Review by Dominik on March 25, 2025.

Italy, the country where Mama is always right, pasta is a religion, traffic rules are just suggestions, everyone has a cousin who can "fix it" and corpse paint is a fashion. From the beautiful Italian city of Parma, where cheese snobbery is real, hails Tulpa—a band that's equally devoted to blending black metal and crust. Sometimes they lean toward one side, sometimes the other, but on Temple Of Wounds, their latest release, the two styles intertwine without stepping on each other's toes. The title track, for instance, is more of a straight-up black metal affair that wouldn't feel out of place on a harsher Winterfylleth album—and since I'm a fan of all three (black metal, crust, and Winterfylleth), it's no surprise this record resonates quite well with me.

Let me get the ugly truth out of the way first: this album, much like your uncle after too much grappa, starts strong but stumbles toward the end. The final stretch, especially "Zerotonin" and the drawn-out instrumental closer, feels more like the band is treading water than setting the world on fire. Both songs could have used a shot of adrenaline or at least a ruthless editor. But before you reach that point, Tulpa delivers a solid 30 minutes of material that's more than worth your time.

Tulpa's approach becomes immediately crystal clear, when, after a brief intro (because it wouldn't be black metal without a brooding appetizer), "Healing" kicks the door down with no intention of wiping its boots and explodes with a mix of scathing black metal and d-beat aggression. The band shifts between these styles with ease, never sounding forced or stitched together. Genre mashups can go wrong faster than you can say "artistic experiment", but Tulpa pulls it off by keeping things sharp and cohesive. This isn't some patchwork monster of discarded riffs—the songwriting feels deliberate, thoroughly planned, and well-executed. The vocalist, who also handles guitar duties, delivers a feral mix of blackened shrieks and deeper "crusty" growls that wouldn't be out of place on recent releases from Adrestia or Fredag den 13:e.

The album's title track stands out as an early highlight. It opens with a deceptively calm introduction, and quickly evolves into a full-blown black metal assault, showcasing the album's strongest Winterfylleth influence. From the intertwining guitar melodies to the relentless vocal delivery, it could easily pass as a bonus track from "The Imperious Horizon". It may drag a little toward the end, but the intensity makes up for it. In contrast, "No One Wins" shifts gears by more embracing the crust side of things—mid-tempo grooves and vocals that perfectly capture the genre's punchy, no-frills attitude.

If you need more proof that Tulpa can handle both styles without dropping the ball, look no further than "Syskäathr". This song is a short, vicious blast that feels like a sonic gut punch. It's direct, uncompromising, and a reminder that the band is at their best when they keep things tight and aggressive. Unfortunately, the creative spark fades after this point and the album begins to sag under its own weight. Even "Buried In An Hourglass," which briefly teases post-black metal influences with an interesting intensive mid-section, eventually loses focus and limps toward an uninspired fade-out. It feels like the band gave up and let gravity finish the job. It's not a catastrophic failure, but the album's back half definitely lacks the fire of its opening.

Despite these hiccups, Temple Of Wounds remains an album worth your time. Tulpa balances black metal's icy malevolence with crust's feral urgency, and when they get it right, the results are both punishing and oddly elegant. It's not flawless—more like a beautifully cracked mirror—but if you're willing to forgive a few missteps, and you like your black metal with a side of crust, this one's worth a spin.

Rating: 7.9 out of 10, because even when Italians stumble, they fall with style.

Review by Michael on December 23, 2025.

Blood Court show us a typical German backyard with some grim normies charring their neighbors who didn't cut the hedge the last fall and didn't put the garden gnomes into their well-deserved hibernation on a grey Sunday afternoon on the front cover. And with this cover you can almost anticipate what kind of music the duo is offering to us.

Backyard Babies you say? Em, no, not really. On their second full-length with the matching title "The Burial" we can find some really fast and grim death metal songs that are highly inspired by Cannibal Corpse.

But let's hear what the band itself says: "Two men, one tribunal – the verdict is death. […] Armed with pure fury, they unleash an apocalyptic strom of aggression, blood and decay. Their songs are not mere tracks – they are executions in sonic form, rituals of extinction forged from pain, wrath and utter darkness. […] A rising storm, blood-drenched and inescapable."
Alright, this sounds quite promising but often the press info tell more than we can find in reality. But on "The Burial" you can truly hear a lot of aggression and fury.

And the guys aren't just pressing the Cannibal Corpse "copy" and "paste" button but have some own ideas in the songs also. First of all sometimes the guitar soli are even faster than what their role models are performing and also the vocals by Mike (also active in Dark Horizon and Reanimated) are pretty sick, sometimes sicker than Corpsegrinders' performance. And here and there you can find some cool catchy grind-riffing like Napalm Death did in the early 90s-, too.

What is striking is the penchant of Blood Court for speed and blast beats. Not a single song is done in a slower pace, nope, there is only full-speed during the 31 minutes total running time.
Of course you can complain that this is a little bit too monotonous and unimaginative but hey, who cares, if you get a permanent punch into your face? I don't, to be honest.

With "I Cum Blood" we can find a cover song you can guess who on the album and "The Crippler" which is probably one of the most brutal songs from "Tapping The Vain" by Sodom has a nice guest appearance by Sabina Classen (Holy Moses). Apropos Classen – Andy Classen did the very powerful recording, mixing and mastering at Stage One Studio.

If you like Cannibal Corpse and co and don't look for any crazy new obscure shit but just for some old-school entertainment you will love this album for sure. This is some good friendly violent fun to listen to and nothing more. But also nothing less.

Rating: 8 out of 10