Features / Series: Only Death Is Real

There’s so much music released, whether physically or digitally, that keeping up with what’s going on becomes almost like a full-time job. There’s only so much one person can listen to and subsequently write about and so a lot of smaller releases may slip through the net. With Only Death … Read more

Can you believe that this is the tenth iteration of Only Death Is Real? Ten editions of a column featuring some of the best and most exciting extreme music of today and ten editions of a column that celebrates just how diverse the underground metal scene really is. The world … Read more

Welcome to the first Only Death Is Real of 2021. Not much has changed since the last time although perhaps there is now some light at the end of the proverbial tunnel in terms of being able to get back to some kind of normality. Perhaps you’re able to meet … Read more

It is time, once again, to wax lyrical about how creative the underground metal scene is. This year has seen a surge in artists presenting their full vision for the first time, perhaps an effect of being shut indoors for much of the last 18 months and having the means … Read more

The number 13, unlucky for some, a portend of doom, of sign of bad things to come. For Only Death Is Real the number 13 brings a handful of releases that range from electronic beats to deeply religious texts to raw black metal and dungeon synth. The number 13 is … Read more

Circle of Ouroborus - Kiromantia (His Wounds) Keeping up with Circle of Ouroborus could be a full-time job in itself, as the duo turn around new music at a rate that is enough to give one a moment of breathlessness. They have been quieter in recent years compared to the … Read more

The first Only Death Is Real of 2022 comes at a tumultuous time, a time where the pandemic still has a grip on the world and where world leaders can wantonly decide to invade their neighbours on a whim. The nuances are, of course, much trickier to unravel but from … Read more

Baazlvaat - An Old Forgotten Text (Self-Released) Baazlvaat appeared as if from nowhere (Flint, Michigan) during 2021 with The Higher Power, a record that owed as much to Bathory as it did to Thin Lizzy (despite the band not really knowing the latter), as a home-recorded full-length that quickly caught … Read more

The collection of artists that make up this edition of Only Death Is Real have something that connects them. Despite the surface appearances being markedly different across the board, the five bands/musicians gathered here have been wildly prolific in their careers -- whether that’s for a long or a short … Read more

Winter is approaching which means that musical preferences change alongside the season. For this edition of Only Death Is Real, that change is reflected in the excess of doom that has been released in the last month, with a sprinkling of black metal thrown in for good measure. There’s something … Read more

Can you believe that it’s 2023? It hardly seems like last week that we were ushering in 2022 and trying to maintain an outlook of hope that maybe, just maybe, this was a year in which things got better. Judging by the music that makes up this edition of Only … Read more

Welcome to the second instalment of Only Death Is Real. This time round we swing from power electronics to decaying cosmic black metal, giving equal coverage to EPs, full-lengths and splits. Click on the title and you’ll find yourself on the relevant Bandcamp page. Axebreaker - Brutality in Stone (Self-released/Phage … Read more

For the twentieth edition of this column, we are doing something slightly different. Why? Well, to be honest, my listening habits have taken a detour of late and instead of diving into a million different things, I am concentrating way too hard on a handful of releases. And these two … Read more

I'm slowly running out of things to say in these intro pieces. Do you read them? Do you need to know why I chose these particular records or are you happy to dive in and discover? Barbelith – Deathless Master (Self-Released/Third House) Nearly ten years after Mirror Unveiled was released, … Read more

It's time, once again, for Only Death Is Real to make an appearance. This is the twenty second edition of the column and I'll be honest with you, writing is becoming harder each time. Sitting down to purposefully do something is difficult, opening the laptop seems to get scarier and … Read more

Arkhtinn – 三度目の災害 (Prava Collective) The mysterious Prava Collective release music by a handful of artists (who may or may not be in every band or at least more than one), each digital drop containing a plethora of music that encompasses the entire label’s roster while Amor Fati handle the … Read more

Acathexis – Immerse (Amor Fati/Extraconscious Records) Acathexis’ self-titled debut from 2018 is one that still bears repeated listens, personally, many years later. With some of the best known and hardest working musicians within black metal behind the band, it was always clear that this is a band to watch. Featuring … Read more

Do you ever go through phases of listening to the same music over and over and over again? Why would I listen to something new when I could listen to X ten times in a row, or that song off Y a couple of times a day? Sometimes something new … Read more

The third iteration of Only Death Is Real is perhaps its darkest yet. Oppressive black metal and frozen winds all feature with the common thread being that the music here has all been released independently or by the artists themselves. Dive in but don't forget to come up for air. … Read more

Choosing five releases for Only Death Is Real gets harder with each iteration and this fourth column was no different. The list grew greater each time I heard something great but I chose five releases in each column so far and I’m not one to break my own arbitrary rules. … Read more