Features / Music

Winter is approaching which means that musical preferences change alongside the season. For this edition of Only Death Is Real, that change is reflected in the excess of doom that has been released in the last month, with a sprinkling of black metal thrown in for good measure. There’s something … Read more

Can you believe that it’s 2023? It hardly seems like last week that we were ushering in 2022 and trying to maintain an outlook of hope that maybe, just maybe, this was a year in which things got better. Judging by the music that makes up this edition of Only … Read more

For the twentieth edition of this column, we are doing something slightly different. Why? Well, to be honest, my listening habits have taken a detour of late and instead of diving into a million different things, I am concentrating way too hard on a handful of releases. And these two … Read more

I'm slowly running out of things to say in these intro pieces. Do you read them? Do you need to know why I chose these particular records or are you happy to dive in and discover? Barbelith – Deathless Master (Self-Released/Third House) Nearly ten years after Mirror Unveiled was released, … Read more

It's time, once again, for Only Death Is Real to make an appearance. This is the twenty second edition of the column and I'll be honest with you, writing is becoming harder each time. Sitting down to purposefully do something is difficult, opening the laptop seems to get scarier and … Read more

Arkhtinn – 三度目の災害 (Prava Collective) The mysterious Prava Collective release music by a handful of artists (who may or may not be in every band or at least more than one), each digital drop containing a plethora of music that encompasses the entire label’s roster while Amor Fati handle the … Read more

Acathexis – Immerse (Amor Fati/Extraconscious Records) Acathexis’ self-titled debut from 2018 is one that still bears repeated listens, personally, many years later. With some of the best known and hardest working musicians within black metal behind the band, it was always clear that this is a band to watch. Featuring … Read more

Do you ever go through phases of listening to the same music over and over and over again? Why would I listen to something new when I could listen to X ten times in a row, or that song off Y a couple of times a day? Sometimes something new … Read more

2020 has only been upon us for three short months, yet the outlook for the rest of the year looks as bleak as it has ever been. Pandemics, floods, ineffective governments, dysfunctional rulers..... the list could go on but I fear that life is depressing enough already. The music contained … Read more

The world has gotten exponentially more weird since the last time this column was published and it doesn’t seem as though it’s going to get any better any time soon. Music can help in a multitude of unusual situations and perhaps these five records go some way into making these … Read more

Finding new music to explore has become many people's escape since the world of 2020 changed for the worse. In times of struggle music has often become a guiding light and a saviour and in regards to Bandcamp itself, a place where people can effect change just by supporting artists, … Read more

Finding new music to explore has become many people's escape since the world of 2020 changed for the worse. In times of struggle music has often become a guiding light and a saviour and in regards to Bandcamp itself, a place where people can effect change just by supporting artists. … Read more

The challenge of listing the definitive "best" album openers is perhaps impossible. While we're dedicated at SPB to challenging the odds and defying convention, that might be a steep request even for us. Instead, we've chosen some of our personal favorite openers from records across a variety of genres. Inevitably, … Read more

Last year we introduced you, the readers of Scene Point Blank, to a new feature, "Pass the Mic," as part of our evaluation of the best music of 2006. We asked some of our favorite record labels to tell us their thoughts on the music of the year. With this … Read more

Each year at SPB we reach out to the wide stable of artists, labels and other music scene folks to find out what their take was on the year just finished. This time around we've spoken to over 40 bands and label owners to hear about their favourite records of … Read more

It's the end of the year, but before we tell you what we think the best albums and musical moments of 2018 were, we've handed over the pen (cursor?) to the people who make our scene what it is—the artists and labels—to tell us how they found the year in … Read more

As the year ends, it's time once more for us to hand over to the artists and record labels that made some of our favorite music of 2019 and ask them about their year, the music they enjoyed, and what they're excited about for 2020. Here's the questions we're asking … Read more

2020, huh. It's been a memorable(?) year, that's for sure. In the years to come we'll probably remember it due to the contested presidential election and the global pandemic, but it turns out there were a couple of other interesting things happening just below the radar. As is SPB tradition, … Read more

It's been a long year. Everyone around the world has struggled through another twelve months of pain, loss, boredom and frustration – so spare a thought for our friends in the music industry who've had to puzzle their way through releasing music during a vinyl shortage and trying to book … Read more

Each of the last few years now, we've written an introduction to our annual Pass The Mic feature which summarises the chaos of the preceding twelve months and expresses hope that through music, at least, we'll find a semblance of sanity and order amid the uncertainty and discomfort of the … Read more