Nargaroth - Apocalyptic Steel (2026) Review

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. 

Vafurlogi - Gneisti af eldi Guðs (2026) Review

We're no strangers to the glory of the Icelandic black scene, which has always aimed for production of music with ever-present ferocity, and continental significance. Most of the bands active during the previous decade dominated my playlists of favorites, some of which I still consider recordings or such magnitude that elevates the whole genre. 

One could argue that one of the perpetrators of the movement was Svartidauði with their earliest demos in the mid 00s, then continued by numerous impressive bands, such as Sinmara and their 2014 debut, Aphotic Womb, as well as the more well-rounded continuation, Hvísl stjarnanna (2019).

Saidan - Fangdriller: Scars Beneath Memory's Wrist (2026) Review

This act has caused significant turbulence within the scene since its formation only a few years ago, yet in that short span it has already assembled a quite formidable catalogue of full-length albums. Saidan's frenetic brand of black metal, amplified by overwhelming melodicism and blended with the dismal aura of Japanese horror, has grown a large audience through the effectiveness of its riffing and mercurial style of songwriting. Evolution has been evident throughout their entire discography, with each release surpassing the last.

Goetia - Mortuary Cult (2026) Review

 

I've known Washington D.C.'s Goetia for a while now and have enjoyed their series of highly regarded EPs from 2023 to 2025, bursting into the underground scene with a sort of boosted ferocity considering a band that barely existed a few years prior. 

 

Debut full-length album Mortuary Cult takes advantage of the momentum and embraces a straightforward yet highly volatile take on death metal, influenced by the classic era of the genre's birth and the style of heavy thrash's bands from the late '80s and start of the '90s.

Haemoth - Black Dust (2026) Review

If you had dealings Haemoth's second full-length album, Of Vice, Suffering and Destruction in 2004, you're certainly one of the bookworms of this scene. The band's run of demos and few records since the late '90s is of a semi-legendary status, yet I've always felt they never got the recognition they deserved due to numerous French black metal bands operating at the time. 

When they signed up with Debemur Morti Productions for the release of the excellent In Nomine Odium (2011), I thought things would then get rolling for them, but no — what followed was another 15 year-long silence. Today, we can finally witness the sun turn black with the project's fourth album, Black Dust, this time on Agonia Records and with a never-forgotten, unique trade of black metal malice.

Grave Pilgrim - The Pungent Wine of Pride (2026) Review

Grave Pilgrim have been on the rise in the American black metal underground. After releasing a remarkable self-titled debut album in 2021, the band initiated a conceptual trilogy of follow-up releases starting with 2023's The Bigotry of Purpose — a record you must listen to immediately if you haven't already. The Oregon duo's sound is rooted in black metal, but also carries traces of Americana, folk, and a martial grandeur. Most importantly to me, it's always driven by ideas. The Pungent Wine of Pride is the second chapter of this planned trilogy connected to the Nietzschean concept of transformation, specifically revolving around the figure of the Lion. This represents the spirit that breaks free from obedience and asserts its rightful own will.

Grabunhold - Frostheim (2026) Review

I remember anticipating Heldentod eagerly in 2021, due to the great impression I had of German outlet Grabunhold from their 2019 EP, Unter dem Banner der Toten. The debut album proved remarkable, and the band continued on a positive note with 2023's split release with Circle of Shadows, slowly drafting their own continuous landscape of Tolkien-inspired, triumphant and vigorous black metal. Half a decade after the first album, Frostheim is still characterized by mystique of the old world, winter imagery, and a higher than average aptitude for guitar-fronted melancholy in darkness buried deep, beyond all towers strong and high, beyond all mountains steep.

Mansvara - Sable Odes to Nihility (2026) Review

Since the earliest days, Polish black metal has maintained a firm presence in the underground scene and has notably evolved its psychological darkness over the years. What once was an obscure force of paganism and profanity later gauged interest into the avant-garde, the melodic and the theatrical, with a few names eventually landing their feet well into the mainstream. The younger generation of bands has a lot to absorb from their national markers, but it would be a mistake to assume you know what to expect. Fresh blood Mansvara formed last year and have already garnered enough firepower for their debut full-length album, Sable Odes to Nihility, a carefully organized black / death metal acrimony.

Werwolf - Satanic Terror (2026) Review

Formed back in 2005 and only sporadically active until recent years, you would prove to be a real book worm if you had Werwolf (no relation to the Finnish pseudonym of similar spelling) from Freiburg, Germany in your listening archives. The thread of releases in smaller formats the project in the current decade should have suggested an impending buildup to a full-length album, yet I still never saw Satanic Terror coming. The record sounds exactly like something that has been rotting far away for far too long, and plants itself in the soil of the earlier era with the fearlessness of a band with more experience than it might seem.

Satanic Terror is burrowed in the basements of the oldest Scandinavian school, yet more reminiscent of 20th century bands like Celestial Bloodshed and Cornigr, while in pursuance of black metal sanctity as treated by, e.g. Watain or Chaos Invocation (with whom they share a member too, as far as I understand). The production is predictably cold and the tremolo is honored throughout, as Werwolf don’t feel the pressure to consistently boost speeds to norsecore, but instead lay out mid-paced sections often in the album. Of course, it has its accelerated feral moments, like e.g. in “Whore of Dead Heaven” (damn) or the opening of “Temple of No Light”, but the slower anguished parts (“Unholy Trinity”, “Infernal Devotion”) occupy more of the album’s space. 

Apart from the notable self-titled opener, one of its finer moments is when the band combines the frantic and hypnotic tension like in the track “...of Cursed Places and Desegrated Graves”, which takes its time to start and then is slowly adorned with thunderous, memorable guitar melodies. Here and there, Werwolf possibly (and intentionally) sounds just a little bit too familiar (“Shrine of Faith”) but I didn’t find myself disillusioned with it, especially by how disciplined and palpable of its intentions the whole of the record is. Its uniformity of buzzing guitars, harsh vocals and coarse sound gives Satanic Terror a nostalgic quality, but only in the sense of reasserting old doctrines at just about the ideal album duration of ~30 minutes.

You won't be sucker punched by this album if you have the idea of what it is about, but it's efficient enough to bash you to submission. Mostly aggressive and fairly immersive at its slower turns, Satanic Terror is as blunt as its title, and a statement that could go on a banner about the state of black metal, or what it should be. Werwolf proceed to engage using mostly the same tonal palette across all their tracks, but it wouldn't make sense to shuffle things up. Terror.

Release: April 24th, 2026 | Dominance of Darkness Records
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 

Black Cilice - Votive Fire (2026) Review

At what point does organic consistency become its own form of artistic statement? Seven full-length albums in (not thinking of all the demos, splits and EPs in between) since 2009 clearly accentuate Black Cilice’s absolute indifference to expectations of progression, a project convicted to a certain vision from day one, and having stood its ground from that very moment. I discovered this Portuguese hermit somewhere around Banished From Time (2017) and Transfixion of Spirits (2019), and worked my way both backward and forward to get the full idea of what this is about, a noble practitioner of the dark arts as utilized by compatriots such as Vetala, Mons Veneris, and later Candelabrum.

With four songs, and none shorter than seven minutes, Votive Fire still carries the devotion of the project to obscurity, and presses further into its own essential nature. Despite the apparent strata of lo-fi haze and the intentionally smothering production, I found the album’s sound to be the least impenetrable to date, as it’s now even possible to decipher riff sections a bit more clearly even from the first listens. Black Cilice has achieved compositions with distinct borders, yet still bound to a seamless, standoffish flow that the band exercises for the last 15+ years now. Isolated and deeply esoteric, Votive Fire doesn’t casually deploy its imagery, yet it might be the “easiest” starting point for someone getting into this soundrealm. 

Under the thick chunks of raw black metal distortion lies genuine melodic presence, and the guitars manage to stay descriptive and evocative while generating texture. Melancholic, compelling riff work is a cornerstone of artists in this territory, and Black Cilice’s energy manipulation has repeatedly kept me hooked in the past, even more so now with its slightly more flagrant posture. Parallels to our own Μνήμα can be drawn, but Votive Fire never bellies up to that much outward hostility, instead it burns quietly by handling monotony in moderation and with a steady hand. The record opens with a load of echoing tremolo on its longest piece, “Released by Fire”, and the uniformity, for its own sake, never really breaks for the next 36 minutes.

Tracks “Vows Sworn for Centuries” and “Into the Inner Temple” advance with various levels of velocity, as the forlorn guitar lines towards the end of both these tracks approach the numinous and are among the album’s most memorable moments. These kinds of melodies bleed straight from raw black metal’s main arteries, and Black Cilice has tapped into them. Woeful howling vocals waver at the edge of perception and feel like transmitting from somewhere unreachable, while the drums also occupy their own space in the project, not embedded but not separated from the mix at the same time. On the middle part of the last track, “Deconstruction of All Realities”, the guitar leads are lifted briefly to the surface with a small gesture, and march firmly toward Votive Fire's noise-boosted outro.

At first blush, there’s no obvious development in the formula of the album, which looks like it doesn’t reach beyond established framework, as great as it is for those attuned to the style. From my standpoint, the slight change in production makes for a significant difference in outcome, as the project withholds way less than before while remaining as hot-blooded for dreadful black metal as before. By gaining this sharper contour, the inner mechanics of Black Cilice’s mystique are more evident, but it’s still grim as hell. Still for fans only, and plainly recommended. 

Release: May 1st, 2026 | Iron Bonehead Productions
Rating: 4 out of 5

Mylingar - Út (2026) Review

Following the malignant trilogy of dead roads, dead dreams, and dead souls released by anonymous Swedish (?) project Mylingar between 2016 - 2019,  we were left stunned and aghast but also almost forgot about them thereafter. Nearly seven years is a long time to wait, as the band’s return to action with their third full-length album, Út, and first chapter of another trilogy, begins something new without a single edge softened, picking up where it was buried in 2019 with Döda själar. The long break has only allowed the darkness to insistently seep into Mylingar’s domineering black / death metal anticosmos, crying out in phrases of ritual and dissonance from a wound once opened, and now re-torn. 

The new record consists of seven tracks, whose titles form a sentence in old Norse that translates to the grim following: “May my blood cultivate the soil from below” [1]. Út’s production provides a distinct sense of a cold enclosure, a chamber sealed and echoing riffs sometimes distinct, sometimes under impenetrable layers of buzz. Mylingar’s ever-present pressure concedes to some unsought blurriness, however there’s an appreciable level of compositional intermixture and rhythm fracturing that not only destabilizes the listener’s footing, it also adds to the album the intrigue and substance necessary for such works to float. Both sound and music are disturbing, a cohesive descent to places of unlight with disharmony woven into every formal decision the record makes.

A strange tension between motion and stasis is established under the overarching wall-to-wall carnage, where it’s not directly clear when the band slides from one track section to the next. Closest relatives to this kind of relentless, compressed savagery would be bands like Altarage or Abyssal, with moments distantly reminding me of Serpent Column / Impetuous Ritual at times, however Mylignar also use restraint as a weapon, unlike their tempestuous contemporaries. Opener “Megi”, alongside following tracks “blóð” and “mitt” are overtaken by this trance and keep pummeling to a point of meditative disconnect. Slower passages are dragged along for extended torment, and the first side is not even the most unsettling of the album.

Alongside the surplus of primitive force encountered on the vehement lines of “raekta”, lies the complete surrender of the band to its bestial self, as Út slowly introduces elements of harsh noise electronics in the beginning and end of “jarðveginn”, one of the most punishing pieces of the album. Inside the turbulence, one can also notice the verminous, Cruciamentum-esque death metal riffing on “af”, as well as the truly monstrous middle part. The closing "neðan", the longest track on Út, opens with what could be a seriously malformed, late ‘00s - early ‘10s era Krallice guitar notion, and then indulges in distorted electronics that completely liquefy the album into abstruse harsh noise. 

Mylingar always proceed with a playing style that defies segmentation, and the overall musicianship nails it: uncanny and foundational bass work, drumming that articulates the record’s processional rhythm, and the highlight of these absolutely agonizing vocals moaning against sizzling magma (most notably, for me, on “raekta” and the high-pitched screams of “jarðveginn”, but really, everywhere). By the time it ends, and due to the album’s otherworldly denouement, it feels like Út has taken the listener somewhere fairly far from the point of departure, despite an apparent homogeneity.  Considering the period in which the band released their previous trilogy, it’s only safe to assume there’s more from Mylingar in the works, and maybe closer than you think.

Release: April 17th, 2026 | Amor Fati Productions
Rating: 4 out of 5

    [1] AN NCS PREMIERE: MYLINGAR — “ÚT”. No Clean Singing. (2026).

Pig's Blood - Destroying the Spirit (2026) Review

With less alarm and greater eagerness we seize the third full-length album by Milwaukee-based war metal moniker Pig’s Blood, whose first two drops of venom I absorbed with foolish confidence. Seven years after the release of A Flock Slaughtered, and after a sensible transfer to the ghastly carriage of Dark Descent Records, the band’s imposed brutality presents itself with a refined sound, and a constant pressure of blackened death that never ceases to shock. Destroying the Spirit doesn’t shy away from the usual constant bashing and blasphemy, while also now harnessing an attenuated conception of buoyancy across its 33 minutes of duration that boosts the outcome above the genre's bar of mediocrity. 

The first and most notable aspect on the album is the sharpened production, which is less clouded than in previous works, and yet not at the expense of heaviness. A tightly mastered sound offers the instruments discernible space, it’s audible and binds everything into notable cohesion, finally exposing all the grisly tools of the band openly to the listener. Destroying the Spirit's core still remains what is expected from Pig's Blood: the band operates on all speeds as guitars, drums and vocals erupt and spill molten phrases that violently march with clear delineation in the liminal zone between old-school death and black metal. 

The tracks on Destroying the Spirit are immediate but deceptive, as the small rhythmic changes and recurring patterns indicate an exquisite compositional grasp on war metal. “Rabid Dogs” and “Satanic Hammer of Justice” lean the strongest into that direction and praising the corpses of Archgoat, while there’s an odor of Incantation everywhere, especially e.g. in the main riffs and transitory soloing of “Power to Stop It”, or the opener “Standing In Depravity”. Nothing but pure delight is to be experienced when listening to the bestial madness of tracks like “Tartarean Infection” and even more so “Ravenous Hellslaught”, which also has a Profanatica flavor in its logic of scale riffing that always delivers.

Same goes for the opening lines of one of the Destroying the Spirit’s standouts, “Aftermath”, which draws from all the aforementioned and also features well-implemented higher-pitched howls, unlike the orkish growling that takes place for the most part of the album. You’ll find the same vocal terror on the convulsive closing piece, “Strikeforce of Isolate Will”, where the band finishes things off with an epic blast. Across the record, strains of blackened thrash (for example, in the middle part of the title track) can also be picked up, and there’s a fixed feel of forward momentum akin to early Deicide, but through a considerably more blackened lens and militaristic cadence.

Ultimately, the tenets of the genre are not reinvented, but with Destroying the Spirit, the grip is certainly tightened. Pig's Blood remain ruthless, the desecration is controlled and happens in broad daylight. The album is offered for repeated listens, seeks to overwhelm with precision and brute force, resonating with the savage legacy of old assailants from Blasphemy to Order From Chaos. I found its clarity to be a big advantage in appreciating the new material and its impact, hinting how the band can manage just fine based on musical merit alone. The spirit has been destroyed.

Release: April 24th, 2026 | Dark Descent Records
Rating: 4 out of 5

Ultha - A Light So Dim (2026) Review

With an overly potent series of full-length albums that peaked with 2022’s remarkable All That Has Never Been True, Ultha have slowly outpaced most of their contemporaries the last decade, in a way that one not even have noticed if one hasn’t been observant. As fine practitioners of misery-fueled atmospheric black metal, the band’s low-key confident, promotionless release of fifth record A Light So Dim stands at the crossroads of a well-settled sound and experimentation that feels quite natural, given their individuality.

We’re looking at a considerable expansion of the atmospheric black metal skeleton, which now houses, even more distinctly, some of the band’s impulses towards ambient, darkwave, post-rock or even dream-pop, without losing the thread of what makes them Ultha in the first place. I found several characteristics that I love from the band in A Light So Dim, especially in the soaring guitar riffs that made them so effective to me in the first place. At the same time, there’s an accustomed focus on a more widespread, anguished sound that hangs over you like a sky that refuses to clear.

Right off the bat, the band doubles down on what, in my opinion, they do best. Long-form black metal heavily into post-metal territory, with the guitar lines having an unmistakable potency on “Love As We’re Falling Down”, the first longer piece after the three-minute, nonconformist introduction “The Unseen World”. Bracketed sequencing rightfully earns Ultha’s conceptual ambitions, and there’s constantly new elements to discover in each track, or part of a part of a track. Most sections take minutes to fully reveal themselves, and no matter how long it takes, there’s always a tremolo that finally surges.

A Light So Dim has a less of a pugnacious viewpoint compared to previous records, one that can also be found on the ominous “Hex Upon Our Heads”, mostly fast-paced tension with death metal growls before a last minute of ambiance. At other times, Ultha defy the metal backbone completely, as for example on “The Quiet Current”, fully on clean vocals and guitars until right about the end, where a switch is flipped again. The record is wholly characterized by vocal diversity, and apart from the band’s known black metal howling or growls, there is frequent both male and female clean singing. 

A personal highlight is the avantgarde track “What's Yours Is Yours To Carry”, which relies on a beat-like opening tempo and then is embraced by angelic female vocals. In the middle of the track, the band introduces perilous slow-paced riffing that is essentially carved out of classic Black Sabbath, coupled with a female voice that makes you think it’s someone like Windhand instead of Ultha. Interchanging with lower growling and a distorted opera sample at the end, it’s one of the most interesting tracks of the album.

Listening to this could be a test of patience, as passages are conveyed with repetition that might be too much for some to put up with. This was more evident to me towards the latter part of A Light So Dim, particularly in the closer “To Part The Abelia Springs” (i.e. a handful of melodies across 11 minutes) as well as “Pink Lights Soiling To Copper” (monotonous but on the heavier side). If you have trained yourself in the likes of, e.g. Ash Borer or Fauna though, there’s nothing to be afraid of here. The production is polished but with a raw edge, melodies and textures are clean and always present, even at the album's most repeated moments.

"Cherry Knots (The Sun Shines Through You)" is track that dwells outside what's strictly metal, pressing with a sharp noise / dark ambient introduction and a powerfully emotional, and highly memorable echoing piano melody (strangely reminding of an older track, "Peccatum" by doom metal band Isole, from their 2009 album Silent Ruins) with dark clean vocals. The electronic / trip-hop twist in the track is one of the multiple instances Ultha shows their predilection for experimentalism on A Light So Dim. However, this must have already been clear from the eerie voices, synth handling and gnarled guitar riffs of "Her Still Singing Limbs" earlier in the album.

Taking a clear step towards unexplored soundscapes, the band doesn't seem to be out of ideas for new music, which now grows into its completely own form. With all its poignant melancholy, A Light So Dim manages to drift into something approaching devotional beauty, and it doesn't feel forced or overblown. I've struggled with similar mutations of atmospheric / post-black metal bands in the past, but here it seems to click perfectly, once you let it. It's not the instant eye-catcher, but real splendor lies within.

Release: April 2nd, 2026 | Vendetta Records
Rating: 4 out of 5

Rosa Faenskap - Ingenting forblir (2026) Review

When did contemporary Norwegian black metal shift from corpse-painted despotism to more reflexive frameworks? Rosa Faenskap's sophomore album Ingenting forblir (= nothing endures) challenges the country's sonic tradition while not completely abandoning it, in what is a continuum of dark hardcore / post-black metal with a distinct Nordic genealogy. Having been oblivious of the trio's debut Jeg blir til deg (2023), I grappled with the record without knowing what to expect, which certainly wasn't this hybridization of tremolo worship, clean guitar diffusion and temporal undulation that consistently draws from multiple stylistic reservoirs (doom, prog, post-rock, punk) even with pure black metal as the anchor of its formalism.

Opening piece "Den svake mannen" is the instructive example of the band's methodology, tinkering shoegaze-like guitar lines on a path that gradually moves in heavier doom / black metal aggression. Some of the most characteristic Norwegian outcries can be found on the first notes of "Faenskap for alltid" (and later, also on "Bygg til himmelen", but of course not exclusively), but they never overstay their welcome. Punk-inflected vocals and abrupt tempo shifts, frequently switching with more layered post-rock breaks, felt to me like Rosa Faenskap consciously attempts to re-situate black metal within the family tree of radical underground music, and maybe wash some of the stain away.

The album's concept truly is the hottest punchline here. Where's the misanthropy, where's the pagan romanticism or the glorification of death? The band's intensity of expression has political concerns, with lyrics about social injustice and rising hatred, environmental worry and queer liberation. This alone will stir the pot enough for Ingenting forblir to be discussed, but it's engaging enough from a musicological perspective to grant at least the basic level of acknowledgement. Momentum of hardcore-boosted black metal across instances of ambient, almost cosmic interludes on "La barna leve" and "Klarhet i kaos" keeps the attention and never lets the dance between genres to quiet down.

One of my favorite moments on the album is the gloomy acoustic guitar introduction of "Famler i hatet", as well as the continuation in tormenting, mostly middle-paced speed and howling vocals, which randomly reminded me of another track by the Danish dark hardcore band Église, named "Have I Become Hell". Possibly not related anywhere else except my brain, but they do fit in the same playlist. Ingenting forblir covers an emotional range from despair to optimism, most notably in the almost ten-minute closing track "Jeg våkner snart", where the band accumulates all the rhythm and distortion it can to finish things off in a form of cleansing. It's one of the most demanding pieces but flows nicely, as does the whole of the record.

Apart from the elephant in the room, which will not be commented further, this is how experimentation and unrest can result in an album's benefit. Rosa Faenskap's musical multiplicity lifts them above the average blackgaze atmospheric wash. It gets its hands dirty when it needs to despite the apparent eclecticism meant to scare off black metal's bad boys. Some changes did feel a bit sudden, and some softer instances stretched, but the excitement doesn't reduce when listening to it. I could say, as exciting as hearing what people would have to say about it. 

Release: March 6th, 2026 | Fysisk Format
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

  

Olhava - Memorial (2026) Review

I never quite ventured into Olhava's earlier works, and my introduction to the Russian atmospheric black metal duo came through the arresting artwork of 2022's Reborn, which was the reason that led me to discover their horizon-reaching interpretation of the genre. By 2024, the band had signed with Avantgarde Music and released the conceptual album Sacrifice, an album whose thematic touch appears to be further elaborated on their latest record, Memorial. 

Tracing back to Ladoga (2020), the "Ageless River" series of interlude tracks have functioned as connective tissue across the three albums, incrementally numbered throughout with Memorial advancing from X to XIII. In between these pieces, are four monumental compositions of elevated atmospheric black metal, injected with generous quantities of post-black and blackgaze sensibility, as well as ambient passages that appear frequently on the surface. The prevailing intensity of the record is of a kind more attuned to post-rock or post-metal fans, rather than to the freaks that dwell in the dungeons of black metal. Main tracks span from seven to above 20 minutes in duration, a structural approach entirely aligned with Olhava's established modus operandi, and in many aspects, cleanly mirroring Sacrifice in its presence.

"After I'm Gone" emerges perfectly from the introductory "Ageless River X" unfurling atop a bedrock of ambient and post-rock texture that demonstrates the band's contemplative nature, and the album's incandescent energy. The track gets dreamier and dreamier as it progresses through fast-paced, cyclical motifs emblematic of Olhava's identity. The 20-minute colossus "When the Ashes Grow Old" sustains the post-black metal radiance before submerging into purer heavenly ambiance in its middle part. Memorial's riverine flow of sound exhibits fluctuation only when the "Ageless River" interludes appear - the same signature sound of blackgaze psyche is strongly maintained all across the album.

At nearly 80 minutes, Memorial's length fits both the genre's and the band's scale. Compared to Sacrifice, I noticed a tiny improvement on the more balanced sound of the drums, but other than that, the album delivers a form of post-black metal strikingly similar to its predecessor, perhaps a bit too much. For adherents of Olhava's state of expression, however, there is little to resist here.

Release: February 27th, 2026 | Avantgarde Music
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Atavistic Passage - Demonstration Two (Demo, 2025) Review

Second demo of strongly similar philosophy as the first, laid out by UK black metal project Atavistic Passage, an one-man entity by the same person behind Hibernian Abyss (you may not be familiar with either, but it's high time you looked into them). Continuing the necro-sonic path paved out by the 2024 demo Demonstration One, the template is familiar - two main tracks between an intro and outro, cohesive and direct at just over fifteen minutes of lo-fi prayer.

The central pieces “Ecstatic Power” and “Physical Manifestations of Psychic Spite” scratch speakers and headphones with the abrasion of quality raw black metal, as the guitars surge on a trance of distortion, and the vocals screech atop the din with determination. It's cold and secluded, rooted in the classiest of the genre's classics, echoing skeletal chants in cavernous halls accessible only to the ears most devoted to this music.

With a handful of rudimentary harmonic shifts, the demo's simplicity is its identity. Buzzing ambient threads of the opening and closing tracks, give it a spatial depth that belies their minimal framework. Demonstration Two is sincere and epigrammatic in delivery, with a certain intrigue that justifies its existence within the raw black metal underground. Every bond is a bond to sorrow.

Rating: 3.5/5

Geheimnisvoll - Pale Triumph of the Hidden Flame (2026) Review

Now growing with the quiet assurance of a project settling into its own mythology, Geheimnisvoll's second full-length album moves with the confidence of a craftsman well into adherence to habit. 

Pale Triumph of the Hidden Flame is just over half an hour long, and offers Finnish-inspired melodicism that permeates across all its seven tracks, yet for better or for worse, rarely mutates. The production leans decisively toward clarity, especially compared to previous releases, and vocals remain steadfast in tone - melodic black metal on instinct, or rather, autopilot.

Weaknesses are difficult to pinpoint, but so are moments of ascension. Each track advances on familiar paths, always guided by an underground ethos, but there's a constant resistance to revelation, while at least also avoiding failure. Geheimnisvoll does not invest on an abrasive edge, as the album's guitar lines glide with a surprising warmth beneath the intended chill.

Aesthetically coherent, but possibly too recognizable, Pale Triumph of the Hidden Flame is pleasant enough for a melodic black metal album, but also only modestly effective. I wouldn't find a highlight moment or track even if I wanted to, but it's all enjoyable enough to leave a positive aftertaste. For fans only.

Rating: 3/5

Bronze Hall - Embers of the Dawn (2026) Review

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. 

Noise Trail Immersion - Symbology of Shelter (2018) Review

The swarm of equations that operate inside Noise Trail Immersion's mechanized dorsal nexus for once in 2018 collapsed into a single violent solution, firmly grounded on two rather volatile branches: pressurized mathcore, and geometric dissonant black metal. The result was the nightmare of a musical and existential crisis under the name Symbology of Shelter, a record that demolished structure and ritualized implosion with a sort of acuteness only individuals allergic to convenience can muster. With an emphasis on spacious negativity, Deathspell-esque chaos and punchy blackened hardcore, the band played with tension like a deranged man with a scalpel, as riffs either burst or wait, drums pivot between frenetic off-axis blasts and metronomic beats that crack the floorboards.

The spirals formed by the dominating guitar work rip traditional lead / rhythm logic to shreds, notes hang like loose exposed wires sparking against concrete, and melody is treated as a chemical with unknown outcome upon contact. Buildup is handled well, as shown, e.g. by the more restrained, almost atmospheric post-metal sections of "The Empty Earth I" and "The Empty Earth II", but all hell breaks loose in their shorter pieces, like the "Repulsion and Escapism" series or "Acrimonious". The self-titled track offers a particular clarity of manic desperation towards the end, while the whole of Symbology of Shelter brought lines of bands like Ulcerate, Serpent Column and Plebeian Grandstand together, yet their -core touch shines genuinely throughout.

Strangled transmissions from someone clawing at the inside of a cell. Our Great Depression, is our minds.

Conceiving a new dimension

 

Release: November 2nd, 2018 // Moment of Collapse Records
Rating: 4 out of 5