conceptual Horizon
Release: July 29, 2011
Style: Experimental Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 16 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

Ekove Efrits' Conceptual Horizon is a musically varied, album rooted within the Black metal genre but is also an album that is able to bridge many different emotions together into one relevant and stable concept. Hate, Aggression, Love, Depression, and Melancholy all find a place in an album which is filled with captivating and hypnotic melodies. The best melancholic black metal band from Iran!

Funeral Fornication - Pandemic Transgression
Release: July 29, 2011
Style: Eclectic Progressive Ambient Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 12 Page Booklet
CD SOLD OUT | Digital | Album Reviews

Funeral Fornication is back with their new album Pandemic Transgression. Experimental, unique, catchy, bleak, depressing, yet difficult to define. Sole-member Vultyrous shows his ability to write captivating material using a variety of influences to create a strong mix of dark and melancholic music that shows that maturity of this evolving project. The necessary soundtrack to your funeral fucking fornications!

Official Releases - Digital Only
2011

stroszek - a break in the day
Release: July 18, 2011
Style: Melancholic Rock
Format: Digital Only
Stream / Download

A Break In The Day" features the music which was formerly recorded @ Big Wave studio for "the Wild Hunt" EP. Nat wrote her own lyrics and sang. The same goes for "Hotel", but this was recorded at home by Dan. Cover picture was taken by Donna. A very special thanx to Dustin for bringin' these songs to life. [This album was later re-released on CD edition by Pest Productions with additional tracks]

Deprived of Light - Coloured Death
Release: April 9, 2011
Style: Post-Rock / Metal
Format: Digital Only
Stream / Download

Deprived of Light is a collaboration between Lord Trowe - The Foetal Mind, and Psychotic - Phychocalypse. Together they form a post-rock influenced metal album with strong melodic guitar work, and hints of black and doom metal. This is not an easy album to catergorize, especially considering the three different projects that the songs belong to.

netra - Mélancolie urbaine
Release: December 16, 2010
Style: Depressive Black Metal, Trip-hop, Alternative
Format: Jewel Case / 4 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

The street lights are colder than usual, how come I am so moved ? I feel the urge to escape, to make everything vanish for a while. Mélancolie urbaine album is one of the most original albums to be released in a long time and is truly unique. This album is an incredible journey to your innermost thoughts and nightmares and transcends the typical depressive black metal soundscapes for something more interesting.

The Foetal Mind - The Grand Contraction
Release: December 16, 2010
Style: Instrumental Post-Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 4 Page Booklet
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

A largely instrumental metal album, filled with powerful, catchy and atmospheric riffs that bring about the concept of The Grand Contraction. A very guitar based album that should please all metal fans regardless of genre, The Foetal Mind's new album shows a massive change from their DSBM beginnings. The guitar work is highly melodic, catchy, and much more prolific in its approach than before.

Uruk-Hai / Funeral Fornication [Split Album]
Release: September 19, 2010
Style: Ambient Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 4 Page Booklet [CD-r release]
CD SOLD OUT | Album Reviews

As a precursor to Funeral Fornication's forthcoming full-length album 'Pandemic Transgression', comes the split album with Austria's legendary Uruk-Hai, a project that Vultyrous has cited as a strong influence throughout his many years as a musician. Uruk-Hai delivers his brand of epic, LOTR-inspired ambient black metal in the vein of Summoning, while Funeral Fornication continues to grow with each sequential release.

Our Diabolical Embrance - Immortal Night Laments [EP]
Release: September 19, 2010
Style: Symphonic Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 12 Page Booklet [CD-r release]
CD SOLD OUT | Digital | Album Reviews

...

Exiled From Light - There is No Beauty Left Here... [2CD]
Release: July 22, 2010
Style: Depressive Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 12 Page Booklet
CD SOLD OUT | Digital | Album Reviews

Exiled From Light has quickly risen the ranks of Depressive Black Metal scene, and we are pleased to announce the release of the second monumental album - 'There is no beauty left here...' Another excellent example of the human mind's descent into depravity and agony, There is no beauty left here... picks up where the debut album left off and takes the musicianship and atmosphere to a whole new level.

Symbiosis / Ancient Tundra - These Engulfing Winds Never Die [Split Album] [CD+DVD]
Release: March 11, 2010
Style: Dark Ambient, Neo-Classical, Soundtrack
Format: Jewel Case / 12 Page Booklet [CD-r / DVD-r release]
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

For over a year now, ambient artists Ancient Tundra and Symbiosis have worked towards creating a monumental dark ambient release that showcased both the audio and video aspects of the genre. These Engulfing Winds Never Die is the result of over a year`s work writing / recording music and filming nature in its harshest elements. From the frozen Canadian prairies to the mountains of Italy.

Official Releases - Digital Only
2010

Funeral in Heaven - Shanthikarma [Live EP; 2010]
Release: May 11, 2010
Style: Black Metal
Format: Digital Only
Stream / Download

In the distant horizons of antiquity, Sri Lanka was an Island kissed by nature, blessed by gods, haunted be demons, gripped by mysteries and ruled by occultism. Funeral In Heaven, is nothing more than a congregation of a few concerned and ardent individuals belonging to one of the few and remaining cautiously orchestrated systems of preservation of the dark arts of Sri Lanka.

Official Releases - Physical Media
2009

The Foetal Mind - Supreme Cheminement
Release: December 19, 2009
Style: Depressive Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 4 Page Booklet [CD-r release]
CD SOLD OUT | Digital | Album Reviews

After releasing five self-released demos between July 2007 and April 2009, The Foetal Mind unleashes their first full-length album "Supreme Cheminement." The Foetal Mind has created a soundscape with beautiful atmosphere and raw emotion expressed so strongly. "Supreme Cheminement" is loaded with memorable hypnotizing riffs that ride the wave of sorrow and despair.

Neige et Noirceur - L'Abime des jours, L'ecume des nuits
Release: December 19, 2009
Style: Ambient Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 12 Page Booklet [CD-r release]
CD SOLD OUT | Digital | Album Reviews

The songs feautred on this double-disc album were released as 2 separate demos. The tracks on CD I were previously released on Demo III: "L’Abîme des jours, l’écume des nuits" and the tracks on CD II were released on demo IV: "Court séjour au royaume des morts." All of these songs were recorded in the same time period, so the idea to combine these pieces came to us naturally.

Old Forgotten Lands / Ancient Tundra - Equinox
Release: September 2, 2009
Style: Dark Ambient, Neo-Classical, Soundtrack
Format: Jewel Case / 8 Page Booklet [CD-r release]
CD SOLD OUT | Digital | Album Reviews

Old Forgotten Lands combines synergistic field recordings with dreamy and nostalgic synth tones that captures the essence of the natural world, while Ancient Tundra creates a colder sound that carry forlorn and melancholic melodies across barren landscapes. This album shows both artists continue to evolve from their earlier works and add new dynamics to their sound. The Equinox is Upon us!

Exiled From Light - Descending Further into Nothingness
Release: July 11, 2009
Style: Depressive Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 8 Page Booklet [CD-r release]
CD SOLD OUT | Digital | Album Reviews

New Zealand's most prolific black metal musician Mort (Winds of Sorrow, When Mine Eyes Blacken) has created a mesmerizing, truly expressive piece of musical art in the form of an intelligent depressive-black metal album that feels both genuine and musically-accomplished. Six great tracks of pure melancholy across 50 minutes of music. Highly recommended for all fans of Depressive Black Metal art!

Funeral Fornication - Solitude and Suicide
Release: June 18, 2009
Style: Ambient Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 12 Page Booklet [CD-r release]
CD SOLD OUT | Digital | Album Reviews

Funeral Fornication's third full-length album 'Solitude and Suicide' is a new approach for this canadian project which has traditionally followed a pagan/thrash black metal musical identity. On "Solitude and Suicide" we are presented with a grim and powerful yet at times contemplative album that defines the beginning of a new, darker era in the legacy that is Funeral Fornication.

Immundus - Haunted Memories
Release: April 28, 2009
Style: Dark / Horror Ambient
Format: 4 Panel Digipack
Order CD | Digital | Album Reviews

...

Neige et Noirceur - Crepuscule Hivernal sans fin sur les Terres de la Guere
Release: March 6, 2009
Style: Atmospheric Ambient Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 4 Page Booklet [CD-r release]
CD SOLD OUT | Digital | Album Reviews

Total dark art and blackness from Québec! Fans of Darkspace and Atmospheric Cosmic Black Metal will enjoy this Métal noir québécois!

Astral Luminous - Lunaric Tide
Release: April 27, 2009
Style: Atmospheric Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 12 Page Booklet [CD-r release]
CD SOLD OUT | Digital | Album Reviews

Astral Luminous is a one man Black Metal project from Texas. Inspired by the cosmos, astral projection, and human philosophy, this is an album filled with hypnotic riffs and trance-inducing ambience. Physical edition includes a beautiful 8 page booklet designed by Ba'al Graphics.

Echoes of Silence - Beyond the Crimson Gates
Release: January 6, 2009
Style: Experimental Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 4 Page Booklet [CD-r release]
CD SOLD OUT | Album Reviews

...

Official Releases - Physical Media
2008

Ancient Tundra - Requiems of a World Lost
Release: November 24, 2008
Style: Ambient, Neo-Classical, Soundtrack
Format: Jewel Case / 4 Page Booklet [CD-r release]
CD SOLD OUT | Digital | Album Reviews

Desolate, hypnotic, and dissonant dark ambient with hints of neo-classical and a slight black metal aesthetic and atmosphere. Distant melodies shrouded in layers and obscured by the winds of winter are heard amidst strings, piano harmonies, distant percussion, and the occasional haunted whisper. A post-apocalyptic

world - vast, cold, and dead - where nature reigns supreme and conditions are unfit for human life.

Winds of Sorrow - Through Twilight...
Release: November 24, 2008
Style: Melodic / Depressive Black Metal
Format: Jewel Case / 4 Page Booklet [CD-r release]
CD SOLD OUT | Digital | Album Reviews

The debut album from Mort's (Exiled From Light, Schizophrenia, When Mine Eyes Blacken) Atmospheric Black Metal Project. Beautiful Melodies and Absorbing Atmospheres, an album with the potential to be uplifting yet still be depressive! A different side of Mort's multi-faceted musical path.