Mortuary Drape - Tolling 13 Knell

I posted this one waaaaay back when I first started this blog, but it is one I keep coming back to and for the past couple weeks I haven't been able to listen to too much besides it. The riffs awesome, vocals awesome, atmosphere amazing....and the drummer is the guy that drummed on Janvs's Vega album, goddamn! This is the very essence of Italian SpookProg. How many black metal bands can get away with singing "La la la La la la la la" for a chorus in one of their songs (Winged Priestess)?

Only one

Tolling 13 Knell

Apophis - Heliopolis

An unheralded classick that accomplishes the enviable feat of being simultaneously brutal, melodic, atmospheric, epic and catchy. How many other albums can do that?? Heliopolis is now on my short list of favored albums including Mork Gryning, Varathron's Crowsreign and Monstrosity's In Dark Purity. If you are familiar with any of these albums you probably already know how special they are...unique voices that don't so much step outside the boundaries of death/black metal, but rather transcend them with both feet still firmly in the genre.

Heliopolis

Rotting Christ - AEALO

The band with the coolest name ever returns with album #11 of kickass Hellenic Metal.  Apparently they recorded this album under influence of the glorious mountain, so they've got that going for them.

AEALO

Order of the Ebon Hand - The Mystic Path to the Netherworld

Hellenic Black Metal Maestros first album with strong keyboards and that warm Mediterranean sound.

Get on that Pegasus and ride my friend!

Ephel Duath - Phormula

Here's another Italian snausage for ya'll to stuff down your gullets.  I think ya remember this band, the one that wrote a concept album about dogs.  Well this is one of their earlier efforts and it is just as fucked up, if not more so.  Sounds like IX Equilibrium era Emperor on a serious Atheist bender in an amusement park run by homicidal trapeze artists.  Take one of these and don't fucking call me in the morning.

Phormula

Mortuary Drape - Tolling 13 Knell

More like Tolling 13 Hell!!  Damn these Italian esotericists can bottle up some black magick and sell it with gusto.  Dual bass attack, flashy guitar solos and that balmy Mediterranean riffing.  What more could you possibly axe for?

Tolling