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

  

Botanist - Paleobotany

 Avantgarde Black Metal / Experimental, United States

Spring 2024, Prophecy Productions

 

Website | Facebook

On their twelfth full-length "Paleobotany", BOTANIST take us back more than 70 million years to a time when dinosaurs ruled the planet and early forests began to turn to coal. Before the age of giants ended in flames with the apocalyptic impact of the Chicxulub asteroid, many plants also grew much larger than their descendants that we know today. "Paleobotany" comes with all the trademark characteristics that set BOTANIST apart from all other metal acts on this planet. Lyrically, the band from San Francisco, CA revolves around species of plants – in a clean break from the usual genre stereotypes like Satan, dragons, and booze. 

 

Their music clearly has its foundation anchored in 'metal', but instead of 6-string guitars the Americans use 110-string hammered dulcimers. To the confused horror of traditionalists, BOTANIST fit these percussion-stringed folk instruments with magnetic pickups and distort them through various perverse means that range from amplifiers via analogue tape to digital manipulation. The resulting sound is as unique as spectacular. BOTANIST's continuing sonic evolution began at an audible Nordic black metal shaped point of entry. The band soon developed a more open, avant-garde style, leading towards a growing complexity. 

 

On "Paleobotany", the Californians have shed some of the more convoluted progressive elements in favour of more song-oriented arrangements that are still rich in details and surprises, which is enhanced through the album being mixed by renowned Swedish producer Fredrik Nordström (DIMMU BORGIR, OPETH, AT THE GATES) at Studio Fredman. BOTANIST are a unique band. "Paleobotany" expands their dark green sonic range of an avant-garde metal sound into a more accessible and dynamic sonic experience. When quadruped giants walked the earth, plants were already there and they will still be here when mankind has gone back to stardust. BOTANIST win their musical future by travelling millions of years into the past with "Paleobotany"!

Dødheimsgard - Black Medium Current (2023) Review

Extraordinary, avantgarde post-modernism undulating between inconceivable boundaries, Norway's Dødheimsgard unveil their latest labyrinthine construction Black Medium Current after the monumental previous work A Umbra Omega from 2015. With terrifically unique musicians and an astonishing trajectory over the last 30 years, the band presents a record that is strongly personal and rightfully so, awfully multi-layered. Expertise and sophistication shines through, it's guaranteed you haven't heard anything like this before except from the band itself and it's one of the cases of a piece that deserves the term "experimental" in a very wholesome manner. 

Black Medium Current clocks at 1 hour and 9 minutes, about the same duration like A Umbra Omega, so it constitutes another hefty chapter in Dødheimsgard’s discography, that needs its time for the dust to settle once a first session is through. Uncommon becomes common with this band’s music, and the listener is trained to not be thrown off balance by anything that comes their way, as it’s a the general order of things that you don’t know what’s around the corner with Black Medium Current. At the same time, the record makes it easier to draw comparisons with other subgenres, something highly unusual for Dødheimsgard. 

Opening with the highlight “Et Smelter”, which has a handful of different sections that are all wonderful and sets an almost post-black metal tone (apart from the wacky ending), the same tempo continues on the second track “Tankespinnerens Smerte”. The first really turbulent moment of the album is at the end of third track “Interstellar Nexus” and especially its connection to the almost 80’s sensuous clean guitar, middle-paced introduction of “It Does Not Follow”. 

A clearer black metal direction is found at “Set Tomme Kalde More” which is to me, another highlight. Less interesting to me were the slower moments, especially in tracks like “Hallow” and “Abyss Perihelion Transit”, and the piano segments “Voyager” and the final track “Requiem Aeternum” are excellent, but in both cases vocals on top were really unnecessary. In a way, Black Medium Current feels a bit less otherworldly than previous material of the band, but that’s only because previous material has been extremely otherworldly. 

I can never say Dødheimsgard surpassed themselves with this record, but it is packed, interesting and full of twists and turns. Since A Umbra Omega’s contained inspiration and particularity is unparalleled, one should rather approach this as a completely new body.

Out on April 14th, 2023 | Peaceville Records

DAMAGE: 3.5/5 [Great]

Gaerea - Mirage (2022) Review

This name will appear in many outlets and probably many lists this year. Gaerea have all it needs to be a part of the widely discussed leading names of the modern black metal scene, right along the biggest names of the scene. They have been on an upward spiral since their debut, they are as photogenic as needed and now come around with an extremely attractive record to prove themselves. But do they? Mirage is by all means grandiose, really expressive and acutely crafted. The sound is powerful and the tracks compelling, cracking the formula of how to make properly heavy material with loads of melodies, borrowing some elements from post-black metal, evocative clean guitar passages and an intense live presence to go along with it. You can feel the vocalist’s agony through these painful screams, and the album explosively starts with highlights “Memoir” and “Salve”.  “Deluge” is also entertaining, “Arson” somehow manages (even though I hear some melodies that are the same as in Mgła), and that reveals a negative aspect of Mirage, its slightly underwhelming evolution until the end. There’s serious blasting in the beginning but it feels to me as ideas become more and more sparse as it progresses. “Ebb” has pretty standard, one-dimensional riffing, the filler clean guitar part of the self-titled track removes a lot of the album’s potential up to that point, and both “Mantle” and the closing “Laude” contain nothing more than average atmospheric / post-black metal lines. Thankfully, the delivery on the vocals often saves the day in the record, which is as a whole a quite satisfactory listening experience, despite the compositional weaknesses in some points. Despite that, this point will not alienate the fans who will worship this, or it will go unnoticed as Mirage is a generally powerful release. Therefore, the enormous praising that Gaerea receive, is not completely unjustified, yet I wouldn’t completely agree on how groundbreaking or genre pushing this work actually is. [3.25/5 - Good]

Sepulchre by the Sea - Conqueror Worm (2020) Review

After a single track demo in late 2019, this one-man project from the UK comes out with the debut full length Conqueror Worm, to be released in November of this year. Openly influenced by themes of Edgar Allan Poe, the band's name could be a reference to one of the poet's last works "Annabel Lee", describing the perseverance of the protagonist's love towards his then deceased woman. As mournful as that piece is, Sepulchre by the Sea aims to convey the same atmosphere through a mixture of traditional black metal and elements of melodic / post-black in Conqueror Worm, which last almost an hour and features six tracks in total. 

Among them, the track from the demo has been re-recorded for the album, and the wider use of different instruments broadens and shows more clearly the musical palette of the project, which combines a variety of characteristics around the basic black metal pattern. Sepulchre by the Sea also employs solid clean vocals at times, most notably in a the wonderful "Slices of Death", while the most intense moments line in the great guitar lines of the self-titled track, "And So It Crumbles" and the middle part of "Behind the Walls". The last of these three takes a calmer turn towards the end to give way to the final track of Conqueror Worm, "Plutonian Shores", a lengthy composition that touches seventeen minutes duration and goes through all the phases of the band's sound, from clean to heavy parts and in between. 

There are a lot of interesting ideas in Conqueror Worm, which wouldn't make it just typical post-black metal, still I think there is space for improvement in terms of cover artwork and production, with the latter having the potential, in my opinion, to give a completely new dynamic edge to the project if handled properly to give space to the compositions to really show their worth. Sepulchre by the Sea's first effort is a fine offering of black metal that isn't direct and raw, for fans of atmospheric / post-black metal artists and of course, for lovers of Edgar Allan Poe.

Alcest - Spiritual Instinct (2019) Review

Origin: France

Label: Nuclear Blast

Release: October 25th, 2019

~~~~

This is the situation of a band I have been following for more than ten years, which I first listened in 2007 with their debut full length, at a time when I wasn't aware of the existence of post-black metal or post-rock in general. Going back to their catalog, Alcest's first demo is the closest to black metal there is, but 2005's EP Le Secret clearly showed the direction the band would follow for the years to come. When Écailles de lune was released in 2010, I fell in love with it and still it is one of my favorite records of the decade.

Since then, I have kind of lost Alcest with their series of albums in the period of 2012 - 2016, which were legit but none of them completely thrilled me at any point. By considering Shelter the weakest point of the project, it was intuitively innocent to consider that they were taking a stance away from their harsher self and sticking more to their ethereal, post-rock sound. Kodama was good, and now the new age of the band puts them under the aegis of Nuclear Blast, maybe the biggest metal label in the world.

For these reasons, I entered Spiritual Instinct with ambiguity. There is not a big change I will hate an Alcest album, but falling into the pool of boredom in this kind of music is a daring challenge. The band's wondrous, delicate style is overwhelming, and the compositions have picked up a kind of intensity that I hadn't heard from them for many years now. Its flooding atmosphere is wonderful, emphasizing the strongest point of Alcest and their signal sound is rendered just amazing. 

While one would never characterize their material as dark, Spiritual Instinct definitely explores a gloomier side of the band but in a very discrete way. The shrieks are back, and how brilliant they are, adding a load of power to the otherwise top-notch clean vocals of Neige. The tracks themselves are vigorous, even containing some more vivid guitar lines I wouldn't think of hearing from Alcest. Heck, the album's first two tunes, "Les jardins de minuit" and "Protection", contain melodies of the best quality this band has offered for some time now.

As a band with a very personal sound, there is no point in comparing it with other post-black / blackgaze bands, but instead only with themselves. I believe they are now at a very good point musically, with Spiritual Instinct climbing high to a place among the best they have ever released. It has the lovable aesthetics, the compelling musicianship, as well as the memorable tunes. The use of vocals is excellent, the guitar work equally beautiful and brings elements of Alcest's vision together in total harmony. 

I can't choose one of the first three tracks on the album as my favorite from Spiritual Instinct, yet the second half of the record will stay in the loop as well for this year. The longest song "L'île des morts" reaches nine minutes in length and is quite powerful, while relatively simpler tracks like "Sapphire" or "Le miroir" give out a soothing feeling that makes you sit even more comfortably and listen to the record. The last moments of the self-titled track end the listen leaving an itch to the brain as if there's more to come, having the listener craving for some more music. Everything is so perfectly placed.

There has been a couple of years now that I had skipped Alcest from my listening sessions, but now they are back, barged into my playlist and staying there. It's nice for a band to achieve this, and bring an urge in you to pick them up again right where you left them. Spiritual Instinct is a definite success and could be right behind Écailles de lune for me, for its flawless flow and merit can't go unnoticed. It's the embodiment of what I admire in this specific band. Congratulations.

Woods of Desolation - As the Stars (2014) Review

Album | As the Stars
Country | Australia
Genre | Atmospheric / Post-Black Metal
Label | Northern Silence Productions

| Anamnesis of fallen stars |

I always thought of Woods of Desolation as a top depressive black metal act, ever since I found them with their obscure split with Drohtnung in 2008. They have been playind DSBM in the debut full length Toward the Depths and in the Sorh EP, which might not have been the best the genre has seen, but still it was pretty decent to my eyes.

They changed into something more atmospheric and released the phenomenal Torn Beyond Reason, which had an incredible impact on me. Now, the band makes progresses a little bit more and releases the legit As The Stars, in the vein of the modern atmospheric / post-black metal scene.

While the main member of the act is D., there have been guest musicians helping with the writing and recording sessions. So it was done here and there is Old of Drohtnung contributing with his vocals, Vlad from Drudkh in the drum post and the bass player Luke Mills, who also plays in Nazxul and Pestilential Shadows. Unlike other bands, this record was written by all the guys together and it was not strict compositions given out by D. only to be reproduced by the rest of the musicians. Every man has offered his part in it's completion.

Woods of Desolation had never tried recording lot's of average length songs before, as there are seven four to six minute tracks here and that's somehow unusual, especially compared to the long hymns of Torn Beyond Reason. They have become more accessible that way, as each track is reduced to a simplistic verse of parts and a couple of changes, if there are any. As The Stars lasts thirty four minutes.

Musically, it resides in post-rock melodies, dreamy riffs and mellow atmospheric black metal. As they are located far away from the Cascades, they are not completely following the lines but it's basically what one would expect from such bands after discovering Alcest. In fact, you can hear that band in the introduction of "Unfold" or "And If All The Stars Faded Away", As The Stars feels like a b side of a post-black era Alcest record.

Old sings with passion and despair at the same time, with his voice reaching it's highest peak in tracks like "This Autumn Light" and "Withering Field". His vocals are distant and eerie, wonderfully melding with the rest of the instruments. The drumming is rather simplistic and not given more attention than needed at any moment, so I guess it would go unnoticed in the album, apart from sparse moments.

As The Stars often changes mood during it's set. While the album opens with a fast (and the most intense it would ever go) riff followed by the harsh vocals in "Like Falling Leaves", it ends with a rather happy post-rock track like "Ad Infinitum". Even though I could not find any memorable moments, it's really enjoyable listening to as a whole. After this, I still think Torn Beyond Reason is the best they've ever made, while enjoying the new one enough for now.

DAMAGE: 7.5/10

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