Merg & Been Magazine

03/09/2025

The offline version of Merg & Been Magazine will be available this Friday though the Webstore at www.mergenbeen.nl

- 60 pages of interviews and reviews
- Colour print
- limited to 50 copies

09/07/2025

New Review
Link to magazine in the bio

Review: Edicule - Finitude Tape

Fiadh Productions

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Merg & Been Magazine is a one-man gig, if you like to participate please contact me. There is no reward only eternal glory.

https://www.mergenbeen.nl/2025/07/09/review-edicule-finitude-tape/

Merg & Been Magazine writes about extreme music mainly Black Metal and its family tree. Merg & Been Magazine is independent and will only review the stuff we really love/like. Feel free to send us your releases digitally or as link (no guaranteed review).

The American duo Edicule began their activities in 2020 and released their first EP Apotheosis a year later — a promising introduction to their uncompromising take on Black Metal. Now, four years later, their long-awaited debut album is out on cassette via Fiadh Productions. Unfortunately, it...

24/06/2025

New Interview
Link to magazine in the bio

Interview: Ibex Angel Order

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Merg & Been Magazine is a one-man gig, if you like to participate please contact me. There is no reward only eternal glory.

https://www.mergenbeen.nl/2025/06/24/interview-ibex-angel-order/

Merg & Been Magazine writes about extreme music mainly Black Metal and its family tree. Merg & Been Magazine is independent and will only review the stuff we really love/like. Feel free to send us your releases digitally or as link (no guaranteed review).

ANGEL ORDER ORDER

You’ve been active in the Dutch Black Metal scene for a long time and have witnessed its rise and changes up close. What are your personal memories of those early days, and how do you view its development since then? I mostly remember that, in the beginning, there wasn’t really a scene in the Ne...

22/06/2025

New Review online.
Link to magazine in the bio

Review: Structure - Heritage CD

Bram Bijlhout Ardua Music

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Merg & Been Magazine is a one-man gig, if you like to participate please contact me. There is no reward only eternal glory.

https://www.mergenbeen.nl/2025/06/22/review-structure-heritage-cd/

Merg & Been Magazine writes about extreme music mainly Black Metal and its family tree. Merg & Been Magazine is independent and will only review the stuff we really love/like. Feel free to send us your releases digitally or as link (no guaranteed review).

When Tony Iommi was forced to tune down his guitar in the late 1960s due to an industrial accident, he likely had no idea that this practical adjustment would go on to shape the sound of an entire musical genre. His deep, heavy riffs in Black Sabbath unknowingly laid the foundation for what would ev...

18/06/2025

New Review online.
Link to magazine in the bio

Review: Pu**in de Tristesse - Pu**in de Tristesse CD

Putai- de Tristesse

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Merg & Been Magazine is a one-man gig, if you like to participate please contact me. There is no reward only eternal glory.

https://www.mergenbeen.nl/2025/06/18/review-putain-de-tristesse-putain-de-tristesse-cd/

Merg & Been Magazine writes about extreme music mainly Black Metal and its family tree. Merg & Been Magazine is independent and will only review the stuff we really love/like. Feel free to send us your releases digitally or as link (no guaranteed review).

These days, the Norman town of Bayeux is best known for its world-famous 70-meter-long tapestry — an astonishing visual chronicle of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. But those who gaze upon this historic city with a darker soul may uncover something else entirely: Pu**in de Tristesse, a one-man ...

11/06/2025

New review online.
Link to magazine in the bio

Review: Spiritwood – The Apparition of Horns CD

Spiritwood Loudriver

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Merg & Been Magazine is a one-man gig, if you like to participate please contact me. There is no reward only eternal glory.

https://www.mergenbeen.nl/2025/06/11/review-spiritwood-the-apparition-of-horns-cd/

Merg & Been Magazine writes about extreme music mainly Black Metal and its family tree. Merg & Been Magazine is independent and will only review the stuff we really love/like. Feel free to send us your releases digitally or as link (no guaranteed review).

Finnish project Spiritwood has always occupied a peculiar place in the black metal scene. Their avant-garde approach to atmospheric black metal—richly layered with synthesizers and experimental structures—is undeniably distinctive, and as such, certainly not for everyone. Yet since its inception...

07/06/2025

New review online.
Link to magazine in the bio

Review: Suttungr - Eburoons Vuur LP

Suttungr Zwaertgevegt

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Merg & Been Magazine is a one-man gig, if you like to participate please contact me. There is no reward only eternal glory.

https://www.mergenbeen.nl/2025/06/07/review-suttungr-eburoons-vuur-lp/

Merg & Been Magazine writes about extreme music mainly Black Metal and its family tree. Merg & Been Magazine is independent and will only review the stuff we really love/like. Feel free to send us your releases digitally or as link (no guaranteed review).

When a band from our beautiful Limburg releases an album, I naturally have to give it some attention. Suttungr hails from Kerkrade — a city in the deep south with a robust mining history, where black gold was once extracted from the earth and the smoky atmosphere of labor and struggle is still pal...

07/06/2025

New review online.
Link to magazine in the bio

Review: Suttungr - Eburoons Vuur LP

Follow for more content.

Merg & Been Magazine is a one-man gig, if you like to participate please contact me. There is no reward only eternal glory.

https://www.mergenbeen.nl/2025/06/07/review-suttungr-eburoons-vuur-lp/

Merg & Been Magazine writes about extreme music mainly Black Metal and its family tree. Merg & Been Magazine is independent and will only review the stuff we really love/like. Feel free to send us your releases digitally or as link (no guaranteed review).

Zwaertgevegt

When a band from our beautiful Limburg releases an album, I naturally have to give it some attention. Suttungr hails from Kerkrade — a city in the deep south with a robust mining history, where black gold was once extracted from the earth and the smoky atmosphere of labor and struggle is still pal...

04/06/2025

New review online.
Link to magazine in the bio

Review: Woe Bather – Swallowed by the chains of spirit loss album

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Merg & Been Magazine is a one-man gig, if you like to participate please contact me. There is no reward only eternal glory.

https://www.mergenbeen.nl/2025/06/04/review-woe-bather-swallowed-by-the-chains-of-spirit-loss-album/

Merg & Been Magazine writes about extreme music mainly Black Metal and its family tree. Merg & Been Magazine is independent and will only review the stuff we really love/like. Feel free to send us your releases digitally or as link (no guaranteed review).

Sometimes, bands still manage to truly surprise you. The American atmospheric black metal project Woe Bather does so convincingly with its third full-length album. While the previous two records fell short in both composition and production, these shortcomings are more than made up for on Swallow...

02/06/2025

New review online.
Link to magazine in the bio

Review: Ibex Angel Order – II – Void Sermon CD

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Merg & Been Magazine is a one-man gig, if you like to participate please contact me. There is no reward only eternal glory.

https://www.mergenbeen.nl/2025/06/02/review-ibex-angel-order-ii-void-sermon-cd/

Merg & Been Magazine writes about extreme music mainly Black Metal and its family tree. Merg & Been Magazine is independent and will only review the stuff we really love/like. Feel free to send us your releases digitally or as link (no guaranteed review).

IBEX ANGEL ORDER Void Wanderer Productions

Once, long ago, there was a band in the Lowlands named Funeral Goat. This dark entity, rooted deep within the orthodox Black Metal tradition, conjured ritualistic and raw music that immersed the listener in an atmosphere of incantation and spiritual dissolution. But in 2013, the members chose to cas...

24/05/2025

New review online.
Link to magazine in the bio

Review: BaarRa – Entheos CD

BaarRa

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Merg & Been Magazine is a one-man gig, if you like to participate please contact me. There is no reward only eternal glory.

https://www.mergenbeen.nl/2025/05/24/review-baarra-entheos-cd/

Merg & Been Magazine writes about extreme music mainly Black Metal and its family tree. Merg & Been Magazine is independent and will only review the stuff we really love/like. Feel free to send us your releases digitally or as link (no guaranteed review).

Sometimes you come across an album that you need to let sink in for at least a month before you even feel ready to write something meaningful about it. Not because it’s bad—far from it—but because it simply doesn’t reveal itself immediately. Often, that’s because it doesn’t fit neatly wi...

20/05/2025

New review online.
Link to magazine in the bio

Review: Arkaist – Aube Noir LP

Arkaist Antiq Label

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Merg & Been Magazine is a one-man gig, if you like to participate please contact me. There is no reward only eternal glory.

https://www.mergenbeen.nl/2025/05/20/review-arkaist-aube-noir-lp/

Merg & Been Magazine writes about extreme music mainly Black Metal and its family tree. Merg & Been Magazine is independent and will only review the stuff we really love/like. Feel free to send us your releases digitally or as link (no guaranteed review).

The French Black Metal band Arkaist, hailing from the historic city of Rennes in Brittany, is one of those mysterious new acts that seem to emerge from the shadows fully formed. With no prior demos or EPs to their name, they’ve gone straight to releasing a full-length album. Founded in 2023, Aube ...