Bandcamp Boneyard 2026-09-04

04 Sep, 2026

This one snuck up on me, I was not expecting a Bandcamp Friday so soon after the last one. Good thing I maintain a constantly-growing list of albums to pick up, I guess.

Today's theme: getting fookin' crushed.

Crypt Sermon - The Stygian Rose
I picked up Crypt Sermon's Out of the Garden on a whim at some point last year and while I don't regret it, it's not an album that's on regular rotation. The Stygian Rose is overall just much stronger. I was hooked from the first track. Solid doom metal.¹

Castle - Carrie Chains
Castle's Evil Remains is one of the first albums I picked up in my effort to actually get into metal² and that's one I still come back to semi-regularly. Carrie Chains, I think, is a weaker album but Castle's sound is still good 'n' heavy here³. Carry Chains (does it count as the title track if they're spelled differently?) slaps, and you can't beat a track just straight-up called Evil Nun.

Gravecrawler - The Horrors Unleased & Nidus
Currently my kind of death metal is the type that sounds like you're being yelled at by a monster that's also a sewer (I believe the name is swedeath). That's the kind of sound Gravecrawler has and it's bonkers that these albums are pay what you want given how good they sound. Yucky slimy metal, yum.

Moonspell - Far From God & Irreligious
I've been into The Sisters of Mercy for a long damn time and the title track here scratches that itch perfectly, it's a real all-timer. The rest of the album is solid, but I haven't listened through much because I keep getting distracted by Far From God. Moonspell have been around for a while and have something of a reputation it seems, so I figured I'd also do my homework by picking up Irreligious as well⁴. That one's solid too!

1000 Eyes - this is your sign to stay alive & CHARON
SIGNALIS is a perfect video game, and that's partly thanks to 1000 Eyes' tracks. So when frantically scrobbling through my music list trying to figure out what to pick up for this surprise Bandcamp Friday I was reminded of these two works. this is your sign to stay alive is one track, but it's saveroom-core in the best possible way. And while there are other dungeon synth albums I could pick up for this Friday, CHARON feels right to me in this moment.

Bonus Round
The Night Eternal - Cold Velvet
I subscribe to Bandcamp's The Hard Stuff club to broaden my musical horizons. It doesn't always get me albums I enjoy but I think it's currently maintaining an above-even hits-to-misses ratio. The Night Eternal's Cold Velvet was already on my list to pick up just off the strength of Where This World Ends so when The Hard Stuff just dropped it in my library as September's record that felt like a called shot⁵. Plenty of heavy metal tracks on this album are worth checking out - The Veins of Time, The Watcher of the Burning Veil, and Dance on Crimson Ground. Excellent vocal performances reminiscent of Dio or Ozzy at times.

#bandcamp-boneyard