Wrath of Logarius come crawling out from the misty forests of Northern California. In their wake, fans a dark, flaming and eerily melodic new subgenre: Formless Black Metal.

STRIGOI were already plenty unsettling on their debut album. After all, this band includes current and former members of Paradise Lose, Extreme Noise Terror, Satyricon and Carcass. But the UK death-doom band’s follow-up pushed their grinding asphyxiations to such vile extremes, that it produced an abundance of putridity.

Horrendous just put out one of the best albums of the year according to Metal Sucks, Metal Injection and Decibel.

HEILUNG don’t play shows. They perform a ritual. Every performance begins with Kai Uwe Faust leading Christopher Juul, Maria Franz and their ritual collective in an ancient prayer. Soon after, the audience is swept into rapture, swayed by incense and throat singing, primordial rhythms, subtle electronic textures, a mesmerizing light show, an army of warriors and bursts of fire; a ritual.

Icelandic black metal ensemble HELFRÓ are back with their sophomore album Tálgröf – a project inspired by the dark manifestations of the human mind. The sickness of humankind is explored through intense rhythmic passages, fusing the extremities of traditional death metal together with sombre, introspective lyrical convictions.

After coming together over frustrations with the pandemic, Black Lava boiled to a nicely charred head on their debut album. Despite surfacing toward the end of 2022, ‘Soul Furnace’ burned with such fury that Distorted Sound dubbed it a contender for album of the year. The blackened riffs spilled all the way to #2 on Australia’s Independent Albums chart, while Dan Presland’s heavy grooves and blast beats melted away Sick Drummer.

A vast exploration of sonic textures present themselves on HELGA’s premier album ‘Wrapped in Mist’, as chugging riffs, spectral strings and imposing drums converge into one.

Black Orchid Empire have had quite the year. The prog-metal band released their first album for Season of Mist back in the spring to critical acclaim. With ‘Tempus Veritas’, Distorted Sound declared that BOE “set the new standard for prog rock”.

Season of Mist is proud to welcome Kingcrow to the family!

ON THORNS I LAY deliver more of their legendary death-doom on their first album for Season of Mist. With chugging riffs, ear-shattering wails of terror and eerily melodic funeral passages, their new self-titled LP is bound to crush your spirit.

BASK have taken us on quite a long, strange and headbanging trip. Ten years ago, the band came thundering down from the mountains of North Carolina with their debut album. ‘American Hollow’ cast their pastoral landscapes in in country-twinged doom, but on the next two albums, the hearty four-piece painted with a headier and heavier brush.

Strigoi were already plenty unsettling on their debut album. But the UK death-doom band’s follow-up pushed their grinding asphyxiations to such vile extremes, that it produced an abundance of putridity.

Alkaloid contain more than just multitudes. Their new album ‘Numen’ compresses meteoric riffs, seductive flurries of jazz and flamenco, and a multi-part saga about a godlike galactic civilization into a dizzying, thrilling 70 minutes.

Icelandic black metal ensemble HELFRÓ are back with their sophomore project Tálgröf – A project inspired by the dark manifestations of the human mind. The sickness of humankind is explored through intense rhythmic passages, fusing the extremities of traditional death metal together with sombre, introspective lyrical convictions.

IMPURE WILHELMINA are no strangers to reinvention. For the past 25 years, the Geneva quartet have rolled hardcore riffs, velveteen cleans, atmospheric sludge and gloomy melodies into post-metal that’s as sharp and versatile as a Swiss Army Knife.

Autarkh venture into a bigger, brighter and more uplifting headspace on their new album. On the first two singles off Emergent, the Dutch contemporary metal band tapped in to supercharged industrial-sized riffs and even clean, radiant harmonies. But their new single “Duhkha” finds them struggling to hold onto that serene state of mind.

TEMIC are prog’s new supergroup, but all four members navigated quite the career maze to reach this point. These guys have played with Devin Townsend, Mike Portnoy’s Shattered Fortress, Neal Morse, SHINING and Maraton. It’s fitting then that their debut album is layered with twists and turns.

‘Cursed Mortality’ casts Carnation in a deeper and darker light. The first four singles off the Belgian band’s new album experiment with gloomy synths, melodic leads, clean vocals and lyrics inspired by sci-fi classics and a real life horror story from WWII. Their new single “Cycle of Suffering” is a brutal reminder of why Carnation are at the forefront of the old-school death metal revival.

DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT crushed Hellfest Open Air Festival this summer.

Would you submit yourself to human torture to go beyond your limits to expressing art?