Weekly Digest, Week 37 / 2025

In a week of all sorts, the underground prefers to stay mostly harsh and light-shy, with releases from Bent Sea, Jord, Korp, Nuclear Dudes and Pestilential Shadows.

If you're feeling like a few palate cleansers in between, maybe check out some of these: 

Ambush – Evil In All Dimensions

Before The Dawn – Cold Flare Eternal

blessthefall – Gallows

Faetooth – Labyrinthine

Fleshwater – 2000: In Search of the Endless Sky

Green Carnation – A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores Of Melancholia

Nailed To Obscurity – Generation Of The Void

Primal Fear – Domination

Tallah – Primeval: Obsession // Detachment

ten56. – I/O

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Bent Sea – The Dormant Ruin

Genre: Grindcore

Subjective rating: 4/5

Objective rating: 4/5

Country of origin: International

The grind supergroup that is Bent Sea, consisting of Dirk Verbeuren (Megadeth), Sven de Caluwé (Aborted) and Shane Embury (Napalm Death), present here their first actual full-length record since starting out in 2011. Considering the lineup, I suppose it shouldn't come as a big surprise that this isn't straight grindcore, but something slightly more experimental. I wouldn't go as far as calling it completely unpredictable, but it certainly weaves in and out of ominous-toned death metal, extreme, dissonant prog and a touch of groove and doom. It's a lively one for sure, particularly in the drum department, and given that it's 20 tracks long, it's a huge plus that they've managed a high level of variation, even incorporating a couple of atmospheric interludes. It's grindcore where you get to use your brain a bit, and have it properly scrambled as a reward.

Highlights: "Curtailer Of Conceit" and "Sharpen The Blade"

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Jord – Emellan Träden

Genre: Atmospheric black/doom metal

Subjective rating: 4/5

Objective rating: 4/5

Country of origin: Sweden

Wander down a path that will take you through ages past and realities that only exist in the shadowy corners of your imagination. The band confidently carries on the Swedish tradition of high quality, non-clichéd melodic extreme metal, without feeling the need to overly constrain itself with genre conventions. It's black metal, and it's also very much doom, but first and foremost it's storytelling that takes on a multitude of dark shades, touching on feelings of loss, hopelessness and rage, but also resilience. It feels effortlessly epic without being the least bit silly, and serious without trying too hard. The more you listen, the deeper you sink in, the more rewarding it gets.

Highlights: "Dimma" and "Prinsessan och Hästen"

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Korp – And Darker It Shall Become

Genre: Black/death/thrash metal

Subjective rating: 4/5

Objective rating: 3.5/5

Country of origin: Sweden

Just low-fi enough to feel properly underground, but catchy enough to get a large crowd moving, this is Swedish black metal wildly chasing thrash riff-happiness and old school death metal relentlessness. To be fair, there's a good deal on here that the well-versed will have heard before, but the tropes aren't overused to the point where they dominate the experience. It's all about getting in the right mood, and then having the fury unleashed upon you. The band serves up banger after banger with just enough melodic backing to give it some depth, but for the most part preferring to keep things relatively straightforward.

Highlights: "The ritual" and "Feast upon the spineless"

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Nuclear Dudes – Truth Paste

Genre: Experimental grindcore/death metal

Subjective rating: 3.5/5

Objective rating: 3.5/5

Country of origin: USA

This is about as nerdy as death metal can get. Fired off at an impatient grindcore pace, it grafts synthetic beats, blurts and background melody lines onto punishing, noisy riff and drum assaults, and then goes wherever its fancy takes it. For extended sections it can come off as terribly distracted and aimless, which at times feels like a bit of a waste of the very limited runtime. But the entertainment value makes up for the most of it. It's loaded with dorky song titles, whacky tangents and big contrasts, and therein lies the appeal. If you can appreciate this level of silliness, then you might just end up loving it .

Highlight: "Dirty 20"

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Pestilential Shadows – Wretch

Genre: Black metal

Subjective rating: 3.5/5

Objective rating: 3.5/5

Country of origin: Australia

Solemn, classic black metal from this long-going Australian band. Not the first place you'd be looking for black metal, perhaps, but this is solid stuff, clearly inspired by the Nordic origins, but taken in a more atmospheric, less folk-influenced direction. It's fairly subtle, but this is a different flavor to the stuff you get out of Scandinavia, something subgenre enthusiasts/cultists will surely appreciate. The brilliant album cover caught my attention instantly, and the music matches the looks pretty spot on. I wanted it to be a bit more daring, a bit more different, but this is much more one for the purists than the casual black metal listener.

Highlight: "Where Sunlight Goes To Die"