INTERVIEW MIGHTIEST

"Especially the pre-concert evening we planned in a Freiburg brewery was a sensational meeting. A bunch of middle-aged men babbled about the bad old days over a few beers....genius!"
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Mightiest from Freiburg in the legendary Black Forest was founded in 1994 and I always liked the melodic-symphonic aspect of the band, which never became cheesy, which was often the case with many bands in the past. That is a kind of unique selling point, to play melodic-symphonic black metal, which is still rough, hard and unpolished. I can think of Emperor, with whom the band was often compared in the reviews of "Recreation of the shadowlands". Of course in the early interviews Burzum, Darkthrone and Mayhem were mentioned as influences, the early Dimmu Borgir with "For all Tid" or "Stormblast" certainly didn't pass the band without leaving traces, I think.

REVIEW SICKENING GORE "DESTRUCTIVE REALITY"

This time I would like to present you the only album of the Swiss death metal band Sickening Gore. This band from Zurich, which previously went by the name Reactor, released "Destructive Reality" on Massacre Records in 1993, only to disband a short time later. I still remember a review of a concert in a big German metal magazine, the band played in Zurich as support of Carcass. A review in the then issue of Metal Hammer compared the band stylistically to Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse. This is quite accurate, even if the world class of the compositions of Morbid Angel could not be reached, but which band can claim this? Nevertheless, the band varied on their only album skillfully between high-speed bludgeoning, grindcore influences and dragged parts. 

REVIEW ANGUANA "SUMAN"

Anguana is a band that exists since 2017 and was unknown to me until now. They come from Marostica, a town in the Veneto region. Marostica is famous for the live chess game (with actors in "medieval" costumes), which for several decades has been held every two years in the town's piazza surrounded by arcades. It commemorates a legendary game, allegedly played in 1454, for the hand of the castle lord's daughter. The band name, Anguana, is the designation for the water nymphs that appear in the northeast Italian mythology.

INTERVIEW HAMVAK

"Hamvak allowed me to break free from the musical boundaries I had previously felt." 

Hamvak is one of the most promising bands of the German underground. The debut album " Maelstrom of abhorrent incantations" (review here) is a true monster of a musical work that pulls you inevitably and without mercy into the abyss. I spoke with Dávid Vadkerti-Tóth, the factotum and mastermind behind Hamvak.

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When did you form Hamvak and under what circumstances? According to Metal-Archives Hamvak is the successor band of Solus, who were much more atmospheric. What was the reason for the end of Solus and the beginning with Hamvak? Do you see Hamvak as the successor band of Solus, or did someone just put it down that way at Metal Archives?

INTERVIEW RÄUM

"In fact, we are part of something bigger than ourselves. We constantly experience an eternal movement of rise and fall, as a person, as a species and as a civilization."

At the Dark Dungeon Festival in the medieval castle in idyllic Anthisnes, the first band to play on the black metal evening was Räum from Liège, which left the hungry crowd satisfied and certainly found more than a few new fans. One more reason to ask the ambitious band (review of their debut album see here ) a few questions.

REVIEW HAMVAK "MAELSTROM OF ABHORRENT INCANTATIONS"

Out of nowhere I heard about Hamvak (Hungarian for ash), a great one-man band from Stuttgart. The factotum behind the music, Dávid Vadkerti-Tóth, now delivered Hamvak's debut album after releasing a three-track demo back in 2017.

Hmavak's debut album, released by Morbid Chapel Records and Rotten Tomb Records, is the best example of what undiscovered gems the underground has in store. The six, mostly overlong tracks that bring the album to a total playing time of 40 minutes, should delight any fan of gloomy and sophisticated blackened death metal. Like the album title, which, by the way, was visually very appropriately implemented by the cover artwork, the listener feels drawn into a veritable maelstrom, from which there is no escape, because the tracks cause a partly captivating-hypnotic effect.

REPORT GENERAL ANZEIGER BONN (ENGLISH)