Here’s a quick summary of some of the albums I’ve been checking out recently that I’ve either been too busy or too lazy to write full reviews for:

Celestia - Archaenae Perfectii
2010, Apparitia Recordings
France’s Celestia returns with Archaenae Perfectii, the band’s newest full-length of depressive metal. Mainman Noktu owns the Drakkar label and is also associated with such quality French projects as Mortifera and Peste Noire, so it’s almost a letdown if his own project’s material isn’t completely top-notch. Archaenae Perfectii mixes the usual bleak depressive black stylings with some more uptempo passages, adding some aggression while staying firmly within the confines of the genre. Personally I’m starting to get a bit burnt out on depressive BM bands in general, so Celestia’s newest didn’t really do much for me, but Noktu’s songwriting talent is clear and Archaenae Perfectii is definitely worth checking out.

Purest - Renascence
2008, Darker Than Black Records
Purest hails from Germany, unsurprisingly. A bit more surprising is that they aren’t overtly NS given their name, although a glance through their lyrics do reveal some not-so-well-hidden themes of extermination and superiority. Questionable subject matter aside, these guys actually kick a lot of ass musically, especially given that Renascence is their first album. Purest have a very polished black metal sound with a good deal of tempo variation and potent vocals. The German scene has been producing a seemingly endless torrent of excellent bands lately, and these guys are no exception.

Hat - The Demise of Mankind
2009, Abyss Records
This is one of those situations where the band probably should’ve checked the the meaning of their band name in English before choosing it (it means ‘hate’ in the band’s native Norwegian, as you might have guessed). Like many Norwegian bands, Hat sticks to a fairly traditional black metal sound with sufficiently fuzzy production. The tremolo-picked, melancholic riffing is made much more frightening with the addition of drummer Undertrykker’s flesh-ripping vocal assault. The vocals unfortunately aren’t enough to save this album, but they do prevent The Demise of Mankind from being completely generic and uninteresting.

Triumfall - Antithesis of All Flesh
2009, Forces of Satan Records
Triumfall hails from Serbia and plays a more symphonic style of black metal. Unfortunately, the poor production really hurts this album. Antithesis of All Flesh sounds fairly generic at times, but other times Triumfall mixes in some pretty good riffs and keyboard melodies, often playing the two instruments off each other very effectively. The problem is that the production makes it so difficult to hear what’s going on that the melodies get lost in the mix. Perhaps with another album or two Triumfall will iron out that issue, but in the meantime it’s hard to enjoy Antithesis of All Flesh, despite the band’s talent.

Askival - Eternity
2009, Darker Than Black Records
I was very much looking forward to hearing this, Askival’s first and only album, as a result of the many glowing reviews it received since coming out last year. While Eternity didn’t quite live up to the expectations I had for it, it’s an album that should surely appeal to fans of black metal’s mellower side. The few scattered tracks of epic pagan metal are separated by acoustic folk melodies and ethereal ambient interludes, and Askival also mixes in clean singing, whispers, female vocals, and some background keyboards to ensure things never get boring. The actual metal on Eternity is never overly aggressive, but the glorious heathen melodies and pounding drums fit perfectly with the rest of the album.

Svierg - MMIX
2009, Metalhit.com
The thing I find most amusing about this band is that it was started in part to crush a local “false black metal” band, as well as due to the general lack of support for black metal in Northern Virginia. It seems like there are a lot of easier ways to discredit and humiliate a local band than by starting your own better one. Fortunately, Svierg has enough talent to pull such a thing off. The four-song MMIX demo features a dark, Burzum-inspired sound that well-executed enough to sound like it originated somewhere in Europe rather than here in the US.

Thunderbolt - The Sons of the Darkness
2008, Darker Than Black Records
This is actually a re-release of Thunderbolt’s first full-length from 2001. Much of The Sons of the Darkness consists of a fast, blasting blackened assault, but a few thrashy riffs randomly find their way into the songs, and Thunderbolt also mix in some well-placed acoustic passages. The production isn’t the greatest so during the more frenzied sections it’s sometimes hard to make out what the guitars are doing, but overall this is a pretty decent album of aggressive black metal.

Season of Mist’s announcement of Drudkh’s new full-length took me completely by surprise, mostly because I didn’t think the band would be cranking out another album so soon after 2009’s Microcosmos. Handful of Stars, which will be coming out Sept. 20th (Oct. 12th for us Americans) immediately becomes one of the albums I’m most looking forward to for the remainder of this year.

What I don’t look forward to is holding the album in my hand and having to stare at the newest grotesque visual creation courtesy of Drudkh’s union with Season of Mist. The new album art, supposedly rendered by Fursy Teyssier (Alcest, Amesoeurs) would easily be the band’s worst if it weren’t for the awful artwork on this year’s reissue of The Swan Road.

On the plus side, Handful of Stars appears to continue Drudkh’s recent move away form their typical autumnal visual style towards a more celestial aesthetic, which means that Handful of Stars will likely also continue the clearer production values and songwriting conciseness found on its predecessor. Drudkh’s first few albums still stand as some of the most masterful expressions of the atmospheric black metal sound ever created, and since it’s unlikely the band will ever top those, I think it makes sense for them to explore this slightly different approach. The new album may not be much to look at, but I’m betting that musically these guys will not disappoint.

With so many bands (and kids in their parents’ basements) jumping into the DSBM scene nowadays, you can’t just create run-of-the-mill depressive black metal with slow, mournful melodies and fuzzy production and expect people to think it’s amazing anymore. Whether it’s with things like ridiculously over-the-top vocals or the inclusion of classical or post rock elements, the bands getting the most attention in the current scene are the ones that not only write great music, but manage to find ways to differentiate themselves from the masses.

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The UK’s Self-Inflicted Violence had managed to fly under my radar until recently, despite having put out an excellent album in last year’s A Perception Of Matter And Energy on Eerie Art Records. They sound kind of like a better version of Svarti Loghin, without all the weird alt-country elements. If you haven’t heard them, check out the songs on their MySpace page and prepare to be blown away.

The band has also decided to make a few unreleased tracks available for free download. The sound quality isn’t the greatest, but at least it’s something. See this blog post from the band’s MySpace page, or just click the download link below.

» Download unreleased Self-Inflicted Violence tracks from Mediafire

The band is currently in the studio working on their next full-length, which will be titled The Blue Sphere Floating In Black Seas. The new album should come out later this year.

Prophecy Productions recently issued some very exciting news for fans of Finland’s masters of dark neofolk Tenhi. The long-awaited new album Saivo will be coming out before the end of the year, and the band is currently wrapping up the recording process, according to this update:

“Sorry for the sparse updates about ‘Saivo’. We hoped to get the album out this summer and didn’t want to disappoint you before all hope was gone. Despite the hopefully final delays, the album is well underway and the final parts are being recorded within couple of weeks, namely choirs and cello parts. We plan to finish our works on the album by the end of August eventually. ‘Saivo’ has taken its time and we didn’t want to rush it. Almost every of the song has gone through a huge variety of alternative arrangements until we felt that we had achieved best result.

Perhaps just as exciting for me is the announcement that all of the band’s previous albums (Kauan, Väre, Airut:aamujen, and Maaäet) will be re-released by Prophecy, and the new editions will come with significantly enhanced booklets and artwork. Tenhi has a knack for crafting artwork that perfectly matches the sparse, wintry atmosphere of their songs, so I’m very eager to see how the new editions turn out.

A band’s cover songs can often be quite revealing. Certainly, much of what makes Sweden’s Sorgeldom interesting can be summed up in their cover of Slowdive’s ‘Summer Day’. First of all, it’s a Slowdive song, and how often do you see those on black metal albums? Secondly, it’s easily one of the album’s strongest tracks, with it’s uniquely ethereal atmosphere, dreamlike vocals and driving percussion. Finally, it doesn’t sound at all out of place - Sorgeldom’s highly experimental brand of black metal takes so many twists and turns and does it so effectively that little on the band’s sophomore album Inner Receivings comes as a surprise.

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Longstanding Norwegian trio Enthral have no problems fitting into the hordes of excellent bands that the Scandinavian scene seems to crank out effortlessly. While they aren’t considered one of the leading bands in the Norwegian scene, Enthral are clearly not lacking in talent. With three full-lengths over the course of their roughly 15-year career, Enthral have been slowly sharpening their black metal assault, and their latest EP Spiteful Dirges shows a band firing on all cylinders. But while the band’s feverish, constantly shifting black metal sound is impressive from a technical standpoint, the songwriting and complex nature of Spiteful Dirges ultimately keeps it from being memorable.

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It’s amazing how much I Shalt Become has evolved over the years. Their debut album Wanderings remains a masterpiece of depression and certainly a classic of US black metal. Poison, the band’s latest release, is something of an experiment for lone member S. Holliman, and musically the album is such a departure from the I Shalt Become’s core depressive sound that it doesn’t even sound like the same band. Moving away from the typical DSBM sound seems like a good direction for the band, but few fans will be prepared for what Poison actually has to offer.

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National Sunday Law’s debut was a kaleidoscopic mix of heavy sludge metal and mellow keyboard atmospherics. The band’s latest EP, mysteriously titled The Fifth Ape, largely continues in this style, but the new material is noticeably heavier, often resembling Remission-era Mastodon or fellow Los Angeles heavyweights Intronaut.

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Legendary stoner doom band Sleep will be embarking on a short US tour later this year. Bassist Al Cisneros (now with Om and Shrinebuilder) and guitarist Matt Pike (now with High on Fire) will be joined by Neurosis drummer Jason Roeder for a small selection of shows across the US. The band will be performing the Holy Mountain album in its entirety, as well as selections from Dopesmoker and other songs.

The band will be joined on some of the dates by Lichens, Scott Kelly, and YOB. Check the Sleep MySpace page for tour dates.