Dutch Black/Death Metal Project, EL MUERTO, To Release Debut EP, ‘Lost and Amsterdamned!’

Posted on September 10, 2025 by Metal Planet Media

What began as a farewell has become a resurrection.

Lost and Amsterdamned, the debut EP from the Netherlands’ one-man Black/Death Metal project, El Muerto, is set for release on November 21!

The official video for the EP’s first single, “Enthroned in the Tower of Shadows (The Witch),” is available at:

El Muerto was born in the depths of personal crisis, a raw and unflinching document of depression, trauma, and the desire to disappear. Conceived as a final message from an artist who had lost the will to live, each track captures a chapter of that darkness. But this record is no longer a goodbye. It’s proof that even in the shadows, something can still survive.

El Muerto is the alter ego of a multi-instrumentalist whose journey spans continents, from the underground metal scene of Mexico (Sekhmet) to experimental projects in Australia (Conscious Comma), now anchored in the Dutch landscape. With Lost and Amsterdamned, he delivers a fiercely collaborative black/death metal EP shaped by the frostbitten influence of Immortal, the grim atmosphere of Darkthrone and Mgła, and the progressive shadows of Opeth and Emperor.

Driven by guitar-forward compositions and visceral vocals, the record balances old-school extremity with cinematic vision. Each track is both a personal exorcism and a descent into archetypal horror, as described by below by El Muerto.

“A Song for Ran” – A melancholic invocation of the Norse sea goddess, casting despair into the sea’s cold embrace. Melodic and mournful, it drifts between surrender and transcendence beneath crashing waves and whispered death. Where the final rest in the most peaceful as well.

“Enthroned in the Tower of Shadows (The Witch)” – A theatrical black metal tale of the witch-queen reigning from a tower of obsidian. Ritualistic, grand, and venomously lyrical, it reads like folklore soaked in blood and fire. Betrayal, treason and lies.

“Lich King” – A blighted anthem of death’s dominion. With imagery of skeletal monarchs and ruined worlds, it’s a march into the void, full of oppressive riffing and funereal dread.

“Blood Crypt” – The EP’s most venomous moment: a burial rite soaked in bile and loathing. A brutal poem of closure through decay, it turns memory into rot, laying ghosts to rest in a cathedral of scorn.

“Ghosts of Torment” – An inner war against unseen forces. This track is a descent into madness where haunting spirits represent trauma, anxiety, and mental illness. Dissonant and despairing, it’s a song about being torn from within—and haunted from without.

“Wolves of Den Haag” – Inspired by the real-life cannibalistic murder of Dutch statesman Johan de Witt in 1672, this track uses historical horror to reflect modern betrayal and societal rage. Gnarled riffs and spectral tension echo through The Hague’s ghost-soaked streets.

Each song speaks in the language of metal, but beneath the corpse paint and distortion lies something deeply human—anguish, defiance, and ultimately, release.

Each of these songs reflects personal trauma through the lens of myth, horror, and metal’s harshest language turning lived experience into sonic ritual. Lost and Amsterdamned no longer marks an ending. It is a violent testament of survival, memory, and transformation. A cathartic howl from the pit—and the sound of someone crawling out of it.

The album’s rhythm section features guest musicians from international metal acts, such as downunder’s Norse and Europe’s Adarrak.

Mixed by the legendary Tomas Skogsberg of Sunlight Studios in Sweden and mastered by Ricardo Botello. Recorded in studios across the Netherlands.

FFO: Opeth, Immortal, Emperor, Mgla, Death

Ukrainian Blackened Death Metal Force 1914 Announce New Album, “Viribus Unitis”, out November 14, 2025 via Napalm Records!

Posted on August 21, 2025 by Metal Planet Media

Ukrainian blackened death/doom metal unit 1914 return with unrelenting power on their fourth studio album, Viribus Unitis, Latin for “With United Forces.” More than just the personal motto of Franz Joseph I, the former emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this title directly speaks to the band’s resilience through war, loss, and upheaval – a powerful symbol of survival and solidarity. Out on November 14, 2025 via Napalm Records, Viribus Unitis builds on the band’s acclaimed conceptual approach, reaching new emotional depths and musical intensity.

Continuing their chronicle of World War I, 1914 shifts their focus from the raw portrayal of death and destruction, to exploring themes of camaraderie, endurance, and the emotional landscapes of those who endured the horrors of trench warfare. While previous releases like The Blind Leading the Blind (2018) and Where Fear and Weapons Meet (2021) centered on the futility and finality of war, Viribus Unitis exemplifies the interpersonal bonds forged under fire and the strength of those warriors who made it home: broken, changed, yet still alive.

Alongside the album announcement, they reveal their first single: “1916 (The Südtirol Offensive)”, a despairing blackened doom anthem of defiance, recounting the brutal Battle of Asiago in grim, poetic detail. With thunderous riffs and crushing walls of sound, 1914 make the Austro-Hungarian attack on Italy tangible, bringing another piece of history to life through sound, relentlessly and uncompromisingly.

k.u.k. Galizisches IR Nr.15, Gefreiter, Ditmar Kumarberg about “1916 (The Südtirol Offensive)”:
“From May 15 to June 10, 1916, the Italian Front saw one of its most intense clashes: the Battle of Asiago, also known as the Trentino Offensive. The Austro-Hungarian army launched a massive surprise attack, hoping to crush Italian forces and break into the Venetian plains. Nearly 200 battalions and 2000 guns, including 280 heavy artillery pieces, were amassed in Trentino. The Italians, caught off guard, were pushed back – but held the line with fierce resistance. The combined toll of 230,000 casualties on both sides underscores the staggering human cost of the campaign. A brutal reminder of the mountain warfare that defined this front.”

Watch the Official Music Video for “1916 (The Südtirol Offensive)”:

Musically, 1914 remain true to their identity – a brutal mixture of blackened death metal, slow-burning doom, and ambient war soundscapes. This time, however, their sound gains a broader dynamic range, with soaring melodic leads, orchestral textures, and haunting clean vocals that provide dramatic contrast to the crushing heaviness.

1914 about Viribus Unitis:
“Viribus Unitis is about shared strength and the idea that true power lies in unity. Alone, one may fall – together, we can prevail and achieve our goals: Defeat the enemy, escape captivity, survive, and return to your family. We return with a new story. A story of life and military valor of a soldier who encountered the Great War in his native city of Lviv and went through it all. Side by side, with joint efforts of Ukrainians, Poles, Hungarians, Slovenes, Czechs, Slovaks, Jews, Croats, Bosniaks, Germans – all the peoples who made up the vast Austro-Hungarian Empire. Empires did not count people – they threw them into meat grinders where survival was only possible through unity. By helping one another. By sacrificing yourself for the sake of your loved ones and comrades.

This is a story of being blinded by war and the grandeur of the empire, of the heat of battle, realization and acceptance of reality, awakening, changing values, captivity, and liberation. It is a story of unbreakable will to live and hope amidst a terrifying and bloody war. It is a story of a new little life that changes all the rules and forces one to see the familiar from a different perspective. It is a story of love. It is a story of loss and death. Viribus Unitis is when pain, death, loss, loneliness, and fear encircle you. But you’re still unbroken!”

WRETCHED To Unleash Long-Awaited Decay Full-Length

Posted on August 6, 2025 by Metal Planet Media

For the last two years, Charlotte, North Carolina‘s lauded metal monsters WRETCHED worked on the songs that would populate their long-awaited fifth full-length, Decay. Set for release on October 17th on Metal Blade Records, the result is a conceptual masterpiece that blends haunting melodies with progressive complexity.

This fifth album, which is a prequel to 2010‘s Beyond The Gate, delves into existential themes, D&D-inspired mythology, and personal loss. The record sees the boundary-pushing lineup breaking past defined walls of their four previous releases. Sonically, Decay may be WRETCHED‘s most pristine-sounding recording, but it‘s still raw with a live feeling in the performances. The band didn‘t track the parts until they sounded like a computer. You hear guitarist Steven Funderburk pick through the strings and fret the instrument, bassist Andrew Grevey shines on bass with a potent musicality and movement, his parts as much a part of the sound and structure of the songs as the guitar. Vocally, Billy Powers went as raw as humanly possible, pushing himself and the instrumentals to their furthest for an uncompromisingly powerful performance on every track.

“We‘ve had a lot of time to grow and reflect in the time between our last album and Decay,” says drummer Marshall Wieczorek. “WRETCHED is doing what WRETCHED always does, and that‘s exploring our environment and leaving room for ourselves to try different things. To sum things up, the new album is dynamic. We go here, we go there, we go everywhere. There is no shortage of groove, heaviness, speed, melodicism, prettiness, and sadness.”

“Decay is 100% a concept album,” confirms Powers. “Beyond The Gate had an element this record shares, the talisman. I always knew there was more story there and was very excited to join up with the guys again to put that in motion. The first track I wrote was ’The Golden Tide.‘ I had no idea where I was going to take the story connection to Beyond The Gate until I typed the first line of the song. ’They began in the dark.‘ After that, the lyrics poured out of my mind and by the end of it I realized that this story takes place many years before the content of Beyond The Gate.”

The LP‘s title track and first single contains the album‘s main character, Malus, along with a character from Beyond The Gate named Elturiel. “In the song, ’decay‘ refers to Malus‘ decaying existence, the feeling of loss, and helplessness/lack of control he has to influence anything outside of the darkness in which he has been cast.”

In broader terms, decay refers to many elements of the album‘s story, “The decay of good intention, the loss of loved ones, the influence time and choices has upon our bodies and minds and the decay of the world around us due to the choices of those with ultimate power.”

Powers further elaborates, “[The song] ’Decay‘ is a chapter in our story in which our main character Malus has lost his physical body due to becoming possessed by an ancient Necromancer. He is just a conscious thought floating through the void between time and space, conjuring a familial djinn named Elturiel to gain his assistance in returning to his mortal shell. This track revolves a lot around out of body experience, lucid dreaming, inner voices/internal dialogue, and the potential for reincarnation. It‘s the feeling when you‘re so sure that you‘ve lost it all, yet you see that little shimmering glimmer of hope at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Then you have the rug pulled out from underneath you to find that the darkness is what you may only ever know. Not to say that all hope is lost because, in the context of the lyrics, it is not. There‘s a repeated line near the middle and ending of the song that says ’once more upon this eternal flat circle.‘ It is inspired by True Detective S1 where it‘s said ’time is a flat circle.‘ This has all happened before and will all happen again. I‘m not a flat earther.”

Watch WRETCHED‘s video for “Decay” HERE:

https://www.metalblade.com/wretched/?utm_campaign=WRETCHEDannouncealbum&utm_medium=email&utm_source=UKBList

Aeon Empire Releases Second Single “Sitting On A Wall”

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Metal Planet Media

Rock band Aeon Empire are back with their second single, Sitting on a Wall.

Their debut single, All Your Dreams, came out just a month ago and is already closing in on 200K plays on YouTube, showing that people are paying attention. Now, with Sitting on a Wall, Aeon Empire keep that momentum going, delivering another track that’s ready to be heard.

Dive into the timeless sound of Sitting on a Wall, the new track from rock band Aeon Empire.

With its infectious riff that hooks you from the first note, “Sitting on a Wall” blends classic rock vibes with a modern twist, creating an anthem for those moments where time seems to pause.

This song doesn’t just speak; it sings to the soul about the beauty of the present, the inevitability of change, and the silent promise of tomorrow. With its memorable chorus and thought-provoking lyrics, “Sitting on a Wall” is not just a song; it’s an experience, inviting listeners to join in this moment of reflection and hope.

Perfect for your playlist when you need a reminder to enjoy the now, before it blows away with the wind.

Paul Gerard Reed, who wrote the lyrics, shares:
“I was inspired to write the words by those rare and fleeting moments when a kind of inner peace takes over. For a brief spell, your life and the world seem to be in harmony, and all your loved ones are safe and well. The memory of that moment stays with you forever. I wanted the lyrics and music to transport the listener back to their own precious times when they have experienced those magical feelings.”

Their diverse backgrounds bring a dynamic edge to their music, blending raw rock energy with melodic hooks and international influences. With a clear vision and a passion for delivering powerful music, Aeon Empire is just getting started.