Greetings fellow metalheads! 

The third quarter of the year is behind us and it's officially acceptable to start shopping for our favourite festivities - Halloween and Saturnalia. Obviously the celebrations need a proper soundtrack and here you can get some ideas, which soundtrack fits your mood and attitude.

September seemed to have more full-length releases, so there's plenty to choose from. Metalbite folks highlighted the following artists which are available on Spotify: Razor, Vermin Womb, Reincarnated, Cainan Dawn, Warforged, An Abstract Illusion, Dead Void, Cinis, Writhing, Acephalix, Acausal Intrusion, Cloud Rat, Umbilicus, Ensanguinate, Revocation, Bloodbath, Last Retch, Megadeth, Gaerea, Blind Guardian, Miscreance, Ares Kingdom, Tribal Gaze, Kill Division, Altars Ablaze, Fallujah, Epoch of Unlight, Wolfheart, Spiritus Mortis, Autopsy, Slaughterday and Mo'ynoq. This is already quite impressive list, I would add ACOD, Behemoth, Cosmophobe, Crust (doom/death/sludge from Russia), Defacing God, Nordjevel, Omophagia, Ozzy Osbourne, we can celebrate the return of Sceptic to the death metal scene, Science of Disorder, Slipknot, Strigoi, Tankard and Wayward Dawn to mention my favourites and biggest names. Plenty more, over 78 minutes of music, can be found here:

The list of EPs released in September is a bit smaller and the bands you can find on our playlist are: Act of Gorgon, Apocalyptica, The Band Repent, Chlamydiot, Dark Forest, Decembre Noir, Demonologist, Doedsvangr, Exsanguination, No Coffin, Nomadic Narwhal, Rage, Sabaton, Trauma Model, Vathr and Xenobiotic. Enjoy!:

If you like to try out some of the best tracks from each album before buying the full-length release or are on the search for new sounds, there's no better place to go to than the list of singles. It includes Avatar, Bonecarver, CABAL, Candlemass, Dead Cross, Devin Townsend, Dying Fetus, Epica, Flub, In Flames, Ingested, The Interbeing, Irist, Kampfar, Lamb of God, Signs of the Swarm, Sodom, Tribulation, A Wake in Providence and many more. Over 13 hours of the best samples from each batch can be found here:

We've got music from 3 splits on our playlist from September - we've got 75% of split with Wraith, Graveripper, Unholy Night (missing the tracks by Black Knife), split with Perilaxe Occlusion, Fumes, Celestial Sanctuary and Thorn and the third one is a split with Angrrsth and Czort. All 3 available here:

Some bands were busy releasing their live albums in September, too, we have Atlantis Chronicles (single), Drowned (2-track single), Epica (album), Marax (album), Moonspell (album), Primordial (5-track rehearsal EP), Rage In My Eyes (single) and Sonata Arctica (album). If the weather is already not encouraging you to go outside, you can at least get the audio version of meeting other people in person by listening to the list below:

Refreshed old music we got to hear in September came from Amaranthe, Angrepp, Destillat, Diamond Head, Dimmu Borgir, Dio, Enterprise Earth, Epica, Fear Factory, Infected Rain, Melechesh, Monster Magnet, Motorhead, Nuclear Vomit, Prey For Nothing, Shadow of Intent, Sorcier Des Glaces, Throneum and Woods of Desolation. You can check what adjustments were done to their older creations by listening to the list below:

And to finish our compilation of playlists, we have one more - with compilations. Ghost released a set of 6 songs, one of which is in two versions and Jack Starr's Burning Starr released a compilation called "Eternal Starr". Both can be found here:

As usual, please remember to keep an eye on our profile to find new sounds which are available on Spotify, share your favourites with friends and remember to support the artists by buying their merch.

Mosh responsibly \m/ Maciek

Greetings, fellow metalheads!

There has been another break in Spotify summaries, caused by some unforeseen events which resulted in my change of address. At my age the spine doesn't take moving houses very well, so I needed some time to recover. Fortunately the new environment seems to be more friendly, which hopefully cause more frequent activity on my side. I've done my best to keep all playlists up to date, trying not to make longer than 2 weeks without an update. And I hope you've been checking the playlists and giving some of these bangers at least one try. Or at least the first 30 seconds (unless there's an intro, intros obviously don't count, right, Carl?).

I know it's already the second half of April, but let's have a look at the productions from March as we got quite a few which have to be written down and then posted here. Side note - I have a feeling that more and more of the big names which I like are moving to Reigning Phoenix Music and soon most of the mentions here will look like their advert, LOL. Trust me, it's not intentional, it just appears that Gerardo and Sven have some good ideas to convince some of the best musicians to join their roster. Seems like they are to become one of the major players in the metal scene soon. But, going back to the main subject - the albums. March was the month when full releases came from Ministry, Messiah, Firewind, Einvigi, Bruce Dickinson, Sonata Arctica, Skeletal Remains, Midnight, Judas Priest, Exhorder, VLTIMAS, Per Wiberg, Necrophobic, Aborted (with guest appearance in every single track, one of the top releases for me in March by the way), Khold, Hideous Divinity, The Absence, Rage (a double album), Carrion Vael and many, many more. Fantastic month, it seems. So if you forgot to check out these beauties, you certainly should check the playlist below. And wear some head protection as your mind is at risk of getting blown.

Now, the EPs seem to be more and more popular format or it's at least my impression. Maybe because there are no rules to these. You have 3 new tracks? EP. You have 6 new tracks? EP. You have some new tracks, but you're also proud of some live performances you recently had and want to release them as well? Well, you should have committed more either in the studio or on stage. But if you don't want to - EP. Jokes aside - definitely check out some of these Experimental Productions, we've got a nice set on the playlist below, including CroworD, Alienist, Abject Mentor, Municipal Waste, Pantheist, Born in Exile, Itus, Miehala, Jordsjuk, Downswing, Wrang, Sylvaine, Asterean, Septos, Ethereal Tomb, Dead Head and Korp. Enjoy!

Next section - the singles. As much as I like Spotify for making so much music available, it does behave like that person you want to talk to about the recent awesome band you found and they constantly interrupt you with "Oh, you should check out this one! It's much better than the crap you were talking about and I know better, because I'm better at everything." Even when you make a perfect list of your all-time favourites, the shuffle is driven by some background algorithm which forces you to listen to some of them so often until you're fed up with them and they're not your favourites anymore. And smart-shuffle? It's as smart as sticking a fork in a power socket. Fortunately you've got me and the singles playlist, which works better than any playlist with "Radio" you can find on Spotify. March brought us singles from Wheel, Haunt, Born a New, Benighted (full album on April playlist), Lucifuge (full album also already out), Full of Hell, Crownshift, Hour of Penance (album out already), Dark Tranquillity, Pain, Fleshgod Apocalypse, ACOD, Marty Friedman, Gatecreeper, Six Feet Under, Blaze of Perdition, My Dying Bride, Eye of the Enemy, Unleash the Archers, Dååth, NanowaR of Steel, Walg, Vredehammer, The Monolith Deathcult, Orecus, Disbelief, Bloody Falls, Stormcrow, Allegaeon, Accept, Rotting Christ, Lacrimas Profundere, Necrophagia, Party Cannon and a lot more. Don't let yourself being told what's good and go to the list below right now:

The splits playlist, as always, has some incomplete splits, so we have only Wynter Myst part of their split with Vegard, we have the full Sadistic Ritual/Wormwitch split though, same with Spell/Potergeist and Sequestrum/Sněť. All 16 tracks can be found below:

The live playlist has Arpeghy, Dreamwell, Hanging Garden, Harms Way, Jinjer, Jumpscare, Riot City, Sabire, Savage Messiah, Tygers of Pan Tang and Unantastbar. Just make sure you don't scroll too far down, because the "smart" Spotify recommendations based on what's in this playlist do not include a single live track. So if you listen to them by accident, it's not my fault. Join the crowd by clicking the link below:

The refreshed old releases which came to us in March were from Anachoret, Ataraxie, Black Sabbath (Headless Cross track finally on Spotify!), Blaze of Sorrow, Contrarian, CroworD, Doro, Enslaved, The Gathering, HOST, Invent Animate, Kreator, Michael Schenker Group, Midnight Bullet, Moonspell, Ne Obliviscaris, Pestilence, Prong, Shadow of Intent and Temperance.

Keep an eye on our Spotify profile for very irregular updates, give your favourites some appreciation either in words or money and always remember to mosh responsibly \m/

Your fellow metalhead,

Maciek