Believe it or not, one of the defining moments in my relationship with black metal came the first time I heard Nargaroth's Jahreszeiten, and specifically the repetitive riffing on the last track, "Winter". This was my introduction to this band, before I knew of their earlier, more notorious records, as well as before many of the genre's foundational names. This kind of monotonous melodic austerity captured what I found to be essential in black metal, and shaped how I continue to appreciate it today.
Through the 2000s, Nargaroth had a remarkably consistent catalog of releases, but the following decade felt emptier. Era of Threnody left me largely indifferent, and I sort of lost connection to Kanwulf's (now Ash's) musical activities. Nine years later, Apocalyptic Steel arrives curiously as it diverges from the band's established character, yet consists of material that is anything but new. According to the band, the album was initially recorded in the United States back in 2014, only to receive newly recorded drums and decade later and finally being presented in its complete form in 2026.
Rather than drawing mainly from black metal, Apocalyptic Steel embraces the traditions of classic heavy metal and old-school death metal, through Ash's own personality and his attachment to home and heritage, as well as his lifelong devotion to straightforward heaviness. Gone are the skeletal riff cycles like on "Winter", the melancholic interludes, and the monochrome visuals. In their place stands an unabashed tribute to traditional metal, expressed through two of its all time favorite words: apocalyptic, and steel.
Even the song titles quickly reveal a new perspective. "Metalheart" can't avoid inviting comparisons to Accept's landmark 1985 album, while "I Drink Alone" inevitably made me wonder how George Thorogood & The Destroyers had found their way into Ash's record collection. Whether intentional or not, the track is one of the album's most aggressive, alongside the title track and "Twisted Steel" on the record's first half. Despite the overt framework, I still detect a clear black metal instinct embedded in the guitar lines, yet the death metal influence is also evident, recalling the militant aggression of bands like Deicide and Angelcorpse.
The first moment of a broadened palette comes with "Dresden", whose restrained clean vocals stand out in the album, yet naming a track after a city is not new even within black metal (remember, e.g. Shining's Halmstad). Tha pace is eased considerably towards the closing stretch of Apocalyptic Steel, as "Shelter the Faithless" moves in modest, mid-paced tempo and "Man of Mayhem" frequently shifts between anger, clean chord progressions and slower passages — a title I seriously hope is a node to Sons of Anarchy, since Ash is also probably into the motorcycle culture. The record ultimately amounts to a grand finishing with "Requiem Germania" (completely sung in German), clearly the most epic composition on here.
What makes Apocalyptic Steel an interesting case is not the stylistic departure from a stricter black metal border, but the feeling that Nargaroth has finally managed to express Ash's personal experiences and vision without any limitation in terms of approach. You can hear all his influences on the record, without missing a certain appeal to the elements that most fans have been used to hear from him over the decades. Yet, we may inevitably long for the stark, repetitive melodies that first drew us into the band. Nargaroth of today might not feel pressured to satisfy that particular craving, but it's all in all an honest and respectable return to action from one of black metal's most familiar names.
Release: June 26th, 2026 | Season of Mist Underground Activists
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
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