Comprising members of Horrendous and Crypt Sermon, back in ye strange times of 2021, Philadelphia’s The Silver dropped an impactful debut platter upon the unsuspecting underground masses. Ward of Roses struck a powerful and unexpected blow, welding atmospheric goth, post, black, and progressive elements into a biting and melodramatic slab of extreme metal. Time flies, and nearly five years later, The Silver make an anticipated return through sophomore album, Looking Glass of Hymnal Blue. Already boasting a unique, versatile and imposing formula, rather than dramatically reinventing their sound, Looking Glass of Hymnal Blue finds The Silver tightening the nuts and bolts of their songwriting to forge a confident continuation and subtle evolution of Ward of Roses.

Balance is the key to unlocking The Silver’s songwriting power and stirring dynamics. A wicked melting pot of gothy atmosphere, darkly sparkling melodicism, and stormy theatricality, Looking Glass of Hymnal Blue grounds these elements with anguished extremes, the harrowing howls of vocalist Nick Duchemin, and a hyperactive barrage of blast beats, frantic, blackened riffage, and steely aggression. This enticing, ying-yanging combination is expertly crafted, especially when combined with progressive arrangements that flex The Silver’s strengths and unorthodox charms with interesting, complex musicianship and memorable hooks. Shrouded in an atmosphere of icy melancholy, Looking Glass of Hymnal Blue’s wrenching emotional resonance lends further substance to the dense material. Notably, the improved clean vocal lines play a more integral role, featuring an emotive, addictive punch soaring through the album’s jagged, bleaker terrain.

The opening title track sets the tone, unleashing visceral bursts of turbulent axework and frantic rhythms, as dueling harsh and clean vocals consolidate The Silver’s mastery of contrast, including frosty beauty and beast dynamics. Some almost Opeth-esque bluesy guitar work and a beautifully delivered clean vocal passage cap off a stellar introduction. Longer form epics form the bulk of the album, as evidenced on the album’s lengthiest piece, the stunning, nearly nine-minute-long “Two Candles.” The Silver handle the weighty composition with crafty skill. Urgent, savage ebbs smoothly intermingle with soaring cleans, mellow passages, and colorful guitar work. It’s an ambitious, frequently gripping journey, encapsulating The Silver’s strengths and individuality in one momentous epic. Elsewhere, The Silver’s keen balancing act also shines on shorter, punchier songs, such as the aggressive, percussive-heavy surge and pristine melodics of “Memorias,” or violently thrashing assault and blackened intensity of “Tendrils.”

Ward of Roses possessed a distinct freshness and raw delivery complimenting its harsher realms and melodrama. Naturally, the elements of surprise are tempered second time around, Looking Glass of Hymnal Blue only marginally sacrifices the rawer edge of the debut, compensating through a stronger, more confident melodic presence and tighter songcraft. The Silver’s proggy inclinations come to the fore, deviating from conventional writing and maintaining a rich infectiousness, where hooks bore into the soul and lodge in the memory bank. Musically, Looking Glass of Hymnal Blue is another ambitious, genre-splicing beast, straddling post, black, prog, and doomy realms with aplomb, maintaining cohesion, beefing up the technicality and rippling guitar fireworks, and pushing forward Matt Knox’s confident, compelling clean vocal melodies. This may not work for all listeners, depending on tolerance for Knox’s vocal style, which generally dips less into the spoken word theatrics that were occasionally a stumbling block on Ward of Roses. Special mention also to the robust rhythm section; as plump basslines, pulsating rhythms, and intricate drum patterns demand attention.

Only the shorter, bluesy later album cut “…Twilight of Love” falls short of the hefty standards of its counterparts, though it is a solid song regardless, feeding into the colossal power, violent throes, and affecting melodies of closer “My Lone Dark Lantern.” Looking Glass of Hymnal Blue adds intriguing twists and layers to an already cool formula, largely levelling up from the sophisticated, exciting promise of their debut. Crafting another accomplished, beautifully produced album, The Silver avoid the dreaded sophomore slump, taking minor creative risks while both expanding and consolidating their unique sound. Taking their time with this second opus, the payoff is grand, and The Silver’s welcome return suggests this project is here for the long haul.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: Stream
Label: Gilead Media
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: March 20th, 2026

Yellow Eyes – Confusion Gate [Things You Might Have Missed 2025]

By Samguineous Maximus

Romantic sublimity. It’s the idea that something in nature or art can be both wondrous and terrifying. Few bands capture this feeling as vividly as Yellow Eyes. Led by the Skarstad brothers, the New York band has explored this duality across their catalog—from the more straightforward black metal of Silence Threads the Evening’s Cloth (2012) and Sick With Bloom (2015), to the atmospheric and dissonant soundscapes of Immersion Trench Reverie (2017) and Rare Field Ceiling (2019), and even the dungeon synth/dark ambient territory of Master’s Murmur (2023). Throughout these records, their alien guitar work, uncanny melodic sense, ability to craft music that is both beautiful and oppressive, and obsessive attention to aesthetic detail have made Yellow Eyes one of the most exciting contemporary black metal acts. Now, 6 years removed from their last “proper” black metal record, Yellow Eyes have returned with Confusion Gate, a surprise release and one of the last albums on the legendary underground label Gilead Media. They’ve also casually released one of the best black metal albums of the decade.

The best way to describe Confusion Gate is that Yellow Eyes have returned to a more traditional atmospheric black metal sound, but have taken with them all of the lessons from the albums they’ve produced since. Compositions are expansive and built on the standard black metal foundation (blast beats, tremelos, kvlt shrieking) but are imbued with a stunning sense of hypnotic melody from synths, nature sound effects, and layers of luminous guitars. The classic Krallice-like Skarstad guitar work, which defies all conventional logic, appears plenty here, but it’s nested in a sea of gorgeous harmonies. Songs introduce motifs, develop them, and return to them in a way that resembles classical composition, creating a cohesive and deeply textured sonic journey. Confusion Gate captures the Thoreau-tinged naturalism from Cascadian black metal legends Agalloch and Wolves In The Throne Room, runs them through the kaleidoscopic filter of Trhä, and finishes them with the distinctive melodic dissonance of Yellow Eyes. The result is an immaculate realization of the band’s sound that feels at once familiar and utterly novel.

In many ways, Confusion Gate feels like the full realization of the potential hinted at by Master’s Murmur. Several standout tracks (“Brush the Frozen Horse,” “Suspension Moon,” “I Fear the Master’s Murmur”) interpolate haunting melodies from their 2023 dungeon synth album gorgeously, elevating them to sublime heights at the center of these dynamic and powerful compositions. Combined with a series of subdued interludes, the record takes on the shape of a complete, carefully sculpted work. Across full listens, I find myself lulled into a dark, reflective haze by the album’s more brooding passages (“The Scent of Black Mud,” “A Forgotten Corridor”), only to be jolted awake by moments of startling beauty. For an hour-plus black metal album, there are no pacing issues, just a masterful display of contrast and tension that culminates in the breathtaking, blissful climax of the title track. All of this is rendered with a warm, crunchy analog texture, the result of a fully self-recorded and self-produced effort that defiantly rejects the oppressive polish of so many modern releases. Every synth line, kick drum hit, and ethereal guitar figure feels alive and organic in a way few contemporary records do.

It’s hard for me to adequately convey my thoughts on Confusion Gate because Yellow Eyes has produced a record that transcends the traditional logic that we analyze music with. When I’m listening to this album, I just experience a raw outpouring of feeling and emotion beyond what most art has the ability to convey. It’s a stunning achievement that stands as a testament to the sheer pathos music can conjure and it’s one of the best black metal records of the decade.

Songs To Check Out: “Brush the Frozen Horse,” “The Thought of Death,” “I Fear the Master’s Murmur,” “Confusion Gate”

#2025 #Agalloch #AmericanMetal #AtmosphericBlackMetal #BlackMetal #ConfusionGate #GileadMedia #Krallice #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2025 #Trhä #WolvesInTheThroneRoom #YellowEyes

Mizmor & Hell – Alluvion Review

By Carcharodon

A.L.N. (a.k.a. Mizmor) and M.S.W. (Hell) inhabit similar territories: geographically, the Pacific Northwest; sonically, abrasive, droning, blackened doom; and, perhaps critically, emotionally, all claustrophobic, tortured heft. Although they’ve collaborated live before, Alluvion, which refers to the sedimentary deposits left by a body of flowing water, is their first studio outing together. Billed as a map to aid the listener in navigating through bouts of psychic distress, the prone form on the cover could easily be me by the time I’m finished with this review, crushed beneath the weight of Mizmor & Hell’s compositions, corpse abandoned on that mountainside rising from the promo sump. I’ve been interested in anything Mizmor has put out since Yodh, and enjoyed his last full-length, Prosaic, quite a bit. However, the last Mizmor collaboration that I dived into (with Andrew Black) left me cold. I went into Alluvion expecting a more familiar experience, given the similarities with Hell, which suggested that I might be in for a more predictable, if more emotionally exhausting, ride. So what will Alluvion leave behind in its wake?

If you are familiar with Mizmor and Hell’s past works, and can sort of picture what a collaboration focused on psychic distress might sound like, BOOM, you’re right! Alluvion is exactly that. Dense, doom-laden oppression, nuzzling up against moments of surprising delicacy and tenderness, with the latter kicking things off on opener, “Begging to be Lost.” The first two minutes of strings-only tranquillity hint at the rumbling blackened sludge that follows. With both men contributing vocals and guitars (while Hell handles bass, and Mizmor drums), when the hammer does fall, it falls hard. Noting the descriptor that Mizmor & Hell intended Alluvion to act as a means of navigating mental health struggles, I see the shifting moods of the record as mapping onto the ebb and flow of these challenges, from anvil-like oppression, through devastating chaos into exhausted moments of clarity, that border on hopeful. All this and more is packed into the 16 minutes and change of “Begging to be Lost” alone. Something resembling respite is offered by the percussion- and vocal-free “Vision I,” its distorted, reverberating drone cathartic in its simplicity.

As Mizmor & Hell move into standout piece “Pandemonium’s Throat,” the pattern of “Begging to be Lost” is repeated but in amplified form. The gentle opening notes bear hints of distortion, the droning guitar lines offer a rawer, blackened edge, while the vocals (Hell’s, I think) take on a more desperate, rasping edge. When all hell breaks loose—no pun intended—around the seven-minute mark, we find ourselves nudging into stripped back, heavily distorted black metal, with a frantic energy that is almost second wave in its intensity. Going into Alluvion, I’d braced myself for an epic on the scale of Yodh or Cairn, both of which hover around the hour mark. In fact, this comes in a surprisingly compact package, clocking in at just 39 minutes. But nevertheless, and perhaps because of the harrowing journey the listener is taken on, by the time we reach closer, “Vision II,” there’s an exhausted and drawn feel to Mizmor & Hell’s work. It’s that feeling of full-body tiredness we’ve all known at one point or another, where every part of you feels heavy and drained.

All that said, Alluvion isn’t quite as traumatic, nor as soul-destroying, as I’d braced myself for from this Mizmor & Hell combination. There are two reasons for this. First, “Vision I” and “Vision II,” which act as a mid-album interlude and outro,1 respectively. These serve to both offer up some respite for the listener—leaving to one side the rather unsettling, wordless voices that swirl and clack around you at the end of “Vision II”—but also to significantly lessen the complexity of the album. Comprising over a quarter of Alluvion, they are, on the one hand, welcome for making it an easier listen, and, on the other, a hindrance for somewhat lessening its impact. The other reason for the lower trauma rating is the production. Only managing a DR4, this simply isn’t as rich and textured as I’d hoped it would be, and as I think it needs to be, to fully achieve its creators’ mission.

Alluvion promised a lot and delivered quite a bit, but not the whole package. Its highs, which are basically all of “Pandemonium’s Throat,” are great, building the oppressive tension before unleashing raw catharsis. However, the rest of the compositions from Mizmor & Hell are good but no more. I’m not quite sure how much of this to pin on the expectations that I carried into Alluvion, and which I suspect many who know the solo work by each of these men will also carry. It’s honest, raw, and good, but the fact is I walked away from it relatively unscathed, where I expected to be ruined, face down beside a deserted path.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Gilead Media
Websites: mizmor.bandcamp.com | loweryourhead.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: April 4th, 2025

#2025 #30 #Alluvion #AmericanMetal #Apr25 #BlackMetal #BlackenedDoom #BlackenedNoise #Doom #DoomMetal #Drone #GileadMedia #MizmorHell #Noise #Review #Reviews #Sludge