Avant-garde Black Metal | Izzy Izbourne

Black-and-white artwork from Dance of Tragedies by Maladie, showing a grotesque skull-like creature entwined with tentacles and a dark figure above it, with the text “Had to stop. Twice.”

Maladie – The Dance of Tragedies

One week under the Tuscan sun left my brain fried. Literally. Emotionally. Possibly structurally. So, naturally, I listened to the new Maladie album on the flight home. I was already fucked in the head. Might as well make productive use of it.

Black-and-white cover artwork for Slagmaur’s Hulders Ritual, showing a cloaked figure reaching toward a horned sheep in a rural landscape, with the text “I do admire a man who undersells.”

Slagmaur – Hulders Ritual

Slagmaur lured me in with sheep, hit me with distorted forest madness, and somehow ended up as the first item on my Fortress 2027 homework list.

Black-and-white cover artwork for Maladie’s Symptoms V, overlaid with the text “Jazz. Dissonance. Submission.”

Maladie – Symptoms V

The one that took its time—and then knocked me sideways. Final day of Maladie Week. Five tracks, infinite dissonance, and more jazz than anyone asked for.

Maladie - Symptoms IV

A delirious journey through saxophone-fuelled black metal chaos. Maladie’s Symptoms IV is equal parts seduction, violence, and pure exhilaration.

Black-and-white surreal cover artwork for Maladie’s Symptoms III, with the text "The sound of someone's darkest night, played out in real time."

Maladie – Symptoms III

The one that dethroned Symptoms IV. Personal, raw, and painfully human—Symptoms III sits with you and names things you are taught not to name.

Maladie – Symptoms II

Four tracks. Thirty-four minutes. Latin titles, cello, and one particularly doomy epic that shapeshifts until it breaks you just a little.

Black-and-white cover artwork for Maladie’s Symptoms, with the text “Not Meant to Be a Series. Became One Anyway.”

Maladie – Symptoms

We kick off Maladie Week with Symptoms: the unplanned, sprawling 41-minute EP that started the series. Saxophones, blast beats, and no middle ground.