Bronze Hall - Embers of the Dawn (2026)

Finnish output Bronze Hall from loses no time after their notable debut, Honor & Steel (2025), and comes out with a well-versed follow-up of heavy-inclined, epic black metal. 

A lot of influences, from Macabre Omen to Nokturnal Mortum, and of course the legendary viking metal era of Bathory, come to mind - tracks vary from three to almost ten minutes with a dusty production exemplary of the underground sound. 

Build-up are often used in the form of acoustic guitars (e.g. in the awesome opening track "Embers of Remembrance", and "In Northern Twilight"), classic dungeon synth atmospherics (e.g. on "Call of Steel"), or dimmer dark ambient (e.g. on "Ravaging Flames", which has an absolutely menacing tempo right after). 

The longest piece "Galloping in the Sunlight's Embrace" has all Bronze Hall can offer, from the dungeon synth opening texture to the amazing, middle-paced black metal melodies and the more abstract, higher-thrill ending to close the album. 

There's bits and bites of brilliance all over this record, from the shortest "Night's Black Wings" (one of my favorites, even though the least ambitious) to the guitar work on these longer compositions. I consider this an improvement on the project's debut, and a must-listen for fans of aforementioned references and artists.

Rating: 3.5/5

Krallice - Dimensional Bleedthrough (2009) Review

 

 Hands and knees grasping earth 

My first interaction with Krallice was right in the middle of my adolescent years and exactly at the time when my perception of black metal was taking form. Hence, looking at a band with colored contemporary art, a rounded logo and an arguably anti-frostbitten sound was a challenge to the traditionalist establishment on hold of the genre, which still didn't stop me from exploring the band when the self-titled album (2008) and Dimensional Bleedthrough (2009) were released. 

Fleshgod Apocalypse - King (2016) Review

Breathing the soul of the slain in battle

In the old forum era and during the time of Fleshgod Apocalypse’s first years of activity, it was a joke how they “put a photo of their drummer on the cover of the Mafia EP”. Word was for the incredible percussion technician Francesco Paoli and how special his contribution was to the band’s debut full length-album Oracles in 2009, as well as the EP that followed - but that wasn’t the only aspect that made them stand out. Mixing the gut-punch immediacy of technical death metal with a classical flavor, the project was an ambitious experiment in synthesis from day one. Following a trajectory defined by increasing integration of these classical textures in Agony (2011), and even more so in Labyrinth (2013), the blood-stained tuxedo gang from Italy were traversing a familiar path when King dropped in 2016. 

Whitechapel - The Valley (2019) Review

 I can't erase these memories, but I will erase humanity

Up to 2019, deathcore veterans Whitechapel from Knoxville perfected but never questioned the vocabulary that helped define the genre’s first major wave from the mid ‘00s and onward. While the band’s earlier work leaned on archetypal lyrical violence and sharpened musical blunt force, The Valley seriously shook the waters as a fundamental reorientation of their career. Explicitly autobiographical, it’s a deeply personal concept album built around the real-life childhood of vocalist Phil Bozeman, and chronicles his upbringing in Hardin Valley (Tennessee), a landscape marked by loss, mental illness and instability. Embedded in the textual architecture of the record are his father’s death when he was ten, as well as his mother’s struggle with alcoholism and schizophrenia before her overdose several years later, often drawing directly from her journals and charging the album a documentary gravity that’s a rare bird in extreme metal. The “valley” itself functions both as the literal setting of where he grew up, but also as a metaphor for the burden of emotional desolation.

Nemorous - What Remains When Hope Has Failed (2025) Review

Above average atmospheric black metal has the capacity to pull you into its world like gravitation, and What Remains When Hope Has Failed is one of those cases. From what was once Wodensthrone, a seminal force in the English underground,  arises Nemorous with their debut album as a meticulous resurrection of a long missed force in the scene. Four years in the making, the album is the product of reinvigoration, a cohesive melodic ambition that projects emotion and often outpaces the sum of its parts.

Right from the moment when opener "The Wyrm at World's End" unfurls its tendrils of tremolo and synth, its sense of longing embedded in the cold establishes itself. Nemorous' world draws from the unbearable grey, the lingering half-life of autumn's last leaves, and expresses itself through the exquisite musicianship of individuals who have already proven themselves within atmospheric black metal circles. Coiling with a fluidity that evokes both melancholy and beauty, the album's textural intelligence with subtle synth touches and gentle guitar tempo shifts, ensure that the listener never settles into complacency. 

There's a natural affinity to legendary atmospheric acts like Agalloch or Fen, but Nemorous does not sound derivative. Tracks like "This Rotten Bough" and "Sky Avalanche" display a real command of dynamics, with the guitars (newly expanded as Rob Hindmarsh has been added to the line-up) yielding rich soundscapes that shimmy between earthy swings and higher tension. Frontman Nick Craggs, the masterful vocalist of death metal wagon Vacivus, deserves his own mention. His delivery has range and nuance, whether it's the deeper growls, the painful shrieks of the spoken word segments, and lends the record a surprisingly human presence amid the atmospheric storm.

Revisiting Wodensthrone for a better verdict on where to place this album in the band's universe, might be in vain, because there's a more distinctly separate entity here, even while being strongly anchored in the atmospheric black metal sound. The production frames the music and its contrasts beautifully, as clean moments breathe, and the few more aggressive ones cut without confusion. What Remains When Hope Has Failed is reflective rather than reactionary, and shows how Nemorous now steps boldly into their own terrain, after a quite decent first EP in 2021.

Release: December 19th, 2025 | Bindrune Recordings
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 [Great]

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