January 2018 belongs to...Austria?

...And we're back.

Happy new year! Welcome to 2018, where we all realize we really are in 'the late 2010s' and the crushing existential weight of the years gone by swells in magnitude...but, never fear! 

With the inevitable changing of calendars has come an absolute flurry of new album releases. Over the past five days, we've gotten teasers from the likes of Panopticon, A Forest of Stars, Soft Kill, Destroyer 666, Hellripper, Urfaust, Lebanon Hanover, and potentially even Nachtmystium, and that's mostly just metal bands! This week in particular, two great new metal albums from the homeland of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Sound of Music, and schnitzel.

Most people don't really tend to associate Austria with heavy metal. Metallum claims that the early 90s saw some kind of 'Austrian black metal syndicate' a handful of demo-only projects took part in, but as a whole the country has remained largely unrecognized on the worldwide stage, with the obvious exceptions of Summoning, the legendary atmoblack duo that single handedly invented a new
genre of black metal in the late 90s.

Summoning need no introduction - Silenius and Protector have been purveying synth-driven, epic, Tolkien-inspired black metal for two decades, and today released their newest offering With Doom We Come in what may possibly be Nuclear Blast's only worthwhile release for 2018. With Doom We Come wastes no time, and commences with the bombastic 'Tar-Calion'. Fuzzed-out guitar lines dance in the misty gloom, buttressing symphonic synth leads and the endless, plodding drum machine Summoning are known for. Together, the quintessential Summoning sound materializes for eight long-form tracks, and leads the listener on an epic journey into the heart of Middle-Earth.

Stream With Doom We Come on Spotify here.

On the other hand, Abigor are one of Austria's best-kept black metal secrets. Since the early 90s, mastermind Peter Kubik has been quietly releasing a veritable library of albums, EPs, splits, and more, even as the band has largely evaded widespread recognition. Abigor's newest full length, Höllenzwang (Chronicles of Perdition), continues the band's evolution, mixing frenetic black metal with off-kilter, layered guitars and some of the project's finest vocals ever into a schizophrenic, pulsating, evil mass. The result, which sounds like a fine-tuned mix of Blacklodge, Mayhem, and even a little Deathspell Omega thrown in for good measure, is an absolute beast to listen to.

You can Höllenzwang here.