At long last, a timeless classic returns: BESTIAL WARLUST's pivotal second album, Blood & Valour, now seeing release on digipack through HELLS HEADBANGERS! Originally released in 1995, Blood & Valour was the crucial follow-up to the Aussie barbarians' legendary debut album, Vengeance War 'Til Death. That debut almost singlehandedly started war metal, but it was with Blood & Valour where BESTIAL WARLUST confirmed that their "Satanic war metal" was truly a viable, lawless outback all its own and that their over-the-top violent savagery was no mere fluke. The lineup may have shifted, but the iron fist remained bloody: Blood & Valour more than lived up to its title, then and especially now. Added as a bonus track on this long-overdue reissue is the studio cover of BATHORY's "Massacre" previously only heard by close contacts of the band. SATANIC WAR METAL...BESTIAL fucking WARLUST!!!
"BESTIAL WARLUST were indeed stocked with an arsenal like no other. Their moniker, the cover artwork, the verbiage, the look, the sheer sawn-off, noise-annoys oblivion they sought and then wielded with an iron fist...this was WAR METAL at Year Zero, and it's captured brilliantly. The sound itself is a weapon; barbaric crush is substituted for conventional riffs, and they wander about in a drunken haze of chaotic abandon. Even more garish and exaggerated than Blasphemy's, the short/sharp/shocked bursts of "guitar solo" are the accidentally avant-garde covering fire." - ZERO TOLERANCE magazine WAR METAL special.
It's a dystopian symphony that harkens back to their iconic Tusen år har gått… era, yet it's unmistakably a product of now - a battle cry for the forsaken.
Reprint 2025, 700x transparent green in highlighter yellow vinyl (140g), innersleeve full-color on 220g, jacket full-color on 350g, all assembled in a PVC overbag.
Profanatica's brand of blasphemous filth remains as unwavering as ever, and their 2019 album Rotting Incarnation of God is another testament to their unholy devotion. With this full-length, Paul Ledney and company unleash a sonic assault that is both punishing and ritualistic, dragging the listener through murky depths of blackened death metal depravity.
BEHEXEN should require no introduction. One of the longest-running Finnish black metal bands, BEHEXEN have patiently spread out their album releases in such a manner that each serves as a tome, a poignant snapshot of that era of its creators, with each being unique in its headspace but undeniably coming from the same visionary minds. But prior to essential early albums like 2000's Rituale Satanum and 2004's classic By the Blessing of Satan, BEHEXEN had recorded a trio of equally compelling demos - and even one prior, under the moniker Lords of the Left Hand, in 1995.