Svart HHV Records 309 Items

Reissue of the 2011 album Tao of the Dead by American alternative rock band ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead. First time available on vinyl since its release year. Features a replica of the original comic book insert.



Tao of the Dead is their seventh album. The band stripped down to its core four-piece lineup for the record, deviating from the past two records that featured a filled-out six-piece band. This resulted in a stripped-down record with heavy emphasis on guitar. It’s a two-part record, each side with a specific musical tuning; Part One in D and Part Two in F.



The album can be listened to as 16 different movements or two lengthy tracks. Part One: Tao Of The Dead is split into eleven tracks, whereas Part Two: Strange News From Another Planet is five songs combined into one. Lead singer Conrad Keely described the album's composition; "It's the way I listened to albums when I was a kid, seeing as some of my favorite records were Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Yes' Relayer and Close to the Edge... I always liked listening to records that were just a continuous piece, like an orchestra or a symphony."

The Finnish masters of explosive krautrock, the band of a thousand guitars, Teksti-TV 666 are ready to let loose their second album in February 2023 after the five year long wait. Svart Records are proud to release Vapauden Tasavalta on CD, vinyl and digital platforms on February 24th 2023.

Teksti-TV 666 plays loud and stretched-to-the-max alternative rock songs filled with motorik-beats, shoegaze, psychedelic elements, and suddenly a proto-metal riff or two emerging out of nowhere. The band likes to avoid the excessive seriousness surrounding their music and instead vows to their constantly growing wall of sound -army and to the various vocalists joining them on stage. Teksti-TV 666 is the band to light up the party anytime, anywhere.

Never before on LP, Svart Records are happy to release this cult Florida Death Metal album on limited vinyl. 500 copies, orange vinyl.

The second wave Florida Death Metal act Diabolic produced this album of unholy death metal in 2003 against unspeakable odds, after losing two original members. The remaining trio hired new guns into the fold and transformed frustration into creativity.

On Infinity Diabolic got rid of all black metal influences, recruited a new drummer and got Ed Webb, the vocalist on their first album, back into the fold.

In musical terms “Infinity Through Purification” marks a new level of brutality, speed and technical skill for Diabolic yet they manage to retain the concise and memorable song structures and the old school darkness of their previous releases.

Picture disc, die-cut sleeve, booklet

Originally released in March 2019, the Green Lung’s debut long player has sold out several pressings quickly.

This pressing is remastered by the spectacular John Davis (Lana Del Rey, Led Zeppelin, Royal Blood…) at Metropolis Studios in the UK. The picture disc comes with an 8 page booklet and a die-cut sleeve.

In 2013 Finland’s Oranssi Pazuzu issued their ‘Valonielu’ LP, an album of timeless creative immensity that was met with ubiquitous praise throughout the world, and solidified the band’s position as one of the most forward-thinking and interesting metal bands. Now, in the early months of 2016, Oranssi Pazuzu returns with the follow-up album and fourth overall, the mind-bending masterwork ‘Värähtelijä’.

Oranssi Pazuzu, since birth, has never been satisfied to stick with a formula. Each album has seen the band expand upon its previous incarnation and then, like a supernova, blow it up and transform again into something recognizable but completely new. ‘Värähtelijä’ continues in this vein, giving the band much more room to diverge and explore the vast regions of hypnotic progressive psychedelia and the nebulous outer limits of Scandinavian black metal. Songs explode with radiant ultraviolet color and plunge into the deep black darkness of innermost consciousness. If ‘Valonielu’ was the creation of a universe, ‘Värähtelijä’ is the magnification and expansion of its infinite boundaries.

A 70+ minute sprawling voyage, ‘Värähtelijä’ more accurately represents the stunning live presence of the band where the songs often span new and previously unheard dimensions of form and structure. Not meant for genre purists, Oranssi Pazuzu are on a trip all their own; modern electric pioneers on an expedition to unlock the keys to the hidden spaces all around and inside us. 20 Buck Spin are pleased to once again present the innovative brilliance of Oranssi Pazuzu and ‘Värähtelijä’.

Darker Days Ahead is Terrorizer's follow up to their classic 1989 album World Downfall. It features original members Pete Sandoval (Morbid Angel) and Jesse Pintado (Napalm Death, Brujeria) on drums and guitar with new members Anthony Rezhawk and Tony Norman joining in on vocals and bass. Despite the long gap between releases, the band picked up exactly where they left off in 1989 and created an album full of pure extreme metal that is guaranteed to satisfy all fans of old school death metal and grindcore.

The pioneering metal band Xysma ends 25 year hiatus with new album announced

Since the late 1980's when a new form of metal started to emerge from the ashes of the speed and thrash metal movement, Xysma were there making a racket. They've gone a long way from the pus-oozing grindcore of Swarming Of The Maggots (1989) to the death rolling groove of Deluxe and Lotto a few years later, becoming an internationally revered cult band over the years. Recently the band thought it best to end a 25 year sabbatical and announced that there's a new album in the works. Titled No Place Like Alone, the album will be released on Svart Records in early 2023.

The first slice of things to come drops this week. The single Well Seasoning will be released on all digital platforms this Friday. The short and to-the-point song is eerily reminiscent of classic mid-nineties Xysma, making the quarter of a century that separates us from those classic albums disappear. Well Seasoning is actually the first song the band finished after the decision to start working on new material. Xysma's sound has varied greatly from album to album, and No Place Like Alone is no exception to that golden rule. In addition to straightforward hard rocking numbers the record has its share of heavier moments but surprising elements abound as well.

The single Well Seasoning, a two and a half minute metal ode to the joys of cooking, will be out on Friday 7th of October and the band will play a single release show at Tavastia in Helsinki, Finland on October 15th.

Oriental Beat by Hanoi Rocks gets the redux treatment, officially mixed and revived from the original sessions, and released on March 17th on deluxe vinyl, CD and digital formats. The CD and vinyl come with the song lyrics, checked and approved by Michael Monroe.

Dubbed the “re(al) mix”, this 40th anniversary edition was mixed by Petri Majuri at E-Studios in Finland in collaboration with the band. Vocalist Michael Monroe calls this release “the longest and slowest album project ever,” stating that “40 years in the making, it's not just a remix, but the Real MIX supervised and approved by Hanoi Rocks”.

Recorded in London, UK in 1981, for 200 pounds a day, Oriental Beat was made during the height of the British punk + New Wave movement, when the band was hanging out with everyone from Phil Lynott to the Damned. Hanoi Rocks’ original drummer Gyp Casino says of Oriental Beat that: “Back in the days we gave heart, soul and a bit of pain to make this record something else” but the sound of the album, originally released in 1982, did not match their efforts at the time. Bassist Sami Yaffa called it “the worst sounding album of our career” and Michael Monroe said that “the producer of the album didn’t have a clue what the band was about and his mix of the album was horribly wrong”.

Oriental Beat’s original engineer Peter Wooliscroft, was not a rock producer, and according to Hanoi Rocks’ manager Richard Bishop he “tried to mix the album to sound like Spandau Ballet”. Released before the band could remix or rerecord it, as the label had run out of money, and the master tapes had gone missing, the band has always considered the original mix of Oriental Beat to be a “disaster”. With the tapes mysteriously showing up in the Universal vault recently, the band was finally able to mix and resequence the album the way they wanted it to sound.

Oriental Beat is a defining masterpiece made when Hanoi Rocks was about to explode onto the world scene and written at the absolute peak of lead guitarist Andy McCoy’s creativity as a songwriter. Rhythm guitarist Nasty Suicide says “only now, with stripping it down to the bare essentials and tweaking it to bring out what was really laid down it became our dream come true! This is what it's all about” as this definitive edition of Oriental Beat now fully displays the ultimate arrogance and attitude which defined the band. Monroe says: “now, 40 years after its original release in 1982, we finally got the album sounding as great as it deserves, with no overdubs or samples,” and McCoy adds that: “It's better now than ever. This is what it was meant to sound like. So enjoy it...Another shot of Hanoi Rocks”.

After the mind blowing success of Witchcraft's Legend (2012), mastermind Magnus Pelander outdid himself once again with the band's 2016 offering Nucleus. Combining what made it's predecessor the modern classic it quickly became as well as elements of the band's earlier days makes Nucleus a melancholic, raging, fragile, melodic and at times noisy masterpiece filed somewhere between classic rock, doom and ambient music.

With a renewed line-up (Rage Widerberg on drums and Tobias Anger on bass) the band sounds more hungry and powerful than ever. In combination with the thrilling, yet very down-to-earth production by Pelander, Philip Gabriel Saxin and Anton Sundell, Nucleus throws you in dreamy sonic landscapes that will mesmerize and haunt you alike.

Svart Records are proud to re-release Nucleus on black-, green- and Svart exclusive purple/turquoise marble vinyl on May 19th.

A limited-to-300 reissue of this rare west coast psych inspired album from 1972. With all lyrics and liner notes by Jaakko Riihimaa.

Bengt Huhta, known by his nom de plume Kristian, made this unusual album in 1972, after enjoying a pop star career in the late sixties.

As a singer he suffered the same fate as most sixties pop singers - no matter how ambitious the artist, his choice of songs to record was always made by the label, the songs more often than not being Finnish translations of popular international schlager tunes. Most live appearances took place on small stages inside restaurants or at traditional dance halls, with the expectation that the band would perform music suitable for dancing, which meant a selection of evergreen material mostly. The artist could sneak their own material in at the end of a long set or between shorter dance sets.

Winds of change were in the air, though, and Kristian grew bored of his one-dimensional role as a domestic pop star. In 1971 he decided to quit altogether, but as his Finnish cover version of Let The Sunshine In was still in the charts, the record company persuaded him to make one more album. He agreed, but with the condition that the album would record his own English language material only.

For a Finnish singer-songwriter to release an album of English language rock music influenced by the post-hippie psychedelic and progressive movements of the time was a career suicide, and this is what happened with this album as well. What few original copies there are in circulation still have become very expensive. Svart Records are happy to present a new edition of this underrated light psych rock gem to the new millennium.

0th Anniversary Vinyl Reissue! With the original gatefold layout plus all lyrics, new liner notes plus an interview with vocalist Harri Saksala. The album has been remastered for vinyl by Finland's premier progressive rock specialist Pauli Saastamoinen at Finnvox.

Kalevala and especially their debut album People No Names is a prime example of a record that should've been big, sold only a handful and only later on was reappraised as the masterful progressive rock epic that it is. Originally released 50 years ago on Finnlevy, then one of the largest labels in Finland, and not marketed at all, there were not more than 500 copies of the album pressed. When people finally realised the quality of the music on this piece of wax, prices for original copies on the second hand market went blasting through the roof and eventually into four figures.

Kalevala's story began at the turn of the new decade in 1970, and they played Cream-style hard

rock with a power trio lineup. The band's founding member Remu Aaltonen was kicked out the following year, and a renewed lineup immersed themselves in progressive rock. People No Names was released in 1972, and eventually Finnlevy had no idea what to do with this kind of difficult new youth music.

This 50th Anniversary reissue is put together with the approval of original vocalist Harri Saksala The album is remastered for vinyl by Pauli Saastamoinen at Finnvox.

The crown jewel of Finnish Death Metal, reissued in a band-approved new 30th anniversary edition. Features a new vinyl master from the original source by Noise for Fiction, plus a booklet with a lengthy feature by Hippo Taatila and some visual memorabilia. As an added vinyl bonus there's a large poster by the original cover artist Rob Smits creating a new vision of the album cover for the new millennium.

Together with bands like Demilich, Abhorrence, Disgrace, Xysma and Sentenced, Demigod from the wastelands of Loimaa, southern Finland, put Finland on the map in the global death metal scene in the late 80's and early 90's. Having risen to underground fame with their demo Unholy Domain, Slumber of Sullen Eyes was a hugely expected debut album. When it was finally released in 1992 after a complicated creation process at Tico-Tico Studios in northern Finland, it was received with open arms and drooling excitement by the then very active underground death metal scene.

That scene was, however, short lived,and by 1994 pretty much every band had switched from death metal to something else entirely. What was left after the bands had left the building was a number of classic albums that constitute the legacy of Finnish Death Metal. Among them, Slumber of Sullen Eyes is one of the most original and ferocious. There was nobody like Demigod.

Svart Records are proud to reissue this remarkable and quite hard to find album on CD, vinyl and tape.

The crown jewel of Finnish Death Metal, reissued in a band-approved new 30th anniversary edition. Features a new vinyl master from the original source by Noise for Fiction, plus a booklet with a lengthy feature by Hippo Taatila and some visual memorabilia. As an added vinyl bonus there's a large poster by the original cover artist Rob Smits creating a new vision of the album cover for the new millennium.

Together with bands like Demilich, Abhorrence, Disgrace, Xysma and Sentenced, Demigod from the wastelands of Loimaa, southern Finland, put Finland on the map in the global death metal scene in the late 80's and early 90's. Having risen to underground fame with their demo Unholy Domain, Slumber of Sullen Eyes was a hugely expected debut album. When it was finally released in 1992 after a complicated creation process at Tico-Tico Studios in northern Finland, it was received with open arms and drooling excitement by the then very active underground death metal scene.

That scene was, however, short lived,and by 1994 pretty much every band had switched from death metal to something else entirely. What was left after the bands had left the building was a number of classic albums that constitute the legacy of Finnish Death Metal. Among them, Slumber of Sullen Eyes is one of the most original and ferocious. There was nobody like Demigod.

Svart Records are proud to reissue this remarkable and quite hard to find album on CD, vinyl and tape.

What on earth has happened to gothic rock? This was the thought burning in Joakim Knutsson’s mind, and he felt that something needed to be done to save the much-loved genre from going down the drain. He embarked on this mission with the aim to create something special but also something faithful to the original ideals of the 80’s gothic genre.



“I wanted a band that would be an occult mix of The Lords Of The New Church, Adam and the Ants, John Carpenter and Billy Idol”, says Knutsson, “The end result turned out heavier, bloodier and darker than that, but that was probably our destiny anyway.”



With a little help from prominent members of the Swedish metal and punk community the idea recently took a solid form. Today the band together sums more than 250 years of knowledge in music and pop culture - knowledge they shamelessly put to use in their own creation.



Here they are: die Oberherren. The Gothic rock band the world has been waiting for since the golden age of the 80s. Kept strictly under wraps until now, die Oberherren feature members of the rock and metal royalty in Sweden, with past or current membership in bands such as The Coffinshakers, Ghost, The Mobile Mob Freakshow, Gehennah and many more.



The band snatched their ominous-sounding moniker from the intellectual group that operated at the turn of the 20th century, by whom their lyrics are also heavily influenced. “Anarchistic, occult, and apocalyptic imagery with prophets of war, Armageddon, decadence, and love – these themes and ideas are even more actual today than the original ‘overlords’ could ever dream of over a hundred years ago”, comments Knutsson.

The debut album Die By My Hand, set for release on January 27th 2023 on Svart Records, is a collection of eight songs that are adorned with infectious hooks and laced with vintage darkness.

In four short years of existence, Green Lung have risen from the murk of the UK heavy underground to become a true cult band with a devoted following. Debut album Woodland Rites, released independently in early 2019, quickly garnered attention, resulting in a single being named ‘Track of the Week’ in the Guardian, plays on Daniel P. Carter’s Radio One Rock Show, a tour with fellow UK heavies Puppy and festival appearances across Europe.

This brought the band to the attention of the wider music industry, and after multiple offers from a variety of labels, the band decided to stay true to their roots and sign with the Finnish audio wizards at Svart Records, home to several of their doomy inspirations including Reverend Bizarre and Warning. Svart’s deluxe reissue of the album, and the preceding EP Free the Witch, sold out several pressings.

Two years later, the folk horror-obsessed fivesome have re-emerged from their mulchy catacombs armed with dozens of freshly-whittled riffs. Black Harvest, the sequel to Woodland Rites, is a more colourful reimagining of the band’s sound - Dawn of the Dead to its predecessor’s Night of the Living Dead.

Recorded at Giant Wafer Studios in rural mid-Wales over the course of two weeks with longtime producer Wayne Adams (Petbrick, Big Lad), it’s a more expansive and textured record than anything the band have done before, boasting a cinematic quality and more attention to detail. All samples were sourced from the local countryside and from instruments found in the studio, including the haunting opening vocal of ‘The Harrowing’ which was recorded on a whim after the band broke into the local church (the organ can be heard creaking in the background). The album was recorded in late autumn, and the seasonal atmosphere seeped into the music, which is redolent of mists, falling leaves, and the crumbling glory of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries of London, the city the band call home.

The album also soaks in new sonics beyond the ‘Black Sabbath meets Brian May’ blueprint of what went before. ‘The Harrowing’ takes the band’s tradition of instrumental opening tracks to dizzy new heights, like Atomic Rooster jamming with Boston, while ballad ‘Graveyard Sun’, based on the folklore around the ‘Highgate Vampire’, adds gothic synth lines that would give Type O Negative pangs of jealousy. That’s not to say the hooks n’ heaviness approach that made the band’s name isn’t here in abundance, as the Sabbath-meets-Purple chug and groove of revolutionary lead single ‘Leaders of the Blind’ and the Hammer Horror riff frenzy of ‘Upon the Altar’ prove. Closer ‘Born to a Dying World’ is unlike anything the band have written before; an endtimes ballad with an almost gospel feel, tying the band’s omnipresent nature themes to the Anthropocene.

Mastered by John Davis at Metropolis (Led Zeppelin, Royal Blood), Black Harvest comes packaged in stained glass artwork by renowned artist Richard Wells (Doctor Who, Dracula, Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth), and is available in gatefold vinyl and CD formats.

This 1991 album by the Bay Area thrashers Hexx saw them ditching their speed/power metal roots and going full throttle into technically proficient death metal. The Svart reissue is an exact replica of the rare original LP, originally released by Century Media.

An official reissue of “Shadows of The Dying Sun”, the 2014 album by Insomnium, one of “melodic death metal’s most unique and instantly recognisable modern voices” (Metal Hammer”).

With enclosed band commentary on all songs, the Svart reissue of this modern metal epic comes with the Ephemeral EP as bonus tracks on side D and is wrapped in a heavy gatefold jacket.

An explosive compilation of Finnish underground rock from the late 1960's and early 70's.

The Finnish masters of bittersweet punk rock are back with a new album!

Out on May 6th 2022 via Svart Records, Finland’s own masters of frenzied Proto-metal, Kaleidobolt, bring the past up to date with a new album that perfectly elevates all the promise and flair their reputation has been boiling over since their 2015 debut album. “This One Simple Trick” packs more punch than most bands with far larger lineups, the deadly trio of Sampo Kääriäinen on guitars, lead vocals and keyboards and Marco Menestrina on bass, vocals, keyboards, percussions are reinvigorated by recent new recruit, drummer Mårten Gustafsson.

Gustafsson, according to Menestrina, brought his own “very creative musical mind, drumming chops for days and a great sense of humour” to “This One Simple Trick”. Kaleidobolt have never sounded this ferocious and exhilarated, that their joy makes the songs on “This One Simple Trick” as infectiously contagious as the pandemic they were created under. Gustafsson’s relentless drumming matching every beat of Menestrina and Kääriäinen’s genius instinct for bad-ass rebellious Hard Rock, it feels like “This One Simple Trick” is Kaleidobolt hitting the bullseye in every enthralling moment.

Kaleidobolt’s incendiary humour and sense of fun that the band had in the studio with the injection of new blood, transfuses straight through the jugular into a powerhouse collection of explosive songs, and relentless energy that’s impossible to deny. Kaleidobolt’s ascension to the zenith of “This One Simple Trick” has been mounting like wildfire, where Finnish bands of this caliber haven’t been seen since the 1970s. “This One Simple Trick” was mostly recorded at E-Studio (a very fancy and large studio in southern Finland) in August 2021 and a bunch of overdubs and vocals sessions at Wastement in September/October (a well worn rehearsal place in Tampere that has been birthplace of some of last decade’s best Finnish Psychedelic Rock music).

All the sessions were supervised by Niko Lehdontie (best known for Oranssi Pazuzu & Kairon:IRSE!) who produced and mixed this blistering album of stone-age Blues and crushing riffery. Rabble rousing tracks like “Weekend Warrior” give Scandinavian Blues-Rock titans Hellacopters, Graveyard and Witchcraft a serious run for their money with psychedelic riff-mountains like “Ultraviolent Chimpanzee” bringing to mind the purple–hazed deserts of Josh Homme on acid suddenly gone all Tame Impala. References hard to come by when a band this inspired hits full throttle but must be witnessed and experienced to believe. Not just our favourite underrated live band of timeless song-smiths, plenty of Psych-Rock afficionados and Prog Rock freaks the world over are starting to wax lyrical about how stupendously potent Kaleidobolt’s hard rock magic–brew really is.

Garden-fresh trail-blazers from the UK, Famyne drag Doom kicking and screaming into the 21st century on epic new album “The Ground Below”. Svart Records unleashes heart-rending game-changer “The Ground Below” from melancholic crushers Famyne on Friday the 13th, May 2022.

Svart Records is proud to present “The Ground Below”, the stellar new album from UK Progressive Doom Rock band Famyne. Hailing from the heart of the garden of England, Canterbury gloom-fathers Famyne slug and soar their way up and out from the underground, shaking off any shackles of genre constraints on their new album “The Ground Below”. Since their inception in 2014, Famyne have been rapidly building an incendiary reputation for themselves, and an epic universe all of their own, magnetising more souls into the orbit of their unique expansion of masterful Doom metal. From their ‘Famyne EP’ in 2015, earning a place at Bloodstock Open Air 2016, to their break-out self-titled debut in 2018, Famyne have been constantly turning heads as a promising new light in the darkness. “The Ground Below” is a brave and inimitable statement which re-draws a line in the sands of Metal tradition. Famyne boldly march over the limits, re-riffing the rules, washing listeners in pristine waves of hypnotic melody on 8 tablets of stone-carved ageless songs that “The Ground Below” lays on the altar. Tracks like For My Sins and Babylon conjure paragon English Doom with a long line of lineage like country-mates Warning, Paradise Lost, Pagan Altar and Cathedral to songs like A Submarine where warm oceans of sweeping guitars and wide-screen desperate euphony bring to mind genre-changing pioneers like Anathema and Porcupine Tree. Mind-blowing Lead vocalist Tom Vane’s omnipotent vocals deliver the shivers in dynamite doses, unearthing perfect hair-raising emotions that are at once timeless and freshly captivating. It is an understatement to acknowledge how exceptionally unforgettable Famyne’s distinct voice is. The guitars of Martin Emmons and Tom Ross range from an Iommi masterclass to Åkerfeldt progression in a heart-beat, delivering breath-taking riff-mountains that are sumptuously original and catchy in both style and opulent panache. It is Famyne’s canny confidence to re-mould traditional Doom metal artistry with their own wave of emotive progression that makes “The Ground Below” a brilliant restoration of the craft, reminding us how crushing and poignant innovative Doom Metal can be if done with passion. Fans of everything from Opeth, Katatonia to Soundgarden and all the trad legends of Sabbath, St Vitus and Solitude Aeturnus will be suitably wowed in Famyne’s wake. “The Ground Below” is a modern classic, reverential but so supremely powerful that Famyne have securely carved their own place on the monoliths of the future.

Pekka Laine is leading a double life. There is his daytime persona, a longstanding journalist and maker of award-winning documentary series for radio and television. Then there is the other side to him that comes out at night: the guitar player and DIY-composer. As a driving force of The Hypnomen, a band with a cult following, Laine has explored the world of instrumental music since the 1990s. In his intrepid journeys from primitive noise art to the spheres of soulful psychedelia, he has now reached one important milestone. As a result of a series of unpredictable twists and turns, Pekka Laine’s first solo album was born. The making of the album has been a highly personal journey. It is a declaration of his undying love of the enchanted instrument that is the electric guitar and the cosmic echoes that tie together the primal 1960s space sounds, psychedelia, dub music and weird film soundtracks to form one futuristic continuum.

What started as an innocent and unexpected email in last March has turned into a process mentored by Esa Pulliainen, the fearless leader of the legendary band Agents. From his seat behind the mixing console, the guitar legend captured the sound waves and created the right mood. Multi-instrumentalist and producer Toni Liimatta, a serious alchemist in the world of instrumental music, added his invaluable expertise and experience. The spirit during the sessions where Laine’s compositions were transformed from dreamy ideas into reality was free and almost childlike in zeal. No holds were barred and nothing could stop the stream of influences, associations and sounds ricocheting off the studio walls. Joe Meek, electronic space sounds, Spaghetti Westerns, experimental tape music, London, California, Moscow, Jane Birkin, library music, Björn Olsson, Link Wray, early hip hop, the Wrecking Crew, folk, Roy Anderson’s films – there was no end in sight when the party started raving about all things inspiring. The music, however, is authentic. It came straight from the composer’s own head and heart.

40 Watt Sun returns with Perfect Light; the third studio album created by Patrick Walker under the moniker. Perfect Light will be released digitally via Cappio Records, and physically via Svart Records on both CD and vinyl.

The expertly crafted, personal songs range from sparse, unaccompanied voice and guitar, through gently layered instrumentation featuring piano and delicate brush work, to moments more reflective of the warm, subtle overdrive of the band’s previous album, Wider than the Sky (2016). Like Patrick’s best work, the songs quietly build with emotion, and ache with a darkness and melancholy beauty.

Perfect Light is the first 40 Watt Sun album created without a full, formal band structure. Patrick enlisted an array of accomplished musicians to fulfil his vision for the album, including, among others, Andrew Prestidge and Roland Scriver (The Osiris Club), Ajit Gill (Vertaal), Lorraine Rath (Amber Asylum/Worm Ouroboros), and pianist/composer Chris Redman.

Alongside Patrick’s poignant and emotive vocals, his poetic lyrics remain central to the allure of the songs, with their composition strong enough to be evocative even when absorbed aside from the music. With no intention to make deliberately dark music, the album contains shards of hope and light to pierce through the pensiveness.

Svart Records to release new album by rising stars of eclectic heavy rock, Messa on the 11th of March 2022.

Messa’s rising trajectory hits the stratosphere on their immense new album “Close”. Soaring up out of the Italian Doom Rock underground in 2014, Messa have been rapidly garnering a frenzied throng of devotees, in thrall to their monumental and broad-ranging sound craft. Releasing two widely celebrated cult records, the latest of which “Feast For Water” in 2018 was a critical breakthrough success, with Rolling Stone calling the whole album “captivating, wringing maximum drama out of its savvy stylistic clash,” Messa have had everyone on tenterhooks, waiting for what was next.

New album “Close” draws us further into Messa’s spellbinding textures and immersive dynamics. Described as “Stevie Nicks fronting Black Sabbath,” singer Sara’s colossal voice omnipotently carries the listener on an emotional rollercoaster ride where the sonic cauldron of Iommi guitars gives way to Arabian oudh and progressive solos in a masterful style-clash that well befits Messa’s incendiary reputation.

The hushed Fender Rhodes piano intro on opener “Suspended,” picks up where Messa left off on their previous album “Feast For Water” but then collapses gloriously into Jazz guitar and widescreen impassioned crushing riffs, lighting our way for the odyssey ahead. The scene is set magnificently for the journey that “Close” expertly takes the listener on, with Messa’s obvious care and passion for the album as a pilgrimage of sonic experience. Heavyweight tracks like “If You Want Her To Be Taken” or “0=2” are modern Doom Rock classics that expertly upgrade and leave the genre reeling in their wake. “Pilgrim” and “Orphalese” are woven with tapestries of Mediterranean sounds where oudh and eastern chord phrasings expand Messa’s cinematic palette with a panache that is all their own. Atmospheric and grandiose belters like “Rubedo” and “Dark Horse” build into an almost limitless climax of discord and harmony where blast beats and saxophones descend into a thrilling cacophony that’s a masterclass in artful cutting edge Doom.

Referencing bands like Dead Can Dance, Swans and Om, Messa have created an album where song, experience and atmosphere are focused into a crystalline modus where high art flawlessly embraces good old fashioned riff-worship. Transcending the occult and noir-tinted atmospheres of their past works, “Close” confidently weaves Messa’s multifarious influences into a singular breath-taking sound that leaves the listener enthralled. Perfection or something extremely close, Messa’s “Close” is not just a Metal record, but it’s definitely one of the best things to break out of the confines of Metal in a long time.

Pressed on warpainted and bloodied vinyl, Svart Records present a trilogy of vinyl represses by Finland’s folk metal war machine Turisas. Prepared together with the band, these new gatefold renditions come with extensive liner notes plus A2 posters. The Svart edition has the nearly 60-minute album spread over four LP sides for maximum fidelity.

Formed in 1995 in Karlstad, Sweden by Rob Coffinshaker, these graveyard country pioneers have been steadily putting out records, most of which have now become highly sought-after collector items. The Coffinshakers successfully merged the imagery of German expressionist cinema with traditional country sounds of Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash, occasionally flirting with Ennio Morricone -style melodies and the 60’s surf-garage sounds of The Ventures. Topped with full-bodied lyrics and Rob Coffinshaker’s haunting, low register voice, this combination gained them a cult following in the late 90’s and 2000’s, and they even creeped up to the Finnish top 40 with their self-titled album in 2007.

Svart Records are proud to announce the official Coffinshakers vinyl reissues, which have been in the works for a couple of years now. These reissues include the full length albums We Are The Undead (1998) and The Coffinshakers (2007), both of which come in repro-sleeves with original artwork. There’s also a deluxe box set edition titled “The Curse of the Coffinshakers 1996-2016”, which includes both albums, 2 bonus LPs (From the Crypt – Rare and Unreleased vol. I and vol. II) and a thick booklet with a lengthy interview and archive material. The bonus LPs are only available in the box set and they include rare compilation tracks, EP releases and a handful of unreleased tunes from Rob Coffinshaker’s personal vaults.

Tasavallan Presidentti, along with Wigwam, were Finland’s top export act in the days of the first wave of progressive rock in the early seventies. Svart Records have, in co-operation with the band members, prepared new editions of these classic records on vinyl and CD, for the ages. Originally released on Love Records in 1974 and subsequently licensed to many foreign labels, Milky Way Moses was Tasavallan Presidentti’s last album of the classic seventies era, the band ending their career for the time being not long after. The Svart reissue expands the original jacket to gatefold, with full lyrics printed inside, and also adds a 12 page booklet with new interviews with the band plus rare photographs.

It might’ve taken 20 years but here it is: the original line-up of the Flaming Sideburns unleashes a brand new album “Silver Flames”. It can be seen as a follow-up to their now legendary debut “Hallelujah Rock’n’Rollah”, which was released two decades prior in 2001. “Silver Flames” is an album nobody expected to happen. Most certainly it’s out of time and out of place in 2021 but that has never stopped the Flaming Sideburns on their mission. Instead they launch a rock’n’roll assault at full throttle. It’s all there from straight-ahead rockers (“Silver Flame”, “Searching Like a Hyena”) to deep psychedelia (“Niburu”, “Reverberation”) and from classic rock (“A Song for Robert”) to pop-tinged choruses (“Perfect Storm”, “Cast out my Demons”). The album is wrapped-up by “Trance-Noché” and its unusual combination of Latin American madness and Arctic hysteria — topped with the lyrics en Español. ”Silver Flames” might be versatile but all of the tracks have a common goal: to make it on the album they had to be good enough to stand on their own as a single release. “Hallelujah Rock’n’rollah” gave us seven singles and “Silver Flames” is well on its way to top that. “Soulshaking”, “Trance-Noché”, “Neverending” and “A Song for Robert” are already out on 7” vinyl and there’s more to come later this year. The Flaming Sideburns started out in Helsinki in 1995 and soon found themselves touring both sides of the Atlantic. Their early releases were compiled on “It’s Time to Testify” but it was the launch of “Hallelujah Rock’n’Rollah” that put the band on top of the early 2000s garage rock revival. Stateside the record was released under a new moniker “Save Rock’n’Roll”. “Hallelujah Rock’n’Rollah” kept the band busy touring across the world and sharing the stages with their original inspirers like The Sonics or The Stooges. It also gained them exposure on U.S. television: “Loose My Soul“ was featured on HBO’s “The Wire,” “Flowers” made it to Fox’s “The O.C.” and “Street Survivor” was picked up by Toyota for a tv commercial. The break-through album also meant the end of the original line-up. Soon after the release, the guitar player Arimatti Jutila moved to the United States and the band was forced to soldier on with various line-ups. After two more albums, “Sky Pilots” and “Keys to the Highway,” and hundreds of shows, the Flaming Sideburns found themselves inactive for the first time in their career in 2016. That was not bound to last long. In 2018 the five original members — four Finns led by Argentine-born vocalist Eduardo Martinez — joined forces for a string of shows in The UK, Spain and The Nordics. As soon as they hit the road, the new songs started coming out. Soon the band hit the studio and the old gang was completed by Jürgen Hendlmeier who’s been serving as the producer for the Flaming Sideburns since day one. “Silver Flames” makes the comeback complete. Enjoy.

We’re proud to present the vinyl debut of the legendary Sonic’s Rendezvous Band’s “Basement Tapes” from 1976! Previously only available as part of a six CD box set released 15 years ago, this album includes some outstanding live rarities as bonus on the second disc, original photos, new liner notes and a new vinyl master! Released on deluxe band-approved double LP black and limited edition red Color Vinyl in a gatefold sleeve.
“To say that Sonic’s Rendezvous Band has been a big influence for a me as a musician would be an understatement. Crank it up and feel the power of the greatest band no one ever heard of.” – Nicke Andersson, 2019

Originally released in March 2019, the Green Lung’s debut long player has sold out two pressings quickly.
This third pressing is remastered by the spectacular John Davis (Lana Del Rey, Led Zeppelin, Royal Blood…) at Metropolis Studios in the UK. The album comes with a 8 page booklet and a A4 art print, limited to the first Svart pressing only, all wrapped in a gatefold jacket
‘This is heavy metal how it should be done, with lashings of occult camp and some sweet solstice swagger’ The Guardian

A Svart Mondo release. Black vinyl, 500 copies.
Alejandro Medina Y La Pesada was recorded in 1974 and is the only solo vinyl album released by Alejandro Medina. Born on 1 November 1949 in Buenos Aires, Medina had been in big bands since he was a young teenager, joining Le Pasada del Pock and Roll who included some of Argentina’s finest musicians, such as Billy Bond (who handles the production on this album), Jorge Pinchevsky (who plays Violin on this record) and Pappo, among others. Medina recorded four albums with Le Pasada del Pock and Roll who also played at the third Buenos Aires Rock Festival in November 1972, which was recorded in the movie ‘Rock until the sun goes down’. On this, his solo album, he mixes delta style blues, progressive rock and bluesy style experimental ballads that feature sublime guitar work. Eclectic hard-rock guitar journeys with lush violins and powerful vocals. A deep collectors bounty, Alejandro Medina Y La Pesada is a rare Argentinian heavy rock milestone. La Pesada (which means “The Heavy” in English) gives us a good idea of what to expect with this exceptional heavy jewel.

Limited Edition of 200. "This is a dialogue between man and machine," say K-X-P, continuing the lineage set out by Kraftwerk all those years ago. Yet a nostalgic pursuit of such past explorations this is not, IV is an album that is emblematic of K-X-P's ever-ceasing desire to move forward and explore new worlds, hurtling forward into new realms of minimal techno, icy synths and brooding atmospheres. K-X-P which revolves around two main collaborators - Timo Kaukolampi and Tomi Leppänen - have now been playing together for over a decade, resulting in one of Finland's most consistent yet ever-evolving alternative artists. As with most K-X-P records, there's a strong thematic approach and concept at its core. For anyone that has seen the band will know, their live shows are a potent and unforgettable force. So this record was made from the energy and approach of one.

2lpcd 2LP, gatefold, black vinyl.

Svart Records proudly presents Sonny Rollins with the Heikki Sarmanto trio, in an extremely rare live performance at Finland Festival in the summer of 1972. Available for the first time, fifty years after it was initially recorded, this incredible show features Sarmanto on the Fender Rhodes electric piano, his brother Pekka Sarmanto on bass and Esko Rosnell on drums. Legend of American Jazz, “Saxophone Colossus” Sonny Rollins hand-picked Heikki Sarmanto and his Finnish trio for this night of improvisation and mutual respect that culminated in years of collaboration after.

The music conjured throughout this live extravaganza is everything a jazz aficionado could have hoped for, with extensive improvisations and incredible soloing by the musicians. Two standards and one original by Rollins, which last between sixteen and twenty-four minutes, illustrate both the quartet’s vibe and supreme virtuosity. Taking place at the magnificent Finlandia Hall, an architectural marvel, which was completed only a few months earlier, and recorded by the YLE (The Finnish Broadcasting Company), this legendary concert has been expertly mastered by Pauli Saastamoinen at the infamous Finnvox Studios in 2022 to perfectly highlight the magic that was in the air all those years ago.

Rollins seems to be especially in high spirits throughout the show and his powerful and expressive playing, full of humor, is simply marvelous. He even manages to quote some hints of Jean Sibelius’ “Finlandia” tone poem as a tribute to the venue.

Through our tireless efforts at Svart Records to preserve our musical culture, you can now be re-introduced to an important piece in the jigsaw of Finnish Jazz history, immortalised on double vinyl gatefold and CD and both limited to only 1000 copies.

Reissue of the 2011 album Tao of the Dead by American alternative rock band ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead. First time available on vinyl since its release year. Features a replica of the original comic book insert.



Tao of the Dead is their seventh album. The band stripped down to its core four-piece lineup for the record, deviating from the past two records that featured a filled-out six-piece band. This resulted in a stripped-down record with heavy emphasis on guitar. It’s a two-part record, each side with a specific musical tuning; Part One in D and Part Two in F.



The album can be listened to as 16 different movements or two lengthy tracks. Part One: Tao Of The Dead is split into eleven tracks, whereas Part Two: Strange News From Another Planet is five songs combined into one. Lead singer Conrad Keely described the album's composition; "It's the way I listened to albums when I was a kid, seeing as some of my favorite records were Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Yes' Relayer and Close to the Edge... I always liked listening to records that were just a continuous piece, like an orchestra or a symphony."

The pioneering metal band Xysma ends 25 year hiatus with new album announced

Since the late 1980's when a new form of metal started to emerge from the ashes of the speed and thrash metal movement, Xysma were there making a racket. They've gone a long way from the pus-oozing grindcore of Swarming Of The Maggots (1989) to the death rolling groove of Deluxe and Lotto a few years later, becoming an internationally revered cult band over the years. Recently the band thought it best to end a 25 year sabbatical and announced that there's a new album in the works. Titled No Place Like Alone, the album will be released on Svart Records in early 2023.

The first slice of things to come drops this week. The single Well Seasoning will be released on all digital platforms this Friday. The short and to-the-point song is eerily reminiscent of classic mid-nineties Xysma, making the quarter of a century that separates us from those classic albums disappear. Well Seasoning is actually the first song the band finished after the decision to start working on new material. Xysma's sound has varied greatly from album to album, and No Place Like Alone is no exception to that golden rule. In addition to straightforward hard rocking numbers the record has its share of heavier moments but surprising elements abound as well.

The single Well Seasoning, a two and a half minute metal ode to the joys of cooking, will be out on Friday 7th of October and the band will play a single release show at Tavastia in Helsinki, Finland on October 15th.

Svart Records, by kind permission from Nuclear Blast, present a 10th anniversary repress of the band's fourth album Legend, pressed on 180 gram vinyl and with the original gatefold artwork.

2012's Legend was a departure for Witchcraft in many ways. Not only did they change half of their lineup and leave the previous label, also gone was the fuzzy warm analog sound of their previous three albums. Witchcraft have never made the same album twice, and Legend is certainly no exception. The album boasts a muscular modern production by Jens Bogren that really make the band's trademark doom riffs shine, and the songwriting is confident over the album's ten tracks of perfect retromodern revivalist doom.

An astounding compilation of rarities by The Gathering. Features all tracks from EPs and singles from the band's golden metal days 1995-2000, plus a heap of material entirely unavailable elsewhere. Pressed on three 180 gram LPs and presented in a special die cut slipcase.



This 140 plus minutes and 27 songs long triple album is a bit all over the place, mixing works-in-progress demos, the odd cover song or alternative version plus occasional unreleased or live material. Yet, while in terms of years it covers a quite short period (1995-2001), it is one essential release that takes you right at the very core of their creative growth at a time when they were rapidly evolving, both on a human and musical level.



"The main idea behind it was pretty simple, to make available to our fans all those B-sides, unreleased tracks and versions that had been sitting on the shelves for too long. Everything. And before we knew it, we ended up with a double album with a lot of things on it! It’s quite a mish-mash but I also think it’s a nice bouquet so to speak of everything we had done", comments Hans Rutten from the band.

The first half of Accessories gathers 14 tracks from the band's singles between 1995 and 2001. None of these songs are available on other albums. The second half contains two sessions which remained unreleased until Accessories - the first being a studio session with krautrock legend Eroc, who the band wanted as their producer, and the second session the uncompromised result of the band being locked in a small analog studio for a week with nothing or nobody to restrict their creativity.

Oriental Beat by Hanoi Rocks gets the redux treatment, officially mixed and revived from the original sessions, and released on March 17th on deluxe vinyl, CD and digital formats. The CD and vinyl come with the song lyrics, checked and approved by Michael Monroe.

Dubbed the “re(al) mix”, this 40th anniversary edition was mixed by Petri Majuri at E-Studios in Finland in collaboration with the band. Vocalist Michael Monroe calls this release “the longest and slowest album project ever,” stating that “40 years in the making, it's not just a remix, but the Real MIX supervised and approved by Hanoi Rocks”.

Recorded in London, UK in 1981, for 200 pounds a day, Oriental Beat was made during the height of the British punk + New Wave movement, when the band was hanging out with everyone from Phil Lynott to the Damned. Hanoi Rocks’ original drummer Gyp Casino says of Oriental Beat that: “Back in the days we gave heart, soul and a bit of pain to make this record something else” but the sound of the album, originally released in 1982, did not match their efforts at the time. Bassist Sami Yaffa called it “the worst sounding album of our career” and Michael Monroe said that “the producer of the album didn’t have a clue what the band was about and his mix of the album was horribly wrong”.

Oriental Beat’s original engineer Peter Wooliscroft, was not a rock producer, and according to Hanoi Rocks’ manager Richard Bishop he “tried to mix the album to sound like Spandau Ballet”. Released before the band could remix or rerecord it, as the label had run out of money, and the master tapes had gone missing, the band has always considered the original mix of Oriental Beat to be a “disaster”. With the tapes mysteriously showing up in the Universal vault recently, the band was finally able to mix and resequence the album the way they wanted it to sound.

Oriental Beat is a defining masterpiece made when Hanoi Rocks was about to explode onto the world scene and written at the absolute peak of lead guitarist Andy McCoy’s creativity as a songwriter. Rhythm guitarist Nasty Suicide says “only now, with stripping it down to the bare essentials and tweaking it to bring out what was really laid down it became our dream come true! This is what it's all about” as this definitive edition of Oriental Beat now fully displays the ultimate arrogance and attitude which defined the band. Monroe says: “now, 40 years after its original release in 1982, we finally got the album sounding as great as it deserves, with no overdubs or samples,” and McCoy adds that: “It's better now than ever. This is what it was meant to sound like. So enjoy it...Another shot of Hanoi Rocks”.

After the mind blowing success of Witchcraft's Legend (2012), mastermind Magnus Pelander outdid himself once again with the band's 2016 offering Nucleus. Combining what made it's predecessor the modern classic it quickly became as well as elements of the band's earlier days makes Nucleus a melancholic, raging, fragile, melodic and at times noisy masterpiece filed somewhere between classic rock, doom and ambient music.

With a renewed line-up (Rage Widerberg on drums and Tobias Anger on bass) the band sounds more hungry and powerful than ever. In combination with the thrilling, yet very down-to-earth production by Pelander, Philip Gabriel Saxin and Anton Sundell, Nucleus throws you in dreamy sonic landscapes that will mesmerize and haunt you alike.

Svart Records are proud to re-release Nucleus on black-, green- and Svart exclusive purple/turquoise marble vinyl on May 19th.

First time on vinyl!

Disembody: The New Flesh is the second full-length studio album by the San Francisco metal band Skinlab. It was recorded in El Paso, Texas at the Village Studios and was produced by Andy Sneap. The album was originally released on February 23rd, 1999.

Offering up more dark, moody passages amidst the roaring repetitions and stomping guitars, Disembody: The New Flesh shows Skinlab to be intelligent songwriters as well as sonic destroyers. The addition of veteran guitarists Scott Sargeant (Killing Culture, Laaz Rockit) and Snake (Skrew) doesn't alter the essence of Skinlab's sound, but it does add more flexibility and unpredictability to their compositions and band interplay. As a result, it's an album worth of whispers from hell, bellowing demons, pummeling guitars, and 45 minutes of pure, metal mayhem.

3rd pressing with alternative cover design. Limited to 100 copies with poster and 300 copies without poster.

Have you ever felt like owning the entire Terveet Kädet discography from the classic lineup in one handy package? This is it. We’ve compiled every single thing the band ever recorded in the studio between the years 1980 and 1989 into this five disc set. There’s all LPs, all EPs, all compilation tracks, everything. On top of that there’s a full disc, approved by Läjä, of unreleased or otherwise impossibly rare tracks such as the unreleased third Ikbal EP.

Svart Records announces the release of “Unissa palaneet”, the sophomore album by the Helsinki quintet Radien. Having begun their existence on the earthly plane in 2014, Radien have forged their brand of idiosyncratic amplifier worship with passion that is in full bloom on “Unissa palaneet”. The debut album “syvyys” (2018), given a warm welcome by the international doom/sludge crowd, swam in murkier and more monotone waters, whereas the follow-up presents breathtakingly heavy widescreen sludge that paints its oozing black hues in technicolor.



According to the band, “Unissa palaneet” tells a story of a person who finds a calm spot inside himself amid chaos, and starts to see visions and dreams of the end times of humanity.

“The protagonist’s dreams turn lucid, and he/she understands them as prophecies of the future. He/she understands being capable of altering the course of history through his visions, but in the end decides that it is best to let things happen as they are meant to happen and not intervene in anything. In the end the dreams and visions mix with one another and become reality. Nature strikes back at humanity and in the end the human era ends in flames and ash”, comments Felipe Hauri from the band.



“Unissa Palaneet” will be released on May 19th 2023 by Svart Records. The album is mixed by Sanford Parker (yob, Eyehategod) and mastered by James Plotkin. It features international guest appearances by Dylan Walker (Full of Hell), Mike Paparo (Inter Arma) and Italian multi-instrumentalist Lili Refrain.



Radien has shared the stage with numerous Finnish bands and international touring artists, such as Dopethrone (can), Barren Womb (no), Full of Hell (us) and Inter Arma (us).

As humanity hurtles chaotically, blindly, and seemingly willingly towards what may well be its last act, Netherlands -- NYC’s hulking, intoxicatingly heavy progressive-sludge duo -- has returned with an LP which attempts to filter the fury, the glimmers of hope, and untenable intensity of life in the anthropocene into a 10 song narrative whirlwind which sounds unlike anything you’ve ever heard.

Severance is the 9th release from multi-instrumentalist, compulsive creator, and unrepentant volume addict Timo Ellis (Cibo Matto, Spacehog, Yoko Ono) under the Netherlands moniker. Severance features all the hallmarks of Ellis’ work, including blistering post-shred guitar heroics, primal drumming, and soulful, yet searing caterwauls. But as with every Nethrock release, Ellis has inexplicably found a way to ratchet up the intensity, render the dynamic shifts more extreme, and hone his menacing melange of melody and rhythm into a uniquely weaponized form of rock ‘n’ roll that reaches towards high art.

An album exploring topics as heavy as the ones Severance tackles requires sonics to match. For Ellis -- a prolific producer and engineer himself -- the skills and peerless engineering sensibilities of tastemaking heavy music producer Kurt Ballou (Converge, High On Fire) and the hallowed walls of Ballou’s God City Studio in Salem, Mass, proved the ideal space to capture the record’s massive sounds. For Ellis, Ballou’s unmatched attention to detail and “comprehensive tuning” of the drum and organic guitar sounds on Severance proved to be an x-factor in capturing the most monstrous and fully refined Nethrock release to date. The experience of tracking Severance with Ballou surpassed all of Ellis’ expectations, and reinforced the Neth mastermind’s belief that Ballou is “one of the best and most artfully-minded heavy music producers of his generation.”

Severance is another chapter in the book of a band that’s consistently released heavy music on its own terms and with its own undeniable personality. There’s a reason contemporary heavy metal luminaries like Joe Duplantier of Gojira and Bill Kelliher of Mastodon count themselves amongst Netherlands' most biggest fans, and Severance’S 10 tracks prove Nethrock’s potency once again.

As humanity hurtles chaotically, blindly, and seemingly willingly towards what may well be its last act, Netherlands -- NYC’s hulking, intoxicatingly heavy progressive-sludge duo -- has returned with an LP which attempts to filter the fury, the glimmers of hope, and untenable intensity of life in the anthropocene into a 10 song narrative whirlwind which sounds unlike anything you’ve ever heard.

Severance is the 9th release from multi-instrumentalist, compulsive creator, and unrepentant volume addict Timo Ellis (Cibo Matto, Spacehog, Yoko Ono) under the Netherlands moniker. Severance features all the hallmarks of Ellis’ work, including blistering post-shred guitar heroics, primal drumming, and soulful, yet searing caterwauls. But as with every Nethrock release, Ellis has inexplicably found a way to ratchet up the intensity, render the dynamic shifts more extreme, and hone his menacing melange of melody and rhythm into a uniquely weaponized form of rock ‘n’ roll that reaches towards high art.

An album exploring topics as heavy as the ones Severance tackles requires sonics to match. For Ellis -- a prolific producer and engineer himself -- the skills and peerless engineering sensibilities of tastemaking heavy music producer Kurt Ballou (Converge, High On Fire) and the hallowed walls of Ballou’s God City Studio in Salem, Mass, proved the ideal space to capture the record’s massive sounds. For Ellis, Ballou’s unmatched attention to detail and “comprehensive tuning” of the drum and organic guitar sounds on Severance proved to be an x-factor in capturing the most monstrous and fully refined Nethrock release to date. The experience of tracking Severance with Ballou surpassed all of Ellis’ expectations, and reinforced the Neth mastermind’s belief that Ballou is “one of the best and most artfully-minded heavy music producers of his generation.”

Severance is another chapter in the book of a band that’s consistently released heavy music on its own terms and with its own undeniable personality. There’s a reason contemporary heavy metal luminaries like Joe Duplantier of Gojira and Bill Kelliher of Mastodon count themselves amongst Netherlands' most biggest fans, and Severance’S 10 tracks prove Nethrock’s potency once again.

Fire and brimstone from Icelandic Black Metal band Altari, as their volcanic new album Kröflueldar erupts via Svart Records on 14.04.23. Named after a series of eruptions that happened at Krafla in Iceland in 1975, Kröflueldar represents the constant threat of ash that Altari’s music lives under. Kröflueldar was a 9 year series of eruptions, and since the album took almost 9 years to create, Altari felt that it was a fitting title for their scalding and ferocious music.

Fans of Craft, Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord and the more well known Icelandic Black Metal bands like Misþyrming and Sinmara will revel in digging into Kröflueldar’s rotten soil, but there is something far more experimental and avant-garde to be reaped within the whirlwind of sound that Altari produces. With their foundations of sound in the classic eras of early Judas Priest, songs like Leðurblo?kufjandinn call to mind the discordant soundclash of bands like Voivod, Virus and even Sonic Youth in the interplay of melody and disharmony. The bewildering, but utterly charming frenzy of taking the raw sound of metal to the limits breaks through from Altari’s literal geological location in a landscape in constant upheaval. Guitarist and Vocalist Ó.Þ.Guðjónsson notes that; “bands such as Blue Öyster Cult, Interpol, Killing Joke were a big inspiration for us as well for the use of clean guitars as the sound for leads. I expressed a desire to find some balance between the overdriven rhythm and melodic yet clean leads. These bands helped us find that.”

It is through these uncommon and almost blasphemous influences that Altari proves to be a rare gem in the much vaulted Icelandic Black Metal crown, giving Kröflueldar the dna of a band that feels they have so much potential and fervor brewing up in their molten kiln. Tracks like Sy?rulu?ður with the vocals of Gyða Margrét are as delicate and subtle, cloaked in smoky atmosphere, as they are dark and brooding, giving hints of bands like This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins.

When Guðjónsson states that the intention was an “overall desire for us to get away from the sound that has been a gateway for others here in the scene” they imbued Kröflueldar with a beguiling essence that’s hard to pin down, but magnetically unique. The co-production work of Stephen Lockhart, a staple of the Icelandic Black Metal scene and sound, is of quality but something very different from his signature work, born from what Guðjónsson describes as a need for a “new sonic approach,” Kröflueldar’s sonic eruptions, from the low earthy rumblings to the cacophonic and epic high notes, feels thoroughly worked but raw enough to be unsettling in the new ground it uncovers. Svart Records head honcho Tomi Pulkki expands on the reasons behind his new signing, saying that; “I found their approach refreshingly idiosyncratic in the way it mixes cleaner sounds with distortion. Altari brings something new to Black Metal and that is a rare thing these days”.

Adorned with the psychedelic album cover by guitarist K.R.Guðmundsson, which evokes the storms that come when a volcano erupts, Kröflueldar is a worthy song of praise to the wild and destructive threat of nature unleashed.

Fire and brimstone from Icelandic Black Metal band Altari, as their volcanic new album Kröflueldar erupts via Svart Records on 14.04.23. Named after a series of eruptions that happened at Krafla in Iceland in 1975, Kröflueldar represents the constant threat of ash that Altari’s music lives under. Kröflueldar was a 9 year series of eruptions, and since the album took almost 9 years to create, Altari felt that it was a fitting title for their scalding and ferocious music.

Fans of Craft, Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord and the more well known Icelandic Black Metal bands like Misþyrming and Sinmara will revel in digging into Kröflueldar’s rotten soil, but there is something far more experimental and avant-garde to be reaped within the whirlwind of sound that Altari produces. With their foundations of sound in the classic eras of early Judas Priest, songs like Leðurblo?kufjandinn call to mind the discordant soundclash of bands like Voivod, Virus and even Sonic Youth in the interplay of melody and disharmony. The bewildering, but utterly charming frenzy of taking the raw sound of metal to the limits breaks through from Altari’s literal geological location in a landscape in constant upheaval. Guitarist and Vocalist Ó.Þ.Guðjónsson notes that; “bands such as Blue Öyster Cult, Interpol, Killing Joke were a big inspiration for us as well for the use of clean guitars as the sound for leads. I expressed a desire to find some balance between the overdriven rhythm and melodic yet clean leads. These bands helped us find that.”

It is through these uncommon and almost blasphemous influences that Altari proves to be a rare gem in the much vaulted Icelandic Black Metal crown, giving Kröflueldar the dna of a band that feels they have so much potential and fervor brewing up in their molten kiln. Tracks like Sy?rulu?ður with the vocals of Gyða Margrét are as delicate and subtle, cloaked in smoky atmosphere, as they are dark and brooding, giving hints of bands like This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins.

When Guðjónsson states that the intention was an “overall desire for us to get away from the sound that has been a gateway for others here in the scene” they imbued Kröflueldar with a beguiling essence that’s hard to pin down, but magnetically unique. The co-production work of Stephen Lockhart, a staple of the Icelandic Black Metal scene and sound, is of quality but something very different from his signature work, born from what Guðjónsson describes as a need for a “new sonic approach,” Kröflueldar’s sonic eruptions, from the low earthy rumblings to the cacophonic and epic high notes, feels thoroughly worked but raw enough to be unsettling in the new ground it uncovers. Svart Records head honcho Tomi Pulkki expands on the reasons behind his new signing, saying that; “I found their approach refreshingly idiosyncratic in the way it mixes cleaner sounds with distortion. Altari brings something new to Black Metal and that is a rare thing these days”.

Adorned with the psychedelic album cover by guitarist K.R.Guðmundsson, which evokes the storms that come when a volcano erupts, Kröflueldar is a worthy song of praise to the wild and destructive threat of nature unleashed.

Jaaw is a post-industrial supergroug featuring Andy Cairns (Therapy?), Jason Stoll (Mugstar, Klämp, Sex Swing), Wayne Adams (Death Pedals, Big Lad, Petbrick) and Adam Betts (Three Trapped Tigers, Goldie, Squarepusher). Jaaw glories in big riffs and massive hooks, while also pushing the boundaries of what that even means thanks to its uncompromising strangeness.

In the back of Jaaw’s minds are the 1990s: an era when the experimental heaviness of acts like Ministry and Godflesh could find surprisingly large audiences. They also draw on the sonic ground that’s been broken since. The disorientating ferocity of Brazil’s Deafkids. The gaseous, shapeshifted vocals on Burial’s records. The freakout-laden noise-rock of Lightning Bolt. Far from emulating the industrial metal masters of the past, Jaaw will help shake lesser rock bands out of their generic complacency. With scant regard for typical verse/chorus/verse formulas, Jaaw’s song structures are closer to the nonlinear approach of body-shaking dance music.

Recorded intensely in a matter of days at Wayne’s Bear Bites Horse studio in London, the result is one of the most distinctive and exciting records that will be released this year, so heavy in textures that repeat listens will prove endlessly rewarding.

Experimenting with squealing effects pedals selected from the studio’s racks, Cairns was reminded of his love for the feedback-drenched records of Helios Creed and Nuklear Blast Suntan. Having grown up listening to Therapy?, Adams loved throwing Hm-2 pedals at Cairns and hearing his riffs through Entombed-style distortion. Bassist Stoll liked the idea of “Celtic Frost playing something by NEU!” This turned into the album’s bludgeoning centrepiece, ‘Bring Home The Motherlode, Barry’. As co-vocalists, Adams and Cairns wrote lyrics informed by the hallucinatory horror movies of Panos Cosmatos and the unforgettable set-pieces from Ari Aster’s Midsommar.

Jaaw’s sounds, ideas and modes all bleed into each other. “The lyrics, too, are part of the same whole,” adds Cairns. “I feel you could drop the needle at any point on this record and you know where you are with it. To me, it’s like greyscale psychedelia. It’s just this… experience.”

The greyscale psychedelic revolution starts here. You’d be crazy not to jump in.

Jaaw is a post-industrial supergroug featuring Andy Cairns (Therapy?), Jason Stoll (Mugstar, Klämp, Sex Swing), Wayne Adams (Death Pedals, Big Lad, Petbrick) and Adam Betts (Three Trapped Tigers, Goldie, Squarepusher). Jaaw glories in big riffs and massive hooks, while also pushing the boundaries of what that even means thanks to its uncompromising strangeness.

In the back of Jaaw’s minds are the 1990s: an era when the experimental heaviness of acts like Ministry and Godflesh could find surprisingly large audiences. They also draw on the sonic ground that’s been broken since. The disorientating ferocity of Brazil’s Deafkids. The gaseous, shapeshifted vocals on Burial’s records. The freakout-laden noise-rock of Lightning Bolt. Far from emulating the industrial metal masters of the past, Jaaw will help shake lesser rock bands out of their generic complacency. With scant regard for typical verse/chorus/verse formulas, Jaaw’s song structures are closer to the nonlinear approach of body-shaking dance music.

Recorded intensely in a matter of days at Wayne’s Bear Bites Horse studio in London, the result is one of the most distinctive and exciting records that will be released this year, so heavy in textures that repeat listens will prove endlessly rewarding.

Experimenting with squealing effects pedals selected from the studio’s racks, Cairns was reminded of his love for the feedback-drenched records of Helios Creed and Nuklear Blast Suntan. Having grown up listening to Therapy?, Adams loved throwing Hm-2 pedals at Cairns and hearing his riffs through Entombed-style distortion. Bassist Stoll liked the idea of “Celtic Frost playing something by NEU!” This turned into the album’s bludgeoning centrepiece, ‘Bring Home The Motherlode, Barry’. As co-vocalists, Adams and Cairns wrote lyrics informed by the hallucinatory horror movies of Panos Cosmatos and the unforgettable set-pieces from Ari Aster’s Midsommar.

Jaaw’s sounds, ideas and modes all bleed into each other. “The lyrics, too, are part of the same whole,” adds Cairns. “I feel you could drop the needle at any point on this record and you know where you are with it. To me, it’s like greyscale psychedelia. It’s just this… experience.”

The greyscale psychedelic revolution starts here. You’d be crazy not to jump in.

Reissue of the German psychobilly legends Mad Sin’s 2010 album Burn And Rise.



Since their indestructible bandleader Köfte DeVille had gone through some major personal changes, which encouraged him to lose almost 40 kilo grams, the album title is more than adequate. 18 tracks titled like “Last Gang Standing”, “Geisterfahrer (Ghost rider)”, "Wreckhouse Stomp", "The March of the Deviants", "9 Lives" or "Shitlist Bop” promise tension and also a bunch of surprises.



The typical Mad Sin mix of psychobilly, rockabilly, 50’s Rock’n’Roll, Country, Punk and Surf sounds fresher than ever before. Featured artists include Sucker (Oxymoron, Bad Co.), Jack Letten (Smoke Blow), Hank (The Boss Hoss) and Marlen (Bonzai Kitten). An outstanding record which gave the band once more the chance to show that they think outside the box and can do a lot more than “just” rockabilly.

Reissue of the German psychobilly legends Mad Sin’s 2010 album Burn And Rise.



Since their indestructible bandleader Köfte DeVille had gone through some major personal changes, which encouraged him to lose almost 40 kilo grams, the album title is more than adequate. 18 tracks titled like “Last Gang Standing”, “Geisterfahrer (Ghost rider)”, "Wreckhouse Stomp", "The March of the Deviants", "9 Lives" or "Shitlist Bop” promise tension and also a bunch of surprises.



The typical Mad Sin mix of psychobilly, rockabilly, 50’s Rock’n’Roll, Country, Punk and Surf sounds fresher than ever before. Featured artists include Sucker (Oxymoron, Bad Co.), Jack Letten (Smoke Blow), Hank (The Boss Hoss) and Marlen (Bonzai Kitten). An outstanding record which gave the band once more the chance to show that they think outside the box and can do a lot more than “just” rockabilly.

First time on vinyl!

Disembody: The New Flesh is the second full-length studio album by the San Francisco metal band Skinlab. It was recorded in El Paso, Texas at the Village Studios and was produced by Andy Sneap. The album was originally released on February 23rd, 1999.

Offering up more dark, moody passages amidst the roaring repetitions and stomping guitars, Disembody: The New Flesh shows Skinlab to be intelligent songwriters as well as sonic destroyers. The addition of veteran guitarists Scott Sargeant (Killing Culture, Laaz Rockit) and Snake (Skrew) doesn't alter the essence of Skinlab's sound, but it does add more flexibility and unpredictability to their compositions and band interplay. As a result, it's an album worth of whispers from hell, bellowing demons, pummeling guitars, and 45 minutes of pure, metal mayhem.

Svart Records set to re-release the debut and only album by the Finnish rock band Seitsemäs maailma.

Originally released in 1983 and produced by Pekka Aarnio (Agit-Prop), the album’s lyrics were mostly based on the poems of Leo Voss. The band was formed by the members of Se (Eeva Koivusalo – bass, P.A. Ulmanen – keys, Yari – guitar, vocals) with Liisa Tavi (vocals), Charlie (Lama) (guitar, vocals), Sidi Vainio (Briard) (drums) and Kari Hipponen (guitar).

The self titled album by Seitsemäs maailma will be released on April 28th. Available on a Svart exclusive yellow vinyl limited to 100 copies and black vinyl limited to 200 copies. Both versions include a 8-page insert.

An official reissue, with the original gatefold jacket and the original large booklet reproduced. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl, with side D etched. Sweden's Tribulation have been one of the most innovative bands working in metal in the new millennium. Their third album The Children Of The Night (2015) saw the band leap even further from their death, black and thrash metal origins and add hints of psych rock, prog and classic rock into the mix. Pitchfork called it "a sprawling, compulsory tale that doesn't turn dull. [...] There is no way to arrive at a consensus artist who will satisfy everyone, but The Children Of The Night comes close."

Svart Records presents, in conspiracy with Century Media, an official reproduction of the original 2015 double LP, that has already become a rarity.

Darker Days Ahead is Terrorizer's follow up to their classic 1989 album World Downfall. It features original members Pete Sandoval (Morbid Angel) and Jesse Pintado (Napalm Death, Brujeria) on drums and guitar with new members Anthony Rezhawk and Tony Norman joining in on vocals and bass. Despite the long gap between releases, the band picked up exactly where they left off in 1989 and created an album full of pure extreme metal that is guaranteed to satisfy all fans of old school death metal and grindcore.

The Netherlands' premium progressive gothic metal artists The Gathering caught live on the stage of the legendary Paradiso in Amsterdam, 1999. The Svart Records official reissue comes on 180 gram vinyl, wrapped in a heavy gatefold jacket.



"It is a very good representation of where we stood back in 1998/99. We also didn’t do any overdubs so what you see is what you get. It’s a very honest document of what THE Gathering was like in 1999", says Hans Rutten of The Gathering,"It's very pure and I'm very proud of it, especially to see it finally reissued on vinyl after a first, very limited run in 2013."

The Netherlands' premium progressive gothic metal artists The Gathering caught live on the stage of the legendary Paradiso in Amsterdam, 1999. The Svart Records official reissue comes on 180 gram vinyl, wrapped in a heavy gatefold jacket.



"It is a very good representation of where we stood back in 1998/99. We also didn’t do any overdubs so what you see is what you get. It’s a very honest document of what THE Gathering was like in 1999", says Hans Rutten of The Gathering,"It's very pure and I'm very proud of it, especially to see it finally reissued on vinyl after a first, very limited run in 2013."

An astounding compilation of rarities by The Gathering. Features all tracks from EPs and singles from the band's golden metal days 1995-2000, plus a heap of material entirely unavailable elsewhere. Pressed on three 180 gram LPs and presented in a special die cut slipcase.



This 140 plus minutes and 27 songs long triple album is a bit all over the place, mixing works-in-progress demos, the odd cover song or alternative version plus occasional unreleased or live material. Yet, while in terms of years it covers a quite short period (1995-2001), it is one essential release that takes you right at the very core of their creative growth at a time when they were rapidly evolving, both on a human and musical level.



"The main idea behind it was pretty simple, to make available to our fans all those B-sides, unreleased tracks and versions that had been sitting on the shelves for too long. Everything. And before we knew it, we ended up with a double album with a lot of things on it! It’s quite a mish-mash but I also think it’s a nice bouquet so to speak of everything we had done", comments Hans Rutten from the band.

The first half of Accessories gathers 14 tracks from the band's singles between 1995 and 2001. None of these songs are available on other albums. The second half contains two sessions which remained unreleased until Accessories - the first being a studio session with krautrock legend Eroc, who the band wanted as their producer, and the second session the uncompromised result of the band being locked in a small analog studio for a week with nothing or nobody to restrict their creativity.

Little Animals, the last album in the official canon of the Beasts of Bourbon, was originally released unexpectedly, after 9 years of total silence from the band, in 2007. What could have been a new century renaissance for the group was cut short, however, during the next decade with the death of founding member Spencer B. Jones.

Over the Beasts' decades-long career the Beasts put out six albums and managed to carve their name into the annals of Australian rock'n'roll. Little Animals is a fitting epitaph to a legend, ten tracks of vicious and dirty crash-and-burn rock'n'roll.

The crown jewel of Finnish Death Metal, reissued in a band-approved new 30th anniversary edition. Features a new vinyl master from the original source by Noise for Fiction, plus a booklet with a lengthy feature by Hippo Taatila and some visual memorabilia. As an added vinyl bonus there's a large poster by the original cover artist Rob Smits creating a new vision of the album cover for the new millennium.

Together with bands like Demilich, Abhorrence, Disgrace, Xysma and Sentenced, Demigod from the wastelands of Loimaa, southern Finland, put Finland on the map in the global death metal scene in the late 80's and early 90's. Having risen to underground fame with their demo Unholy Domain, Slumber of Sullen Eyes was a hugely expected debut album. When it was finally released in 1992 after a complicated creation process at Tico-Tico Studios in northern Finland, it was received with open arms and drooling excitement by the then very active underground death metal scene.

That scene was, however, short lived,and by 1994 pretty much every band had switched from death metal to something else entirely. What was left after the bands had left the building was a number of classic albums that constitute the legacy of Finnish Death Metal. Among them, Slumber of Sullen Eyes is one of the most original and ferocious. There was nobody like Demigod.

Svart Records are proud to reissue this remarkable and quite hard to find album on CD, vinyl and tape.

Drummer and composer Edward Vesala, the most internationally renowned jazz musician from Finland, was very keen on percussion instruments. Oddly enough, this broad and enduring interest is hardly evident on his albums.

Whether playing on his own albums or contributing to other musicians’ work, Vesala played a standard drum kit most of the time. He hardly used external percussionists on his own albums either. And most of all: his music was almost never percussive, at least in the traditional manner. Perhaps even stranger is the fact that he barely played any drum solos on his own albums.

That’s why I’m Here (Blue Master Special, Spel 311, 1974), recorded in Helsinki in 1973, is such a rarity. Of course, being a limited release has also made it an expensive treasure among collectors.

Additionally, I’m Here is Vesala’s only solo album and only percussive album, and one of the few where he can be said to play drum solos, albeit in his own idiosyncratic way..

The idea of a jazz drummer making a solo album was in itself quite rare in 1973, although not entirely unheard of. French Pierre Favre had already made two solo albums (in 1970 and 1972), and Dutch Han Bennink and Swedish Sven-Åke Johansson one each, both recorded in 1972.

It wasn’t exactly Vesala’s first time either. He had already played drums alone on the second side of the album Yksi, kaksi, kolme, neljä soul jumppaa (One, two, tree, four soul gymnastics, Gross Records, Grlp-27, 1969), though for purely instructive purposes, showcasing different rhythms and tempos..

"My favorite music is so called ‘free’ or very modern music (classical as well as jazz). But ‘cause of a very little jazz audience in Finland, I’m playing also Pop-jazz to get bread", Vesala introduced himself with a self-written English text, almost as if foreshadowing the diverse solo album, I’m Here. Compared to other releases of its time, the album was indeed “free’ or very modern music (classical as well as jazz)”, which may be the reason why it didn’t make a significant mark on the music scene or significantly benefit Vesala’s career at the time.

Lauri Karvonen, a jazz critic of the largest Finnish newspaper, described Vesala’s album as “certainly uncommercial” (Helsingin Sanomat, 8th of December, 1974). At the same time, he was delighted that “the most controversial contemporary jazz musician from Finland” has, “after years of prostituting (pop music, schlager), been able to completely dedicate himself to his own music.”

“The man is doing what he wants”, Karvonen summarizes.

Now, after being re-released, I’m Here can be appreciated for its manifesto-like and almost documentary nature. The album can be valued as a greatly interesting peek into Edward Vesala’s preferences and efforts in 1973, when he was still looking for his "own thing".

The reissue comes on vinyl only and is limited to 500 copies. The release comes with extensive liner notes by jazz critic Harri Uusitorppa.

Storyteller's two albums were released by Britain's then foremost folk label, Transatlantic, their eponymous debut LP in 1970, and their last will and testament, 'More Pages', in 1971. This Svart reissue of 'More Pages' comes after the successful reissue of the band's debut album last year, and this one is likewise restricted to 500 copies on black vinyl.

'More Pages' has been hard to find as a full album, because the Storyteller CD reissue consists of the full first album and only a portion of the second.

No longer confined to being coveted by collectors and those in the know, this lush remastered reissue via Svart Records comes on gatefold vinyl with updated liner notes and interview. If you treasure Folk, Prog and Psychedelic Rock, make sure this is a tale you don’t miss out on!

Surprise Color Edition, with 500 copies on black, 300 on Magenta vinyl and 199 on Blue vinyl.

The second step on the way to world domination - Blind Channel's sophomore album presented in a definitive edition with gatefold covers and liner notes.

Svart Records enters into a vinyl partnership with Ranka Kustannus and will in the future release select albums from their ever growing catalog on vinyl. The co-operation starts with Blind Channel, who've by now become a household name and one of the most important music export items currently out of Finland.

Svart Records will release definitive vinyl editions of all three albums Blind Channel released on Ranka - Revolutions, Violent Pop and Blood Brothers. All three shall be presented in a limited edition of 999 copies, split into classic black vinyl and two color editions, which are randomly available to customers. All three feature extensive liner notes and interviews by James Hickie.

Surprise Color Edition, with 500 copies on black, 300 on Lime Green vinyl and 199 on XXX on Violet vinyl.

"With this album we perfected a style that we now want to grow until we're the biggest band in the world."

The third Blind Channel album presented in a definitive edition with gatefold covera and liner notes by James Hickie.

Svart Records enters into a vinyl partnership with Ranka Kustannus and will in the future release select albums from their ever growing catalog on vinyl. The co-operation starts with Blind Channel, who've by now become a household name and one of the most important music export items currently out of Finland.

Svart Records will release definitive vinyl editions of all three albums Blind Channel released on Ranka - Revolutions, Violent Pop and Blood Brothers. All three shall be presented in a limited edition of 999 copies, split into classic black vinyl and two color editions, which are randomly available to customers. All three feature extensive liner notes and interviews by James Hickie.

Surprise Color Edition, with 500 copies on black, 300 on Red vinyl and 199 on Clear vinyl.

The baby steps of the Violent Pop Revolution - the Blind Channel debut album presented in a definitive edition with gatefold covers and liner notes.

Svart Records enters into a vinyl partnership with Ranka Kustannus and will in the future release select albums from their ever growing catalog on vinyl. The co-operation starts with Blind Channel, who've by now become a household name and one of the most important music export items currently out of Finland.

Svart Records will release definitive vinyl editions of all three albums Blind Channel released on Ranka - Revolutions, Violent Pop and Blood Brothers. All three shall be presented in a limited edition of 999 copies, split into classic black vinyl and two color editions, which are randomly available to customers. All three feature extensive liner notes and interviews by James Hickie.

The grand old man of Finnish Jazz, Eero Koivistoinen, has not kept still in his old age. Far from it, he's played with rappers from the younger generation, Argentinian tango singers, you name it. The Eero Koivistoinen Quartet, onto its 10th year in existence, is his outlet for what he knows by heart like no one else - cool quartet jazz in which Eero is aided by younger luminaries from the scene. Alexi Tuomarila is on the grand piano, Jori Huhtala on bass and Jussi Lehtonen on drums.

Diversity presents, as the title implies, a diverse selection of Koivistoinen's latest compositions plus a striking interpretation of the timeless Thelonius Monk classic Played Twice, here performed by tue duo of Koivistoinen and pianist Tuomarila.

Svart Records has released the Koivistoinen quartet's previous records as well, including Hati Hati (2015) which made it to the Finnish charts and Illusion (2017), Following the release of Diversity Koivistoinen proceeds to release his long-awaited autobiography.

2022 has been a historically remarkable year in many ways, one of them being that the recorded legacy of Finland's top melodic death metal export Omnium Gatherum turns 20. After the now-defunct label Rage of Achilles put these songs out on a mini-CD, Omnium Gatherum embarked on a career that has taken them through eight albums on several large labels and shows no sign of slowing down.

To mark the occasion the band's own label imprint Filthy Horde decided it's time to bring the debut release out as a 12" mini album, took swift action and enlisted Svart Records to help with the task of the actual production.

The fruition of these efforts, a limited 12 inch just as it would have been, had the band's then-label Rage of Achilles released it on vinyl in 2002, is scheduled to come out on December 2nd. Available on classic black and natural milky clear wax.

One of the last pieces in the vast discography of Link Wray not available on vinyl previously, this album captures the Rumble Man live on two dates in London and Manchester on one of his last tours in 1997.

Over an hour of primal rock'n'roll from one of its absolute pioneers, captured in front of a live audience in the UK! The set lists feature brutally loud renditions of a select number of Wray classics with added cover tunes here and there.

With updated cover art, the Svart vinyl edition comes in a gatefold sleeve and features liner notes.

Finnish prog-psych quintet Sammal sheds skin and changes into a power trio, new album announced



Sammal have since their 2013 debut cemented their reputation as one of the leaders of the Fenno-Ugrian neoprogressive and psychedelic scene and also raised some waves internationally, performing at the well respected Roadburn Festival in 2015 and garnering a series of raving reviews around the world of psychedelia and progressive rock fandom, such as “Truly amazing and otherworldy music” or “Earnest, vibrant music specked with impressive nuance”. A few years have passed since the successful Suuliekki album, and since then two of their five members have left the fold. Guitarist and songwriter Jura Salmi decided, however, that Sammal must continue in some form or another.

“During the spring of 2020 I would spend time alone recording new demos with the guitar. The remaining three Sammal members had already decided that if the band was to continue, we would not seek another keyboard player.I had bought a guitar pedal that can simulate keyboard sounds and it opened a new world to me. I realized we can perform fine as a power trio without a bass or a keyboard player”, comments Jura Salmi.



“Sammal has always been a melting pot of all music we like. If in the past we used to be heavily into bands lke Camel, Dungen and Opeth, when working on this album we’d listen to everything from Bo Hansson and Iron Butterfly to Type O Negative and Whitesnake”, laughs Salmi and continues, “We’d also pick the language of a song’s lyrics based on what we felt would fit the mood of the song. This album has songs in Finnish, Swedish and English.”



Sammal’s unexpected prog-psych-boogie epic Aika laulaa will be released on November 18th on all platforms as well as on CD and LP.

Finnish prog-psych quintet Sammal sheds skin and changes into a power trio, new album announced



Sammal have since their 2013 debut cemented their reputation as one of the leaders of the Fenno-Ugrian neoprogressive and psychedelic scene and also raised some waves internationally, performing at the well respected Roadburn Festival in 2015 and garnering a series of raving reviews around the world of psychedelia and progressive rock fandom, such as “Truly amazing and otherworldy music” or “Earnest, vibrant music specked with impressive nuance”. A few years have passed since the successful Suuliekki album, and since then two of their five members have left the fold. Guitarist and songwriter Jura Salmi decided, however, that Sammal must continue in some form or another.

“During the spring of 2020 I would spend time alone recording new demos with the guitar. The remaining three Sammal members had already decided that if the band was to continue, we would not seek another keyboard player.I had bought a guitar pedal that can simulate keyboard sounds and it opened a new world to me. I realized we can perform fine as a power trio without a bass or a keyboard player”, comments Jura Salmi.



“Sammal has always been a melting pot of all music we like. If in the past we used to be heavily into bands lke Camel, Dungen and Opeth, when working on this album we’d listen to everything from Bo Hansson and Iron Butterfly to Type O Negative and Whitesnake”, laughs Salmi and continues, “We’d also pick the language of a song’s lyrics based on what we felt would fit the mood of the song. This album has songs in Finnish, Swedish and English.”



Sammal’s unexpected prog-psych-boogie epic Aika laulaa will be released on November 18th on all platforms as well as on CD and LP.

The original creators of Psychobilly Music, The Meteors began as a reaction against soft neo-rockabilly music of the late 70’s rock revival era. Since then the loud, sneering lovers of horror, perversion and death have released a few dozen records and are still going strong, 40 years into their career of evil.



Svart Records are demonically proud to present an official reissue of The Meteors’ 2004 album These Evil Things. Long out of print on physical formats, this authorised reissue comes with a secret bonus track, all pressed on pitch black or ghostly curacao blue vinyl and stuffed into a gatefold jacket.

The original creators of Psychobilly Music, The Meteors began as a reaction against soft neo-rockabilly music of the late 70’s rock revival era. Since then the loud, sneering lovers of horror, perversion and death have released a few dozen records and are still going strong, 40 years into their career of evil.



Svart Records are demonically proud to present an official reissue of The Meteors’ 2004 album These Evil Things. Long out of print on physical formats, this authorised reissue comes with a secret bonus track, all pressed on pitch black or ghostly curacao blue vinyl and stuffed into a gatefold jacket.

The original creators of Psychobilly Music, The Meteors began as a reaction against soft neo-rockabilly music of the late 70’s rock revival era. Since then the loud, sneering lovers of horror, perversion and death have released a few dozen records and are still going strong, 40 years into their career of evil.



Svart Records are overwhelmed with psychotic joy to present an official reissue of The Meteors’ 2003 album Psychobilly. Long out of print on physical formats, this authorised reissue comes with a secret bonus track, all pressed on pitch black or poisonous green vinyl and wrapped in a gatefold jacket.

The original creators of Psychobilly Music, The Meteors began as a reaction against soft neo-rockabilly music of the late 70’s rock revival era. Since then the loud, sneering lovers of horror, perversion and death have released a few dozen records and are still going strong, 40 years into their career of evil.



Svart Records are overwhelmed with psychotic joy to present an official reissue of The Meteors’ 2003 album Psychobilly. Long out of print on physical formats, this authorised reissue comes with a secret bonus track, all pressed on pitch black or poisonous green vinyl and wrapped in a gatefold jacket.

The original creators of Psychobilly Music, The Meteors began as a reaction against soft neo-rockabilly music of the late 70’s rock revival era. Since then the loud, sneering lovers of horror, perversion and death have released a few dozen records and are still going strong, 40 years into their career of evil.



Svart Records are hellishly excited to bring you an official reissue of The Meteors’ 2007 album Hymns For The Hellbound. Long out of print on physical formats, this authorised reissue comes with a secret bonus track, all pressed on pitch black or blood-dripping red vinyl and wrapped in a gatefold jacket.

The original creators of Psychobilly Music, The Meteors began as a reaction against soft neo-rockabilly music of the late 70’s rock revival era. Since then the loud, sneering lovers of horror, perversion and death have released a few dozen records and are still going strong, 40 years into their career of evil.



Svart Records are hellishly excited to bring you an official reissue of The Meteors’ 2007 album Hymns For The Hellbound. Long out of print on physical formats, this authorised reissue comes with a secret bonus track, all pressed on pitch black or blood-dripping red vinyl and wrapped in a gatefold jacket.

On December 2nd Svart Records will release the slowly gestated second album by the mystical Finnish progressive rock group Getsemane, who describe themselves as performing music "molded from the jawbones of a pike", in reference to the Kalevala where Väinämöinen built his first kantele The group first got together in 2009 in the Tampere area to perform live music for a fire theatre. After the shows they decided to continue as a band finding ever more polyrythmic and progressive ideas still drawing from the Kalevala mythos and eccentric psychedelic visions. Getsemane self-released their eponymous debut album in 2015, and the follow-up Viimaa is due for release this December. Best known for their dynamic live shows, the group's new album is full of unusual time signatures, meandering melodic lines and ethereal landscapes, not forgetting hard rocking in the best 70s style. Those that are into classic prog rock in the lines of Haikara, Tabula Rasa or King Crimson will feel immediately at home.

What on earth has happened to gothic rock? This was the thought burning in Joakim Knutsson’s mind, and he felt that something needed to be done to save the much-loved genre from going down the drain. He embarked on this mission with the aim to create something special but also something faithful to the original ideals of the 80’s gothic genre.



“I wanted a band that would be an occult mix of The Lords Of The New Church, Adam and the Ants, John Carpenter and Billy Idol”, says Knutsson, “The end result turned out heavier, bloodier and darker than that, but that was probably our destiny anyway.”



With a little help from prominent members of the Swedish metal and punk community the idea recently took a solid form. Today the band together sums more than 250 years of knowledge in music and pop culture - knowledge they shamelessly put to use in their own creation.



Here they are: die Oberherren. The Gothic rock band the world has been waiting for since the golden age of the 80s. Kept strictly under wraps until now, die Oberherren feature members of the rock and metal royalty in Sweden, with past or current membership in bands such as The Coffinshakers, Ghost, The Mobile Mob Freakshow, Gehennah and many more.



The band snatched their ominous-sounding moniker from the intellectual group that operated at the turn of the 20th century, by whom their lyrics are also heavily influenced. “Anarchistic, occult, and apocalyptic imagery with prophets of war, Armageddon, decadence, and love – these themes and ideas are even more actual today than the original ‘overlords’ could ever dream of over a hundred years ago”, comments Knutsson.

The debut album Die By My Hand, set for release on January 27th 2023 on Svart Records, is a collection of eight songs that are adorned with infectious hooks and laced with vintage darkness.

Isafjørd, meaning literally fjord of ice, is a shining new ethereal Post-rock band from Iceland. Named after the town that both of their fathers came from, Ísafjörður, Aðalbjörn Addi Tryggvason (Sólstafir) and Ragnar Zolberg (Sign/x-Pain of Salvation) sculpt beautiful and desolate pop, as bright and dark as the sub-arctic seasons. Isafjørd’s new album “Hjartastjak” is an infectious rush of euphoric melancholy, quiet-loud dynamism, lush instrumentation and unforgettable atmospheric landscapes of song.

Meeting on the road, night creatures of the same renowned Reykjavik music scene, Ragnar playing live session bass for Sólstafir, Addi and Ragnar’s musical paths finally intersect in Isafjørd with a sound that reaches like a stalactite from the past into a gleaming future. Holed up in the middle of winter, in an old house with a broken piano in the freezing cold, “Hjartastjaki” is an album of songs that were written straight from the heart, sometimes in a single day.

Their chemistry as immediate as the climate they survive in, Isafjørd is a real meeting of spirits, with Ragnar’s sleek and cherubim voice a brilliant counterpoint to Addi’s dusty and aching cries, over orchestrated build-ups of soaring piano and sliding guitars. The catchy and haunting music that Addi and Ragnar create in Isafjørd is at once familiar in that lived-in, well-worn way a great song can touch your soul. Having both lived in Norway and speaking Norwegian, Addi and Ragnar speak the same language of the heart, as their Nordic melancholy makes for deep and mountainous music. Isafjørd’s songs are sincere icebergs of tundra-anthems that bring to mind Fields Of The Nephilim and Duran Duran jamming in a frozen valley, where the creative 80s New Wave meets GodSpeed You Black Emperor. With influences that range from Cardigans, Beatles, early Judas Priest and Neil Young, Addi and Ragnar have struck a vein of gold that crystallizes their own heritage of wide-screen Metal gloom into something new.

Now coming of age, matured into a shimmering diamond of Icelandic pop at its finest, Isafjørd is on another plain from Addi’s own Sólstafir, where their cinematic metal roots have been re-traced into sweeping glacial song-craft. A country known for their honest and heart–wrenching emotional take on pop music with Björk and Sigur Rós, Isafjørd gives a new definition of “landscape music”. When an album feels like a place you want to inhabit and experience, “Hjartastjaki” is a journey that you’re going to want to take.

Isafjørd, meaning literally fjord of ice, is a shining new ethereal Post-rock band from Iceland. Named after the town that both of their fathers came from, Ísafjörður, Aðalbjörn Addi Tryggvason (Sólstafir) and Ragnar Zolberg (Sign/x-Pain of Salvation) sculpt beautiful and desolate pop, as bright and dark as the sub-arctic seasons. Isafjørd’s new album “Hjartastjak” is an infectious rush of euphoric melancholy, quiet-loud dynamism, lush instrumentation and unforgettable atmospheric landscapes of song.

Meeting on the road, night creatures of the same renowned Reykjavik music scene, Ragnar playing live session bass for Sólstafir, Addi and Ragnar’s musical paths finally intersect in Isafjørd with a sound that reaches like a stalactite from the past into a gleaming future. Holed up in the middle of winter, in an old house with a broken piano in the freezing cold, “Hjartastjaki” is an album of songs that were written straight from the heart, sometimes in a single day.

Their chemistry as immediate as the climate they survive in, Isafjørd is a real meeting of spirits, with Ragnar’s sleek and cherubim voice a brilliant counterpoint to Addi’s dusty and aching cries, over orchestrated build-ups of soaring piano and sliding guitars. The catchy and haunting music that Addi and Ragnar create in Isafjørd is at once familiar in that lived-in, well-worn way a great song can touch your soul. Having both lived in Norway and speaking Norwegian, Addi and Ragnar speak the same language of the heart, as their Nordic melancholy makes for deep and mountainous music. Isafjørd’s songs are sincere icebergs of tundra-anthems that bring to mind Fields Of The Nephilim and Duran Duran jamming in a frozen valley, where the creative 80s New Wave meets GodSpeed You Black Emperor. With influences that range from Cardigans, Beatles, early Judas Priest and Neil Young, Addi and Ragnar have struck a vein of gold that crystallizes their own heritage of wide-screen Metal gloom into something new.

Now coming of age, matured into a shimmering diamond of Icelandic pop at its finest, Isafjørd is on another plain from Addi’s own Sólstafir, where their cinematic metal roots have been re-traced into sweeping glacial song-craft. A country known for their honest and heart–wrenching emotional take on pop music with Björk and Sigur Rós, Isafjørd gives a new definition of “landscape music”. When an album feels like a place you want to inhabit and experience, “Hjartastjaki” is a journey that you’re going to want to take.

An official reissue of the 2015 album by Caligula's Horse, originally issued on Inside/Out Records. Caligula's Horse are among the vanguard of the new generation of progressive rock artists. The Australian band has been often compared to the likes of Opeth, Haken and Porcupine Tree, and original copies of In Bloom on vinyl have already reached high prices on the collector's market.

An official reissue of the 2015 album by Caligula's Horse, originally issued on Inside/Out Records. Caligula's Horse are among the vanguard of the new generation of progressive rock artists. The Australian band has been often compared to the likes of Opeth, Haken and Porcupine Tree, and original copies of In Bloom on vinyl have already reached high prices on the collector's market.

In 1973 progressive rock group Tasavallan Presidentti's career was going forward on a high note: the band had in 1972 released the critically acclaimed album Lambertland with their new vocalist Eero Raittinen, and the following year the band embarked on a successful UK tour.

In 1974 things would take a downward turn which ended in the band splitting up, but what this compilation offers you is a snapshot of the year 1973 when everything still seemed possible. The band were returning home from the fabled UK tour in March 1973 and played a show in Gothenburg, Sweden on the way home. The Swedish national radio were there to record the show with professional equipment, so sound quality is excellent. A high point of the show is a vocal version of Ramblin', which guitarist Jukka Tolonen recorded on his instrumental solo album in 1971.

This album also features two tracks culled from the Swedish TV show Opopoppa, which featured many legendary bands over the years. Tasavallan Presidentti performed in the same episode with Frank Zappa, whose performance has been circulated as a bootleg. Tasavallan Presidentti's material has never been bootlegged, but luckily this official recording was preserved in the Sveriges Radio archives.

In 1973 progressive rock group Tasavallan Presidentti's career was going forward on a high note: the band had in 1972 released the critically acclaimed album Lambertland with their new vocalist Eero Raittinen, and the following year the band embarked on a successful UK tour.

In 1974 things would take a downward turn which ended in the band splitting up, but what this compilation offers you is a snapshot of the year 1973 when everything still seemed possible. The band were returning home from the fabled UK tour in March 1973 and played a show in Gothenburg, Sweden on the way home. The Swedish national radio were there to record the show with professional equipment, so sound quality is excellent. A high point of the show is a vocal version of Ramblin', which guitarist Jukka Tolonen recorded on his instrumental solo album in 1971.

This album also features two tracks culled from the Swedish TV show Opopoppa, which featured many legendary bands over the years. Tasavallan Presidentti performed in the same episode with Frank Zappa, whose performance has been circulated as a bootleg. Tasavallan Presidentti's material has never been bootlegged, but luckily this official recording was preserved in the Sveriges Radio archives.