Chapter VI

At the heart of The Wailing Ossuary lies an ancient summoning pentacle surrounded by laughing skulls. They challenge brave metalheads to lead five mighty musicians in an epic performance to try to conjure a monster of metal.

It’s part two of our Dutch special - this week we’re bringing you a Chorus from Assen, a Champion from Liessel and a Curse from the North-East Netherlands. We hope you've enjoyed these two themed Chapters; if so we might issue some more in the future. Your feedback is always welcome.

The Chorus

Blackbriar’s second album is even more replete with gothic romance and folklore than their first. Opening with the poetically relatable An Unwelcome Guest, A Dark Euphony tells a beautiful story with each song forming a new chapter. The chiming harmonics that announce the descending chorus in Bloody Footprints in the Snow deliberately lead you unsuspecting into its ominous refrain. The wistful phrasing and unusual cadence of Cicada will never leave you. If you're an audiobook person, we’d recommend you save yourself some time and just listen to this album instead of your next novel.

The Champion - III

The votes have been cast and democracy reigns. You chose Position III so we’re recommending heroic bassist Johan van Stratum for your ritual. He is perhaps best known for his work with Stream of Passion, being one of the few members to last from it's inception to the unfortunate 2016 disbanding. They are still sorely missed. But from there Johan went on to take up the long-fingering duties in prog metal group VUUR before even more recently working with ‘big four’ power metal legends Blind Guardian. Adding Johan to your supergroup adds some serious experience and versatility.

The Curse

You’ve awoken the spirits of three Wittewijven, the vengeful wise women of the Low Countries. If you're male we’ve got some unfortunate news for you - you'll be suffering a slow and excruciating death. Bad times. If you're female on the other hand the Wittewijven may share their wisdom as well as offering you good health or luck. Most importantly their penchant for prophecy could help you on your on your path to conquering the world of metal. However they will also roast and eat your cat so we hope you're a dog person.