Blasts from the Past 2025: Echoes of the Eons!

Blast from the Past 2025 - Two skeletons with a horse cart full of electric guitars.

At first, nobody believed in a comeback of the Blasts from the Past series for 2025. The RMR crew found itself buried under a mountain of contemporary material after all. And nobody thought of switching off the faucet. Which is – come to think of it – a good thing. But that left relatively little room for that cartload of old ‘n’ torn notesheets to be read yet again after all these eons of nobody checking them out anymore. Boy, RMR himself even had to peddle some of his electric guitars to the local chapmen down at the market square … [...] Click to raid more!

RMR’s 2025 Top 3 Videos and EPs!

RMR's 2025 Top 3 Videos and EPs! Skeleton in medieval town square filming.

The RMR crew finally decided to revive the Top 3 lists for EPs and Videos. The last iteration was back in 2022 with a more or less reasonable crop of juicy goodies. The output of ’23 and ’24 was – with exceptions – apparently never enough, so we gave both a pass. That said, 2025 got us a pretty wild selection of good-to-great shorties and some snazzy moving pictures. Thus, same as the lamestream n00b section, this here list rose from its ashes to shine once again in the dark glow of a very ominous 2025 that this reviewer … [...] Click to raid more!

Ellende – Zerfall (2026) – Review

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Forest Metal didn’t fill the RMR crew with praise in 2025. You know, those bands dwelling mainly in the Bavarian and Austrian woodlands. Thorondir kind of made it over the threshold, albeit just barely. But Waldgeflüster got lost in the jungle of their own thoughts and emotions. And – in turn – then lost us. High expectations brutally squashed, that kind of thing.

But hey, never give up hope, right? Ellende are back with new material just when 2026 finally lurches into focus. If you recall, Todbringering made it onto our zine in 2024 with a remake of an earlier … [...] Click to raid more!

RMR’s 2025 Top 10 Records!

RMR's Top 10 2025 - Skeleton on a rock with electric guitar with a clock in the background.

In 2024, RMR’s Top 10 was dark, ominous, and, at times, frankly distressing. Full of Satanik Panik, deep excursions into the terrible underground of Death and Black Metal, or – again – just frank, straightforward malevolence. There weren’t many rays of light, and one wondered what daemon visited the RMR Office Tower exactly to inflict such a brutal punishment on the esteemed audience. Even if the RMR crew just discovered some odd tidbits of ’24 that could have lightened the load. Could. But didn’t.

And perhaps this was a harbinger of doom for the year to come. With the worst … [...] Click to raid more!