North Star Union has released "Echoes of decay", a slice of melodic heavy metal that feels less like a standard studio tracking and more like something dug out of the permafrost. There is a curious quality to Icelandic composer Myrmann’s work here; because he handles all the instrumentation and composition himself at Midgard Studio, the track possesses a singular, frighteningly cohesive nervous system. It...

She Becomes’ new single, “Necromancer”, has left me thinking less about music and more about the strange inscriptions one finds on very old gravestones. It’s a track that hangs in the air like November fog, built on guitars that feel like they’ve been dragged through damp, loamy soil and a bassline that has the coiled-up energy of a minor character in a Brontë novel,...