Endless Serpent Column

Perry and Gerrard continued to experiment and improve with The Serpent's Egg, as much a leap forward as Spleen and Ideal was some years previously. As with that album, The Serpent's Egg was heralded by an astounding first track, "The Host of Seraphim." Its use in films some years later was no surprise in the slightest – one can imagine the potential range of epic images the song could call up – but on its own it's so jaw-droppingly good that almost the only reaction is sheer awe. Beginning with a soft organ drone and buried, echoed percussion, Gerrard then takes flight with a seemingly wordless invocation of power and worship – her vocal control and multi-octave range, especially towards the end, has to be heard to be believed. Nothing else achieves such heights, but everything gets pretty darn close, a deserved testament to the band's conceptual reach and abilities.

With "Sequel", Rainbow Serpent have turned in another immaculately produced, widely varied and epic synthesizer set. Some of the tracks (as ever) are too close for comfort to the very recognisable styles of other artists, but there's much to enjoy here.

The Wizards come from Bilbao in Spain. They were originally formed in the spring of 2013. After having recorded a four-track demo the band started gigging for earnest in February 2014. Since then The Wizards have released two studio albums and toured mainly in Spain but also in France, Portugal and Germany. Rise Of The Serpent is the band's third album. The band's slogan is "Occult Heavy Metal Warriors", what's that supposed to mean and how would The Wizards describe their overall musical style? "What we play is a totally unconscious mix of styles we all share and like. There definitely is a strong and obvious heavy metal background in our music, but if you scratch the surface you will also find some 1970s hard rock, a piece of the doomy element and even some punk.

With a name like that, you know it's black metal, and with a lineup of Danny Lilker (Brutal Truth, Nuclear Assault, S.O.D.) and two Scandinavian black metal experts (plus guest appearances by Attila Csihar and 1349's Ravn), you know it's killer!

British thrashers EVILE will release their third album, "Five Serpents' Teeth", on September 26 via Earache Records. The CD was recorded at Parlour Studios in Kettering, U.K., with producer Russ Russell (NAPALM DEATH, DIMMU BORGIR), who also worked on the band's previous CD, 2009's "Infected Nations".

Following up their acclaimed “Marrow Of The Spirit” album from 2010, “The Serpent & The Sphere” sees AGALLOCH take their progressive musical oeuvre to a challenging new level while maintaining the classic AGALLOCH sound. It captures some of the band’s most forward-thinking and intriguing compositions yet, while at the same time some of the darkest, most meticulously crafted, and most atmospherically potent work of the band’s career.

The fifth long-player from the brooding and cavernous Pacific Northwest-based metal outfit, The Serpent & the Sphere, the first set of new material from the group since 2010's critically acclaimed The Marrow of the Spirit, opens with the epic "Birth and Death of the Pillars of Creation," a ten-minute slab of churning, slow-burn black folk-metal that rolls in like the thickest fog ever and decimates everything that it comes in contact with, a metaphor that applies to the remaining eight songs as well. The album was produced and engineered by hard rock legend Billy Anderson and released via Profound Lore Records.