Released: 27/10/23
Few bands in heavy metal history have a story as remarkable as Cirith Ungol. Formed in Ventura, California, in the early 1970s, they forged a sound unlike anything before—heavier, darker, and more apocalyptic. Obscure and eccentric yet epic and bone-crushingly heavy, their music channels both fantasy and doom. On Dark Parade, Cirith Ungol delivers an unrelenting triumph of pessimism and pain: propulsive, insistent, and fueled by metal, destruction, and a prophetic view of humanity’s twisted future. As Garven notes, the band’s dual personality—torn between fantasy and doom—has shifted toward the latter, creating an unrelenting cacophony where annihilation has rarely sounded so good.