Published: October 26, 2020

If I was a Bond villain looking to hold the world to ransom by destabilising the Black Metal community (unlikely but stay with me here), my nefarious plot would involve removing the letter “v” from all keyboards being manufactured. Imagine the consternation and beating of breasts that would occur if corpse painted folks could no longer replace “f”s or “u”s with that pointy toothsome letter! Maybe they could move to something...

Published: September 12, 2020

Ov Shadows fly in to deliver you a glacial slab of black metal all the way from Sweden, and boy are their arms tired...

    ...not from flapping their would-be wings, of course, which I’m sure would be covered in tar-black feathers. Either that or something resembling a bat’s wings. Black Metal Animorphs, anyone? Just me? Okay... no, in all seriousness, where these black metal bands get the stamina to deliver these absolutely ...

Published: September 2, 2020

Swedish black metallers Ov Shadows are back with their second full length album “I Djävulens Avbild” their first release on Hypnotic Dirge records.

Their first full length ”The Darkness Between Stars” (2018) was a relentless assault of chaotic black metal, proving that the experience and fluidity the members gained in Gothenburg’s Waning, in which they all played together, would be carried over to this new project. “...

Published: August 27, 2020 

OV SHADOWS is a Swedish black metal band and "I Djävulens Avbild" is their second full length release; they released an EP in 2016. This album is really crazy—-it is one-part full steam ahead, no holds barred black metal. Tremolo picking, inhuman drumming and blackened shrieks are some elements at play that will blast your ear hole. However, there is more to the album than cold from the void speed and aggression. The other part is l...

Published: August 22, 2020

Now this is black metal. Don’t take that as an endorsment of quality,

necessarily…just that if you’re putting Nubivagant on the same shelf as Ov Shadows, you’ll know instantly which one doesn’t belong.

Even so, this is pretty solid Swedish school black metal, not quite the empty pursuit of speed that is Norsecore, but still falling well within the sonic radar of bands that have at least dipped their toes into if not become i...

Published: August 23, 2020 

Swedish newcomers to the black metal scene Ov Shadows have now released their second full-length on the eclectic and radical label Hypnotic Dirge Records out of Canada. Continuing the lasting legacy established by their homeland of only producing top-caliber black metal for the feeble masses, Ov Shadows arose from the ashes of Waning (and members also performed in acts such as Slaughtercult and Clonaeon) to create a classic sound of death...

Published: August 20, 2020

Arising from the darkest pits of Gothenburg, this Swedish horde is ready to stun us all once again with the Atmospheric Black Metal guided by chaos and darkness from their sophomore opus.

Gothenburg, Sweden’s own Black Metal entity Ov Shadows is rising once again form the pits of the underworld to stun us all with their sophomore full-length opus, titled I Djävulens Avbild, which translates to English as “In the Devil’s I...

Published: August 14, 2020

Psychoanalysis was a truly revolutionary idea. Up to that point, it was believed that what you see, what you can experience with your senses – that’s all there was. But obnoxious motherfucker Freud1 came around and screwed that up. Suddenly we realize through him (in his diagnoses of traumatized World War 1 veterans) that the mind, the personality, and behavior is influenced perhaps by forces of which we are not necessarily aware...

Published: August 13, 2020 

Too many bands reach forward, not enough reach inward. A lot of acclaimed music is plowing through the present and the past, trying to find the next new thing. New sounds, new fusions, new genres. It’s the easiest way to stick out. However, music can be iterative. Just because someone made an album twenty years ago doesn’t mean that you can’t do it better. Enter Swedish metallers Ov Shadows. Their attack on their sophomore album ...

Published: August 13, 2020 

Ov Shadows are a Swedish black metal band and this is their second album.

Featuring a member of Obitus, Ov Shadows play ferocious, yet textured, black metal that should find favour with fans of bands such as Dark Funeral, Nordjevel, Nightbringer, Barshasketh, etc.

I Djävulens Avbild contains 43 minutes of blistering black metal, performed at withering speeds for much of the time. The pace does change, to be fair, but this album is ne...

Published: July 22, 2020

Black metal is as diverse as regional accents. Some accents sound like an angel pouring honey into your ear, others sound like a dead zombie slug crawling out of it. Ov Shadows fall in the first category since they make really solid black metal. No keyboards or time-consuming interludes, just guitars, bass, drums and vocals and that's it. 

The band recorded, mastered and mixed 'I Djävulens Avbild' themselves, and they did an amazing job....

Published: July 22, 2020

If you’re not familiar with Ov Shadows, you are not alone. Until I received their promo, I had never heard of them. But as I familiarized myself with their discography (their 2016 EP Monologues and their 2018 LP The Darkness Between Stars), I had to keep asking myself how come such a great black metal band had gone unnoticed.

From the very start, I Djävulens Avbild (“In the Devil’s Image”) grabs you hard, and doesn’t let go until...