The dark winter of humanity’s soul continues apace. Time to wallow in the perpetual misery with more quality black metal.  Welcome once again, friends, to Kvlt Kolvmn. New year, same global disasters. The world is a fucking nightmare of contemporaneously unprecedented proportions, and every time something seems to be getting better another thing becomes infinitely worse. Sure, the 24 hour news cycle needs sensational devastation to keep our waning attention, but it’s pretty impossible to deny that things are very real levels of bad right now. Violence on a global scale has brought with it ..read more

Winter has come. Temps have dropped precipitously. The frost rules the night. Oh yeah. It’s black metal season.  Except for me, because I live in Denver and it was 75 fucking degrees yesterday. We’re all going to hell in a handbasket. But Kvlt Kolvmn is here to make the descent into extinction more bearable. Black metal dropped several bombs in the latter part of 2021, with almost all of them bringing enough quality to potentially crack my top 10. It was an amazing year which has only accelerated in excellence with the changing of seasons.  We look forward to bringing you our end-of ..read more

One of my favorite things about reading Heavy Blog is how there’s no knowing what you can stumble into. The possibilities are truly endless, there’s not really any genre we *don’t* cover, and with all the cross-pollinating of styles and influences over the years this extends to the things that really tickle a music nerd’s fancy. Out-of-the-box or challenge-type ideas that don’t quite make sense on paper until you hear it, like a Zeal & Ardor or Victory Over the Sun, where incongruous and disparate ideas mesh together to create something so wonderfully alien and enchanting they begin to mak ..read more

Quality over quantity. It’s true in most all contexts, and especially so in this month’s edition of Kvlt Kolvmn. Life often facilitates a more judicious approach to what we are able to consume in a given month, and in the case of myself, that meant, like… three black metal records for the entire month. Sad. All of which are represented here, thankfully. It was a rough month for music listening, but that doesn’t change the quality of these records. Here’s to more availability, more great albums, and more time to write about them.  Listen and enjoy some high quality black metal, brought to ..read more

The leaves have begun to fall from the trees surrounding our home. The morning and evening chill has become a permanent fixture. Night falls faster, morning breaks more slowly. It’s the season of PSL, pumpkins on the front porch, and Halloween decor. At least, that is, for the rest of the world. For you and I, it’s an advent of darkness. Of miserable cold of the soul and a soundtrack to back it up.  Oh yeah. It’s black metal season.  It’s also a very busy season for your editor friends over at HBIH, so this month’s selections are a bit more pointed (and limited) than in previous mont ..read more

Greetings, ice lovers. Welcome once again to Kvlt Kolvmn. We’ve got some weird-ass entries for you this month, and can’t wait to get you up to speed on some of our favorite releases of the year. As is the custom here on KK, we’re interested in bringing you unique and strange sounds from the world of black metal and all its adjacent forms, and July brought forth a particularly pungent stew of filthy releases in some of the less orthodox spaces of the black metal world. In our monthly deep dive into the world of black metal we’ll be highlighting the influence of doom metal on black metal’s evolu ..read more

Welcome, fellow heathens! Summer is here. That means we’re all trying to escape the weight of capitalism and actually enjoy some time off amid the warm weather. As a result, we have a leaner edition of Kvlt Kolvmn this month. However, what it doesn’t mean is that May was lacking in excellent new frigid black metal. I might be so bold as to claim it’s the strongest months of the year thus far, what with the return of Esoctrilihum and Panopticon alongside the surprise black metal solo debut from Serena Cherry of Svalbard. Without further ado, let’s cool off from the summer heat by diving into th ..read more

We don’t have time to let your corpse paint dry this month; there’s a LOT of kvltish activities to be done in the wilderness this month. After Jonathan takes a look at long-form narratives in black metal, he shares an interview with Malist about their three-part album series that takes place in the “Karst Realm.” Then, we look back at Two Hunters from Wolves In the Throne Room before diving into the best releases from April, namely a deep analysis of the equally epic Ετερόφωτος from Spectral Lore. Let’s get to it! –Scott Murphy The Frost // What a Concept: Long-form Narrative in Black Metal Me ..read more

Let me tell you, I was stoked when Eden put me in touch with Vivian Tylinska last week. Learning about a new Victory Over the Sun album was exciting enough, but having the chance to both premiere the album and run an interview with Vivian is just…chef’s kiss. If you’re unfamiliar with Vivian’s music, I urge you to rectify that immediately. I first discovered Victory Over the Sun with A Tessitura of Transfiguration, an excellent display of avant-garde black metal that felt as reminiscent of Dodecahedron as it did Kayo Dot. With Nowherer, Vivian embraces microtonality in a way that fans of Jute ..read more

What a month. What a lovely month! Cue Fury Road soundtrack, but make it black metal. That’s the sound of March blazing in with a righteous, unholy fury in the world of black metal. What a month it was. There’s plenty of icy goodness to revel in, so let’s cut right to the chase. This month, we’re highlighting a few one-man projects that caught our attention, as well as a few classic acts with notable release more than worthy of mention. Additionally, we have an interview with Ayloss from Spectral Lore, who catches us up on his latest records under his flagship moniker and Mystras, as well as w ..read more