Think of Australia and you think of beautiful sun-kissed babes on equally beautiful sun-kissed beaches, while beefcake brutes hide under hats with corks round them, swilling beer and dishing out advice on their love lives to weedy bruces back here in soaking old blighty. 

OK. OK, before all our Aussie friends start kicking in the doors of URHQ, we know that this is a characterization - but, the land down under is hardly perceived as a hotbed of Satanism and the dark arts... more the art of finding the next party (or virgin to sacrifice, but not in a strapped-to-the-altar-way - or, then again... no, we'll not go there...). But, apparently, there is an extremely - erm - healthy black metal scene on the sunshine continent, with a veritable plethora of corpse-painted leather-clad bands crawling out from under the shadow of Uluru (that's Ayres Rock to us) and into the darklight.

Among the vanguard are this particular lot, who have been around for about five years but - emphasising what until now has been very much the underground existence of the Australian black metal scene - have only now got round to releasing their first album, thanks to the establishment of a native label dedicated to the genre.

Taking their name from the Greek primeval god of darkness, and with song titles such as 'Enthroning The Harbinger Of Death', its not hard to guess what to expect - and Erebus Enthroned don't disappoint, as this is nine tracks of as dark and evil metal as your likely to stumble across. There's nothing particular original, as they don't mess with the tried and tested BM formula (right down to the production values), but it is a competent offering and one with a few worthy moments, such as 'Nil (Solve Non Coagula)' and 'Blackwinged', which deserve the attention of the dark forces on this side of the world.

www.facebook.com/erebusenthroned