Utopia Platafórmica

Spellsword “Night of the Grail” (Nox Liberatio Records, 2023) The Portuguese Black Metal scene is mostly know - especially abroad - for the Raw Black Metal side of it. We were always, in my modest opinion, a country with immensely valid bands, being Decayed and Corpus Christii, probably, the ones that were better known before everyone went Raw… but really Raw. And let us not forget bands like Firstborn Evil (right before the shift to The Firstborn, which are also extremely impressive and underrated), Sirius, or Filii Nigrantium Infernalium, among others. But there is Black Metal beyond what we, Portugal, “export” today, and Spellsword is a great example of such. Spellsword is the result of Alex’s love for Black Metal and History. Alex is - or was - part of a band I recall causing some “disturbance” on a famous Heavy Metal forum in Portugal some years ago, Antichthon, a Black Metal band from Coimbra whose, at the time, members were very young. Their sound moved along the lines of a ...

Teufelsberg “Pakt Mit Dem Teufel“ (Signal Rex, 2023) Some might call me a prick for not looking at the Black Metal scene of today in complete awe. I do not see what many see, and I do not believe and the present scene as vigorously and many do. I honestly do not “feel” the same emotions I did when I first encountered the genre and educated myself on it. To each their own, and generations look at - and handle - things differently, with different eyes and ideas, and that is why the genre is not dead and it will never die, however, and there is always a “however” or a “nonetheless”, things feel differently… However, some bands have decided to go back to the roots of the genre and live by those rules. Examples? Forbidden Temple is a great one, but the band we are focusing on today is another great example: Teufelsberg. Very few bands, today, give me that sense of security and guarantee when it comes to their work, and these lads from Poland (Poland and Black Metal is that thing, that s...