During the late 1980s, cult director Lamberto Bava agreed to film a four-part anthology series for Italian TV under the banner of High Tension. But after the executives saw the completed features’ extreme themes, graphic violence, and nudity, their broadcast was blocked for nearly a decade, going on to exist as grey market bootlegs for many years. From Severin, here is a four Blu-ray/ CD boxset- presenting classy 2k scans of all four films, with a host of new extras.

Zu are an avant-garde metal trio formed in Rome, Italy, who have been releasing music since 1999. Ferrum Sidereum is their third full-length release for House of Mythology Records and their 14th in total. The band’s current lineup consists of Luca T. Mai on baritone sax, keyboards, synthesiser, and organ, Paolo Mongardi on drums and acoustic and synthetic percussion and Massimo Pupillo on bass, 12-string guitar, synthesisers, and keyboards.

Pushing the death metal envelope, Finnish trio Ligation unleash their brand of 'death mental' with their debut album, After Gods. Working within the confines of that cold, dark, Scandinavian sound, Ligation further their agenda by integrating uncommon, but highly welcome, elements like harsh noise and saxophones. Integrating the three tracks from their two prior split EPs, After Gods showcases the band in all their mighty glory, tearing new holes in the death metal fabric, allowing other dimensions to saunter in and wrap their tendrils on an unsuspecting audience. 

In the field of music, you don't have to look very far to find meditations of all kinds; David Shea's Meditations is something else. Taking its cues from the actual IRL act of meditating, grounded in Buddhism and the Heart Sutra in particular, the eight pieces that make up this album are born out of meditating, sometimes even musically, and are designed to accompany or engender that process. I guess that means listening and being attentive to the other performers, like those who round out the album's lengthy roster and their instruments--vibraphones, guitars, ebows, and yes, singing bowls, among others. 

For 10 Musicians is a modern ensemble suite, at its most stark and spare. The four-track work is built around spaced piano notation, with which the wind and string instruments are sometimes connected. It creates a work that is more about mood/ presence, and less about melody/ structure- though those do sometimes occur.

Les Signes Passagers brings together seven compositions written especially for the fortepiano- an early version of the modern piano, named for its ability to play both softly (piano) and loudly (forte). The works here are penned by Swiss composer Jürg Frey, and played by pianist Keiko Shichijo- who is a specialist in the instrument. The resulting album stands as one of the more pared-back/ sparse/ fragile keyboard-based recordings I’ve ever heard.

The Recordings is a four-disc set bringing together all of the 70s output from Gracious!, a Surrey prog rock band, who had an adventurous/ dramatic sound that blended blues, rock, classical, symphonic, and beyond. The set brings together three CDs and a DVD, which features the band's short set at the 1970s Isle of Wight Festival

The Maiden is a 2022 drama written and directed by Canadian Graham Foy (Paradise Falls, Mouseland and August 22, This Year) and shot on 16mm film. The Maiden is his debut feature-length film.  The cast is made up of mainly first-timers, with no previous experience in cinema. Jackson Sluiter plays Kyle, Marcel T. Jimenez plays Colton, Hayley Ness is Whitney, Kaleb Blough is Tucker Siena Yee is June, and Charlotte Clarke plays Charlotte.

Going from Emma-Lynn’s bandcamp, this is a recently formed project from Untah, with this release & one other to its name. This is around a twenty-five-minute ep, takes in three tracks that sit in the more weathered ‘n’  hope rattling side of the walled noise genre.

Bleached Bones Flayed Skin is decidedly gnarly ‘n’ ragged example of the wall-noise form. The dead on twenty-minute track finds this Scranton, South Carolina project serving up yet another example of crude & corrupted walling.

Pure Visuals is a forty-minute slab of dense 'n' cranium-churning walled noise from this highly prolific/long-running California project. The track is simple/ set in its attack and form, though it works very effectively as a world-blocking-out sonic mass, which I found oddly soothing.

My Name Is 'A' by Anonymous is a 2010 teen crime drama, which shifts liberally between brain-numbing vapidity & deeply troubling behaviour. The film blends cinema vertia,  found footage, and low-key artiness with a structure that drifts in & out of its loose plot.  Here from Wild Eye Raw’s series is a release of the film, taking in three different versions of the film, and a few other things.

You’re All Doomed is the new slasher throwback film from long-running/low-budget horror/ sci-fi director Mark Polonia. He’s been active since the 80s, with around a hundred features to his name- including SOV classics like Splatter Farm & Hallucinations. The film to hand truly is a love letter to stalk ‘n’ slash films of the 80s, with some lines/ scenes directly mimicked. Here from Wild Eye Releasing is a DVD release of the film, taking in Mark’s always worthy, interesting, and down-to-earth director's commentary track.

Dawn Of Inhumanity was the 6th, and to date, final studio album from this Oakland, California, Death metal band.  After the more creative/ moody genre mixing ‘n’ matching of some of their earlier work, this album largely focuses on a more straightforward blend of death & doom metal. Here from Peaceville is a CD reissue of the album, which adds an extra thirteen bonus tracks- featuring assorted 7”, demos, and split release tracks.

From the mid-70s, The House Of Laughing Widows stands as one of the more formally chilling, at points downright unsettling/disturbing examples of the giallo form.  It regards a young art restorer going to an isolated village to work on a decidedly macabre fresco in the local church.  The film may not feature a particularly high or creatively executed set of murders. However, it takes in some great uneasy settings, a compelling/ strange mystery, and moments of true bone-chilling terror and alarming horror. Here from Arrow US, as either a UHD or Blu-ray, is a recent release of the film. It takes in a new 4k scan,  two new commentary tracks, a new feature-length documentary, and more.

With a title like The Killer Must Kill Again, and a release date of the mid-70s, you’d imagine a gory proto slasher. But in reality, this Italian production is seen by some as a gialli, but I’d say it’s more of a straight-if-at points-suspenseful thriller. It features, in its lead, Mr Giallo himself as George Hilton, as a husband who decides to get rid of his wife, but things don’t go quite as planned. The film has a fast-moving, fairly simple but effective plot- with some great moments of tension, and light touches of sleaze & gory murder.  Here from Rustblade- is a Blu-ray release of the film, taking in an interview with the director and a few other things.

Here we have an urgent, unrelenting, and ear drum-ripping example of the walled noise form from this Cincinnati, Ohio project, who in recent years has become one of the more prolific/quality-bound projects in the scene. The single thirty-seven-minute track firmly retains both its brutal pull & intense attack throughout its length.

The Two Most Powerful Warriors Are Patience and Time is a wall noise split. It brings together Berlin’s Sebastian Tomb, and North Carolina’s Angel Brügger- both parties offer up a twenty-minute ‘wall’, each of these being decidedly battering and grey in their intent.

Here’s the latest in the series of ambient guitar ‘n’ pedal created albums from Dirk Serries. It takes in two around twenty-minute works- each track has its own tone/ feel, with an almost low-key Yin/ Yang emotional quality to the whole thing.

Kahil El'Zabar is a Chicagoan veteran jazz percussionist and composer whose works with the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble date back to the early 80's. The performers in the ensemble have changed numerous times since then, though players like Corey Wilkes (Trumpet) and Alex Harding (baritone sax) have been involved for many years.

I may or may not be the best person to review this: I have never properly listened to Sun Ra’s music. Of course, I have heard bits and pieces, but I’ve never listened to an album or listened to anything repeatedly; after this, I’m going to have to add another huge discography to my listening pile… Sun Ra passed away in 1993, and the Arkestra here is led by Marshall Allen, a longstanding saxophonist with the group. Allen is 101 years old (100 on this recording), and directs the ensemble through ten pieces which - if I have understood correctly - are a mix of compositions discovered in Sun Ra’s papers after his death, pieces built from similar notes, and old Arkestra works.

Shoot First, Die Later (aka Il poliziotto è marcio)  is a 1974 Poliziotteschi (crime drama) from Italy directed by Fernando Di Leo (Naked Violence, Slaughter Hotel and The Italian Connection) and starring Luc Merenda (Torso, The Nun and the Devil and The Violent Professionals), Delia Boccardo (Death Walks at Laredo, Massacre in Rome and Tentacles), Richard Conte (The Godfather, Thieves Highway and Call Northside 777), Raymond Pellegrin (Woman of Rome, Imperial Venus and Le Deuxieme Souffle), and Vittorio Caprioli (Giovannona Long-Thigh, Le magnifique and The Boss). 

Whether intentional or not, COVERS by CoH (Ivan Pavlov) & Wladimir Schall, unearths something about the nature of the standard musical form that perhaps goes unnoticed: the actual act of covering, as in placing a cover on something.

Here’s a double-disc CD set bringing together two albums released by Wrathchild America during the late 80s/ early 90s- Climbin' the Walls and 3-D. With the sound shifting from heavy/ power/ speed metal, to Thrash metal with touches of prog/ funk rock. 

Soft and delicate, but also proud and strong, Rushab Nandha's Tear plays with the subtle juxtaposition of sound with a focus on the connection of the pieces versus what makes them different. As humans, we are naturally tuned to picking out patterns, and by virtue of this, we can see when something doesn't belong. Nandha doesn't reinforce what the listener is already doing in their mind, rather, he takes the opportunity to reinforce the sounds, bridging the gap, uniting these pieces that seem to be disparate upon first listen. This allows the seven tracks on Tear to move forward without visible propulsion, giving the audience many facets to latch onto, letting their ears unpack the dulcet tones within.

Hitcher-Hiker is a suspenseful, gritty, at times violent and nastily sleazy road movie. The late 1970s film sees Franco Nero, a hard-drinking journalist living off his wife's money, picking up an unbalanced David Hess (Last House On The Left, House On The Edge of the Park) for a nicely twisting and turning film with a decidedly nihilistic tone. From Powerhouse- as either a UHD or Blu-Ray- is a recent release of the film, taking in a new commentary track, and a good selection of new/ archive extras.

Hong Kong demonic possession horror Devil Fetus, directed by Hung-Chuen Lau, ambitiously bundles together a host of influences in a way that can’t help but be entertaining. 

From Second Run Films, here we have a three Blu-ray set collecting together most of the climactic output of Zoltán Huszárik- a Hungarian filmmaker whose work has a very distinctively visual quality. The set brings together his two feature films- 1971’s Szindbád and 1979’s Csontváry, as well as five short films dating from between 1966 and 1976. All of Huszárik's work sits within the arthouse genre- yet it’s all fairly approachable, with a creative and rewarding visual palette,  as well as compelling concepts and themes.

Re-Animator is one of the key/ important horror films of the 1980s, for more than a few reasons. First off, it brought the mad doctor horror form up to gory and black comedy date. It introduced cult horror writer HP Lovecraft to a wider horror audience,  and it stood as one of the key films released by Charles Band’s Empire studio. It’s also a damn fine film, with wonderful pacing, a well-selected cast, and still surprisingly effective with its special effects, and blend of shocking horror and comedy. Here from Second Sight is a new two-disc- featuring a new 4k scan, new and old commentary tracks, and a good selection of old and new extras.

Venus DIE-trap is a highly campy and extremely low-budget tribute to when monsters invade small-town America sci-fi/ horror. The 2025 film has a limited cast of just four or five folks, with a blatant use of stock footage, bad CGI backdrops, hamming it up acting, and a monster made of painted papier-mache & flaying fake vine leaves. Here from SRS Cinema, those seekers of all things low-budget/ SOV fare is a DVD release of the film, taking in two commentary tracks, and a few more extras.

Director Colin Minihan, Grave Encounters (2011) and It Stains the Sands Red (2016), brings his horror credentials to the Hollywood Hills with Coyotes, a gleefully blood-soaked  2025 survival thriller that refuses to take itself too seriously. 

From the fab-folks at Germany’s Bear Family Records, here's Santa Is Rockin’ And Rollin’. It’s a twenty-five-track CD compilation focusing on festive rock ‘n’ roll/ related genres from between the 1950s and 1960s- and as we’ve come to expect from the label, this is another wonderful, varied & well sequenced affair.

Death Ride (aka VIP Death Seat) is a 2025 Thai film set on a bus. It blends elements of thriller, horror, and action with a few sprinkles of off-key/ toilet humour. Here from International Media Network is a barebones DVD release of the film. Though the case doesn’t tell you this is a Thai film with English subtitles.

Don’t Open Until Christmas is a British slasher.  The early 1980s film features inventive murders, a creepy masked killer, a fair bit of sleaze, and some unintentional humour- due to the more ropy/ bad acting. It’s set in London, and regards people dressed as Santa being murdered. Here from 88 Films, as part of their Slasher Classic series, is a release of the picture. The Blu-ray takes in a 2k scan, a new commentary track, and a few more extras.

During the 1970s, Nazi-exploitation- one of the more distasteful, unpleasant, and at times downright nasty sub-genres in exploitation- rose and then fell. SS Experiment Love Camp was part of this cycle. 

Chock full of noisy electro punk riffs, burning social commentary, and enough energy to power a small city, East LA's Plezzure drop their first official release with this self-titled EP. Fifteen frantic minutes, Plezzure is a quick hitting, buzzing and bopping piece of punk rock constructed with electronic instruments and arrangements. This duo (Andres "Dres" Huerta and Juan "Bunchie" Vera) has already made a name for themselves in the LA scene with their energetic and frenetic live shows, and this EP on GIve/Take hopes to invite the rest of the world to the frenzied Plezzure party.

Here’s a grimly horror-focused wall noise split bringing together two US projects. There’s Strom Lake, Iowa’s May Cause Death, who severs up two decidedly baying & nasty walls. And Portland’s Hana Haruna, who presents us with more haunted, yet still seared wall-craft.

Splinter is the second solo album from Poland’s Daniel Szwed ( Woody Alien). It serves six slices of pounding, bounding, and hissing electronica/electro-industrial soundscaping.

Elektroniczne Systemy is the debut EP from Polish two-piece Marmur, which brings together Artur Rumiński (Furia, Thaw, Arrm, and many others) and Macio Moretti (LXMP, rumoured to be Mitch & Mitch, and many others). The sound over the three tracks is lo-fi electronica, with subtle guitar elements and a rather moody, at times abstract feel.