Since releasing Magnum Opus four years ago, Philadelphia’s IATT has refined their songwriting toolkit to incorporate an even wider array of ideas and sounds. New platter Etheric Realms of the Night demonstrates a compositional leap as IATT weaves a grandiose concept into music—specifically, exploring the deconstruction of consciousness as wakeful awareness decays amongst the capricious environs of the subliminal. This abstract notion is rife with potential, offering boundless possibilities for artistic exploration. Broadly speaking, IATT follows a fascinating trajectory, covering a lot of ground with each release and honing their craft remarkably since their debut. With their latest offering, can IATT send us into Etheric Realms of delight?

Etheric Realms of the Night surges with ideas and instrumentation, entwining ephemeral beauty and scathing dissonance into a fugue-like fever dream. Prior albums Nomenclature and Magnum Opus reference stalwarts Opeth, Enslaved, and Dissection, melding melody with brutality to wondrous effect. Etheric Realms of the Night retains the core of IATT’s sound while expanding it even further into flamboyantly progressive territory à la Ihsahn and Thy Catafalque, and it’s this pivot that unites Etheric Realms’ music and concept so cohesively. The flute, performed by Didier Malherbe, sets the tone at the beginning of lead track “Drift Away.” Light, airy, and flitting, its inclusion is a masterstroke in evoking dreams’ fleeting substance. Piano lines weave in and out of the compositions, enriching the gorgeously textured cascades of IATT’s dense soundscape with vague impressions of a lullaby. Yet no matter how busy any particular moment is, each facet plays in service to the whole, engendering an astonishing coherence through Etheric Realms despite the diversity of components.

The overarching narrative on Etheric Realms of the Night follows the mind’s state of consciousness as sleep erodes the physics of reality, sending us deep into the impenetrable murk of unfiltered inputs and perceptions. “Drift Away” begins with a tandem of acoustic strumming played under a lilting flute, leading to a VoiceOver thought exercise that establishes a loose framework for Etheric Realms.1 From there, the track launches into harsh vocals alongside soaring strings that give way to heartfelt cleans, a groovy drum shuffle, punchy bass countermelodies, and sprightly piano flourishes. It’s the perfect introduction for what IATT accomplishes throughout Etheric Realms, as atmospheres consistently dart and lurch in unexpected directions. This approach synchronizes perfectly with the ephemeral temperament of dreams, where paradigms are kaleidoscopic, and no foothold lasts longer than a breath. So, too, does IATT’s songwriting shift and evolve throughout Etheric Realms’ runtime, with themes and motifs fading and reemerging in altered forms.

Etheric Realms’ success hinges on performances that can support the concept IATT sets in motion, and here, too, they deliver in spades. The guitars feature prominently on Magnum Opus, frequently stepping out to deliver showy licks and sure-fingered solos. On Etheric Realms, guitarists Joe Cantamessa and Alec Pezzano are no less capable and still deliver electrifying leads and riffs. Yet it’s their restraint that works best, giving room for other parts to dazzle. Paul Cole’s drumming hypnotizes as he adopts different styles throughout, including a dance-ready samba pattern on “Pavor Nocturnus” and a Portnoyesque rumble toward the back end of “Somniphobia.” Meanwhile, bassist/vocalist Jay Briscoe unleashes the best performance of his career so far, issuing a variety of black metal rasps and lower register roars along with effective cleans. Briscoe’s stately bass lines deserve praise as well, sauntering into the spotlight or supporting with gravelly grooves as needed. Also, the saxophone on “Walk Amongst,” played by Jørgen Munkeby (Emperor, Shining), wails with such emotion and moxie that I get goosebumps every time I listen. Every moment on Etheric Realms feels well-considered and expertly crafted, and the way it all fits together is transcendent.

Etheric Realms of the Night is an unabashed triumph. In my time at AMG, this is the only review I’ve tarried on because I didn’t want to stop listening to the album. IATT supplies an arresting three-quarters of an hour that sets my dopamine release valve to ‘GUSH,’ and Etheric Realms claims a residency in my gray matter that haunts me day and night. Every time “Hypnos” concludes, I’m left mesmerized and enamored with IATT’s swirling moods and seamless conglomeration of ideas. While it’s too early for me to think about list season,2 the subconscious pull Etheric Realms possesses only grows stronger with each visit, and I dare to dream of writing about it again.

Rating: Excellent!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Black Lion Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: May 8th, 2026

Ildaruni – Divinum Sanguinem Review

By Andy-War-Hall

The mystic, the subliminal, the macabre: the fixings of good black metal and the bread and butter of Armenian pagans Ildaruni. Four years ago, they entered the blackened sphere with their debut Beyond Unseen Gateways, a folk-infused take on black metal that, while promising in several regards, felt bloated and unfocused. Its pagan, medieval-y acoustic passages felt tacked on, lethargic and a bit hokey, and I think Ildaruni agree with my assessment, as this year’s Divinum Sanguinem ditches the lutes and stuff for “a more tenebrous and ferocious black metal path.” At nine songs and 53 minutes, Divinum Sanguinem is yet another considerable offering from Ildaruni. Will this one prove more vital than the last?

This time, Ildaruni ain’t faffing about;1 Divinum Sanguinem is out for blood. Second-wave styling permeates Divinum Sanguinem, but without its typical murk. Utterly furious tremolo riffs and blast beats abound, wrought to vicious effect on songs like “Forged with Glaive and Blood” and “The Ascension of Kosmokrator,” while Narek Avedyan’s burly shrieks command the calamity into a lean, focused undertaking. This is black metal of a riff-centric nature, Immortal-like, but with the odd Bathory military march (“The Ascension of Kosmokrator”) and chant (“Zurvan Akrane”) to instill a greater sense of grandeur into Iladruni’s palette. Riffs are a’plenty, but it’s drummer Arthur Poghosyan who steals the show, just crushing the blasts on every song and layering everything with impressive symbol work. Divinum Sanguinem is a hefty record, but unlike Beyond Unseen Gateways, it isn’t bogged down with momentum-killing diversions. Exemplified on “Divinum Sanguinem”—where all eight minutes of imperial procession feel, bombastic dynamics and eerie bridges feel critical and purposeful—Divinum Sanguinem is lean, mean and blackened as anything.

Ildaruni hold a workman-like commitment to evil. There’s an Emperor-like dark majesty to Divinum Sanguinem, though Ildaruni forgo synths and orchestras for grandiose guitar leads to accomplish this (“The Ascension of Kosmokrator,” “Divinum Sanguinem”). Thrash riffs grace “Zurvan Akrane” beside metalface-inducing chugs on “Forged with Glaive and Blood” and “Arcane Sermon,” and even instances of Qanun (“Scorching Pathways to Samachi”)2 and bagpipe (“Forged with Glaive and Blood”)3 add to the sinister feel of Divinum Sanguinem. Similarly, the various instances of choir (“Of Nomos and Flaming Flint Stone,” “Arcane Sermon” and “Scorching Pathways to Samachi”),4 chant and clean singing (“Divinum Sanguinem”)5 add dimensions to the vocal front of Ildaruni, breaking from the incessant shrieks but not from its malignancy. Pagan folk elements from Iladruni’s previous work remain, but are relegated to folkish distorted guitar leads (and bagpipes) to keep from clashing with the breakneck nature of Divinum Sanguinem. Sometimes ritualistically ominous (“Divinum Sanguinem”) and frequently hostile (“The Ascension of Kosmokrator”), Ildaruni crafted something pointedly dark with Divinum Sanguinem.

But Ildaruni play a limited, well-trodden style, and Divinum Sanguinem is stretched too thin to inspire frequent replay. While Divinum Sanguinem’s songs feature brief moments of differentiation, the near constant tremolos, blast beats and shrieks that encompass the majority of most tracks lose their lustre with use. If a song doesn’t immediately open with trems and blasts, like on “Of Nomos and Flaming Flint Stone” or “Zurvan Akrane,” rest assured that they’ll reemerge before the verse, still competently played but with little melodic variation between them all, losing effect with overexposure. The near-uniformity of Ildaruni’s track lengths adds to this sense of sameness, as songs seem to go through the same or similar motions for similar amounts of time, which doesn’t bode well for memorability. An exception to this trend, “Immersion into Empyrean”— with its mid-paced tempo and open arpeggios—is borderline catchy and provides a stark illustration of how one-note much of the rest of the album is. Ildaruni are all business here, but there’s too much business on Divinum Sanguinem and not enough variety, novelty or abundance of hooks to make getting through it consistently engaging.

Though Divinum Sanguinem is marred by considerable songwriting issues, it still marks considerable improvement for Ildaruni and proves there’s a future for the band. When it works, Divinum Sanguinem is a powerhouse of a record, both atmospheric and immediate. When Ildaruni’s tricks run dry, however, it becomes too easy to let the music slip into the background. Perhaps genre diehards will get more out of the album than I did, but I found myself losing interest too often to offer it high marks. Still, if you’re in the market for black metal that riffs hard, you could do a lot worse than Divinum Sanguinem.

Rating: Mixed
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Black Lion Records
Websites: ildaruni.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/Ildaruni | instagram.com/ildaruni
Releases Worldwide: November 7th, 2025

#25 #2025 #armenianMetal #bathory #blackLionRecords #blackMetal #divinumSanguinem #emperor #ildaruni #immortal #nov25 #review #reviews

Insidius – Vulgus Illustrata Review

By Lavender Larcenist

A Polish, blackened death metal record a day keeps the doctor away, or so I have heard. If so, Insidius (so tired of mispelled band names that make things impossible to search for) is your latest shot of hyper technical, searingly fast loud noises from the Poles. Quietly chugging along in the background, this Olsztyn-based fivesome has been producing solid blackened death since their debut, Shadows of Humanity, in 2016. While the album cover for Vulgus Illustrata may look like it contains some atmospheric depressive black metal, the eight tracks inside are nonstop meat grinders of chainsaw riffing with thick bass, otherworldly drumming, and pure rage. While Insidius plays with the familiar and the foundational, does Vulgus Illustrata survive comparison to its heavyweight counterparts like Dormant Ordeal and Behemoth, or is it dragged to the bottom, each unoriginal idea weighing it down like cinderblocks tied to a corpse?

For starters, Insidius knows what they are doing. They’ve toured for years alongside bands like Vader, Grave, and Nervosa, and Vulgus Illustrata is full of dizzying instrumentation throughout. Tomasz Choiński and Jakub Janowicz wield their guitars like two buzzsaw-toting murderous surgeons, hacking and slicing at every turn with savage tremolo riffs and tilting dissonance. “Orgiastic” leads with a stop-start staccato riff, morphing with the introduction of Łukasz Usydus’s pirouetting bass. Of course, a blackened death metal album would be nowhere without some absurdly technical drumming, and Michał Andrzejczyk is no slouch. Inhuman fills, insane blasts, and rolling rhythms bring cohesion to Vulgus Illustrata, making for an album more akin to a face pummeling than a headbangers ball. Lastly, Rafał Tasak offers a competent if unflashy performance with his barking ferocity and pitched screaming. While the register remains generally on the low end, he has that pushing force that hurts your diaphragm to listen to. Think Cannibal Corpse, Vader, and Immolation, and you have the right idea.

Insidius has all the individual elements, but each track can’t help but bleed into the next, and even at a tight thirty-eight minutes, Vulgus Illustrata can feel long. Where bands like Dormant Ordeal mastered atmosphere, lead-ups, and the ebb and flow of a great blackened death song, Insidius feels too focused on in-your-face brutality. There are much-needed breaks here and there, with some genuinely great atmosphere, such as on the intro to “A Darkness That Divides” or “Censure”, and the entirety of the album closer “Forge of Our Hatred”. Unfortunately, these are few and far between, like ballasts in a storm that leave you hanging on for dear life. I like a good pummeling as much as the next fool, but only when it is consensual.

Maybe it is my undying love of blackened, Polish death metal, but I feel like I have seen everything Insidius has to offer done better elsewhere. Behemoth has a lock on hating god and the bombastic, theatrical edgelord side of things. Dormant Ordeal has technicality in spades alongside great songwriting, incredible atmosphere, and hidden hooks for days. Bands like Hath and Olkoth show that you don’t need to be from Poland to make good blackened death, either, so competition is fierce. Insidius feels late to the party, all dressed up, but nobody is there. They are doing everything right, but it isn’t quite clicking.

To be fair, some of you sick freaks will like getting absolutely brutalized and love every minute of Vulgus Illustrata, singing along as Tasak screams “Shit, cum and blood paint the wall of your prison”. I am not here to rain on your parade, and I don’t want to undersell Insidius. Vulgus Illustrata is heavy, consistent, competent, and genuinely engaging at times, but it feels tired. Insidius has the talent and the energy, but someone needs to point their ballistic missile of blackened death in the right direction for a direct hit. If you are a superfan of the genre, you may get some choice cuts from this slab of beef, but even still, you are better off eating with the bands that brought you here. Another victim to hang from the 3.0 tree, let’s tie the noose and be done with it.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Black Lion Records
Websites: insidiusblacklion.bandcamp.com/album/vulgus-illustrata
Releases Worldwide: November 7th, 2025

#2025 #30 #behemoth #blackLionRecords #blackenedDeathMetal #dormantOrdeal #grave #hath #insidius #nervosa #nov25 #olkoth #poland #polishMetal #review #reviews #vader #vulgusIllustrata

Jordfäst – Blodsdåd Och Hor Review

By Killjoy

Sweden is a metal country in more ways than one. As I just learned from the promo blurb for Blodsdåd Och Hor, the iron and steel industry has been an integral component of its economy and culture for centuries. Of course, Sweden is not lacking in metal from a musical standpoint either. Jordfäst is the latest of these purveyors, whose brand of melancholic black metal seeks to honor their country’s long history of metalwork and warfare, mixed with a healthy dose of Norse mythology from the poem “Völuspá”. Blodsdåd Och Hor marks Jordfäst’s third full-length record since its formation in 2017. Time has proved Swedish metal to be extremely high quality, but what about Jordfäst’s?

The music may be melancholic, but Jordfäst gravitates towards the action-packed side of black metal rather than the atmospheric. Guitarist Elis Markskog prefers keen riffs and epic solos over icy tremolo picking and ambient synths, like a more sullen version of Havukruunu. There are more than a few nods to forebear Bathory’s Viking era in the form of pagan folk tunes and deep, resonant male singing (also by Markskog) to complement Olof Bengtsson’s sharp, staccato barks. Jocke Unger, now Jordfäst’s permanent drummer, buoys up the music even further with aggressive and bouncy rhythms. With a tight runtime of 35 minutes, Blodsdåd Och Hor is both lean and mean.

Blodsdåd Och Hor is quite literally a tale of two halves. Jordfäst does not break tradition with prior albums in that there are only two songs, each 17 minutes and sectioned into four separate tracks. The first half (“Ett altare av skärvor”) is steely and frigid, a harsh dissonant edge gleaming from the guitars. Jordfäst adeptly straddles the line between dissonance and melody, like in “Ett altare av skärvor, pt. 3” when clanging chords morph into a sinister, crooked tune. Blodsdåd Och Hor gradually warms up as it progresses through the second half (“Dit gudarna trälar är”), with more frequent Istapp-style clean singing and technical guitar solos to blast away the frost of the first half. “Dit gudarna trälar är, pt. 4” culminates with a hearty folk tune that hits like a blazing hearth fire after coming home from a cold mountain trip, a gratifying conclusion to the album. Even though, to my knowledge, no actual folk instruments are present, the Nordic roots are apparent in the robust musical compositions.

But, aside from these isolated noteworthy moments, Blodsdåd Och Hor tends to resist memorability as a whole for some reason. On paper, it has many qualities that I value in a record: dynamic songwriting, meaningful melodies, passionate ferocity, and a trim runtime. But maybe that’s part of why it’s not completely grabbing me—like a jack of all trades, Jordfäst is good at many things, but doesn’t feel quite exceptional in any. Or maybe (perhaps more likely) my taste is simply fickle. It might help if the volume were balanced more evenly between the principal harsh vocals and the clean backing vocals, as the former often feel too loud in the mix while the latter are often too faint. I’d also like to hear more Scandinavian folk influence seep into the guitars. It would likely go a long way to making Jordfäst stand out amongst their peers in this monochromatic genre we call black metal.

Jordfäst strikes a good balance between modernity and centuries of cultural heritage. Their melancholy approach to riffs ought to appeal to a wide variety of listeners; fans of second-wave black metal, dissoblack, and folk should find something here to enjoy. Though there aren’t too many standout moments that really resonate with me, Blodsdåd Och Hor is nevertheless very solid. I like Jordfäst’s practice of writing only two long-form songs per album, as it allows for ample development of ideas without blowing up the entire runtime. Make sure to pack winter gear if you choose to embark on this trek because it will be cold!

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Black Lion Records
Websites: jordfst.bandcamp.com | jordfast.net | facebook.com/jordfastband
Releases Worldwide: July 25th, 2025

#2025 #30 #Bathory #BlackLionRecords #BlackMetal #BlodsdådOchHor #FolkMetal #Havukruunu #Istapp #Jordfäst #Jul25 #Review #Reviews #SwedishMetal #VikingMetal

#TheMetalDogArticleList
#BraveWords–WhereMusicLives

ONHEIL Unleashes 2007 Single And Video “As Hope Dies” In Honor Of 25th Anniversary And Album Reissues

https://bravewords.com/news/onheil-unleashes-2007-single-and-video-as-hope-dies-in-honor-of-25th-anniversary-and-album-reissues/

#Onheil #AsHopeDies #BlackLionRecords #Razor #StormIsComing #BlackMetal #Vader #Mayhem #DanSwanö #BraveWords

An Tóramh – Echoes of Eternal Night Review

By Steel Druhm

Coming off the titanic ass-whipping I received from atmo-doom upstarts Structure, I stumbled concussed and confuzzled right into a funeral doom bushwhacking by the unheralded Minneapolis-based two-man project, An Tóramh.1 Formed by members of Chalice of Suffering and Goatwitch, An Tóramh play brain-pulping funerary muzak draped in existential dread and gutwrenching despair, as all things should be. Echoes of Eternal Night borrows essential talismans and reliquaries from the graves of Loss, Evoken, and Ataraxie to create an emotionally deadening experience that slowly emulsifies your skeletal structure into Laffy Taffy™. This is weighty, unrelenting stuff, with massive, earth-moving riffs offset by tragically forlorn trilling and all of it vomited upon by gurgling death vocals from the sub-sub-basement of the monstorium. It’s a recipe for a deeply immersive death reverie or a total snooze-fest, depending on the relative skill of those involved. Which side of sleepytime gorilla nap bait will Echoes fall on? Let’s kick the casket tires.

After a mood-setting but overlong intro, the prime beef gets slapped down on the meat table hard with the monolithic title track. This is 7-plus-minutes of fucking HUGE funeral doom with all boxes checked and all lights blinking red like the Chernobyl control room on April 26, 1986. It’s massively heavy, menacing, and flows like molasses mixed with wet concrete. Hideous doom riffs entwine with sadboi harmonies as cymbals crash and John Suffering wretches his internal organs out. It’s harrowing and horrible, but oddly beautiful. “Desolation” runs over nine minutes, opening with an air of hope and positivity before settling into a melancholic doom plod past the graves of empires forlorn. The Candlemassive bittersweet guitar harmonies pair well with the subterranean death croaks, and just when things seem to be drifting back toward hopefulness, the rug gets pulled and you tumble back into eternal darkness.

“Shadows of Despair” is bleak and weepy, but slowly mixes in light, airy synths and strings that remind me of the Friday Night Lights soundtrack by Explosions in the Sky. It creates a strange dichotomy of moods, but it works really well. “Sea of Sorrow” is classic sadboi, melancholic funeral doom, and it blends the sour with the sweet in just the right measures to drag you under the waves. However, some issues hold Echoes of Eternal Night back from a greater triumph. As great as the title track is, no other song captures that same magical misery. “Embrace the Shadows” is quite good, and I love the heavy sighing of the riffs and how the understated symphonic elements add a touch of grandeur and scope to the music, but it doesn’t quite ascend to the same level of masterful doom. Closer “Withering in Sorrow” is an effective piece, but the production here is way worse than on the rest of the album, with the vocals almost totally buried in a much more raw sound, and it reeks of basement demo recording hijinks. Still, the last few minutes bring a deadly Celtic Frost / Triptykon element to the riffs that turns the brain into bug jelly. At just under 50 minutes, Echoes is a very tolerable length, and though every track could be trimmed, this is funeral doom, and the dour duo make good use of the elongated run times.

Anthony Copertino Jr. (Goatwitch) handles everything except vocals and does a great job across the board. His guitar work sticks closely to the original Book ov Funeral Doom, with two-ton riffs coming down hard and weepy melodic trills resounding near and far. Importantly, he knows when to drone and when to shift to a new riff, which aids the ebb and flow of the lengthy compositions. His keyboard/synth work functions as a rounding agent to smooth down the extreme edges, and he never allows them to interfere with the guitars or vocals. Drum-wise, he delivers a satisfyingly heavy, resonant thudding with dramatic cymbal work throughout.2 Meanwhile, John Suffering offers an everflowing stream of mega-deep, monstrous death roars that call to mind the immortal diSEMBOWELMENT. He doesn’t change things up much, but he’s effectively inhuman and anchors the miserable sound palette.

Echoes of Eternal Night is a very successful debut with moments of top-tier funeral doom, and no track turns into a grave collapse. The twosome behind An Tóramh know how to make this oh-so-niche genre compelling and unexpectedly listenable. If you need more unhappiness in your life, this is an album you can wallow in like a doom hog in the tears of the crestfallen. Wrestle that sadpig, poser!

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Black Lion
Websites: antoramhblacklion.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/antoramh
Releases Worldwide: May 9th, 2025

#2025 #35 #AmericanMetal #AnTóramh #Ataraxia #BlackLionRecords #CelticFrost #ChaliceOfSuffering #diSEMBOWELMENT #DoomMetal #EchoesOfEternalNight #Evoken #FuneralDoomMetal #Loss #May25 #Review #Reviews #Triptykon

Behölder – In the Temple of the Tyrant Review

By Steel Druhm

When members of various obscure power and prog metal bands like Shadowdance and Chaos Frame managed to recruit Judicator’s John Yelland for an epic doom project heavily inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, Steel was unable to resist hearing the results. So he took a flyer on Behölder and their In the Temple of the Tyrant debut and hoped for good doom things. Would it be utter cheese and need a high-level necromancer to save it? Would it be a rousing, sword-swinging platter or Iron Age heroics? As it turns out, In the Temple of the Tyrant is more like Crypt Sermon mixed with a modest dose of Hammerfall-esque power and seasoned with the muscular machismo of Eternal Champion. Does the sound of that meaty broth get your sword rising? Me too. Let’s fight!

The best way to open an epic doom album is with some hefty epic doom, and Behölder does just that with “A Pale Blood Sky.” It’s very Crypt Sermon / Candlemassive, with big, crunchy doom riffs and slick melodic trills. Yellen’s powerful and enthusiastic delivery rounds out the doom enchilada excellently, taking us on a trip through dark crypts and creepy vistas. It’s the kind of doom I eat up like candied bacon, and I love this tune muchly. It’s powerful, but oh so accessible and entertaining, and shows that these cats know their chosen genre very well. “Eyes of the Deep” is another killer, with a strong Eternal Champion vibe. Tomi Joutsen of Amorphis shows up on the back end to drop immense death roars that take the song to the next level and everything is slick and compelling as fook. “For Those Who Fell” is like the glorious Hammerfall power ballads of old (their first 2 albums) and it sucks you in and keeps you hanging on. “Draconian (Slave or Master)” is a ridiculously hooky cut elevated to glorious heights by Yellan’s epical vocals. You will not forget the chorus, and it will haunt you onto death. This one has Song o’ the Year written all over it, folks.

While the highs on the album are very high, there are a few tracks that can’t scale the same summit. “Dungeon Master” is just okay and overly tongue-in-cheek as it takes the perspective of those master nerd game planners a bit too seriously. It doesn’t vibe well with the huge epic doom flavor of the surrounding tracks and takes you out of that headspace. Closer “I Magus” is also a bit underbaked. It’s plenty riffy with a Sanctuary / Nevermore vibe, but it never gets rolling into high gear. Likewise, “Summoned & Bound” trods on the path to greatness laid out by classic Candlemass, but it never completes the journey, becoming somewhat unsatisfying by the end. No song is completely unworthy, however, and as a cohesive album, this thing is a whole lotta fun from start to finish.

John Yellan is the star of the show here, with his vocals elevating the material several notches. On the best stuff, he takes it to the house, bringing poise and grace to the doom show. He manages to keep his performance restrained and doesn’t overdo things, nor does he rely on high-pitched wailing to emphasize the dramatic bits. He gives the songs just the right amount of power and poise and does a great job throughout. Founder and band mastermind Carlos Alvarez, along with Matt Hodson of Chaos Frame, bring a healthy selection of large doom leads and stirring solos, while dabbling in plenty of traditional and power metal spaces along the way. I like their work best when they stay in the Candlemass / Crypt Sermon vein, but I can’t argue one bit with departures like “Draconian (Slave or Master).”

Behölder have chops across the board, and when their writing comes together, you get great tunes full of nods to genre masters. If the writing was a touch more consistent, this would be my first 4.0 of 2025, but In the Temple of the Tyrant falls a bit short of those lofty heights. Yet there are several songs that could end up as my Song o’ the Year, and that’s saying something about the strength of this googly-eyed floating beast. Roll the dice, hear this, find the moments that thrill your inner warrior. Swords up for Behölder!

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Black Lion
Websites: beholderblacklion.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/beholderdoom
Releases Worldwide: April 25th, 2025

#2025 #35 #AmericanMetal #Apr25 #Behölder #BlackLionRecords #Candlemass #CryptSermon #EpicDoomMetal #EternalChampion #Hammerfall #HeavyMetal #InTheTempleOfTheTyrant #Judicator #Review #Reviews #Sorcerer

Euphrosyne – Morus Review

By Iceberg

Death is an omnipresent theme in metal, and art in general, but the subject matter is especially poignant when approached by survivors of its trauma. Post-black quartet Euphrosyne tackle the loss of a loved one, in this case songwriter Alex Despotidis’ mother, on their debut LP, Morus. Post-black seems an appropriate style for the Greeks, with a focus on atmosphere, melody, and stillness to balance black metal fury. While the lyrics are credited to frontwoman Efi Eva, all the music was composed by Despotidis, an unenviable but hopefully cathartic duty for someone who just lost a parent. Observing the grieving process always feels a bit intrusive, and Morus reveals itself to be an intensely personal collection of songs. Nevertheless, the motionless death shroud on Morus’ cover invites the listener into a journey of pain, death, and that which remains.

Euphrosyne isn’t content to paint themselves into a post-black corner. Efi Eva is a convincing, multi-faceted vocalist, and her chameleon-like vocal performance drives the different moods of Morus. Her clean soprano, not unlike Evanescence’s Amy Lee, guides the acoustic sections, featuring reverb-drenched piano melodies and simple, plucked guitar lines (“Morus,” “Valley of White”), while also unleashing impressive hardcore shouts (“Asphodel”) and black metal roars (“Lilac Ward”). Despotidis’ lead guitar acts as a counterpoint, his soaring melodies anchoring instrumental sections (“Funeral Rites,” “Mitera”). Euphrosyne’s rhythm section is dependable, deploying predictable blasting alongside less predictable odd time signatures and filtered grooves akin to Mer de Noms-era A Perfect Circle (“Valley of White,” “Eulogy”). At its heart, Morus is a narrative album, and Euphrosyne wisely employ different sounds and styles to shape the story as its told.

Euphrosyne excel at painting the tale of death with their music. From the pivotal moment of “July 21st” where Eva takes her ethereal clean tone and warps it into a furious snarl, the listener sits sidecar to Despotidis’ grieving process. The frustrated proselytizing of “Eulogy,” the spiraling guitar riff closing “Funeral Rites” (perhaps signifying the lowering of a casket), and the wailing guitar melody of “Mitera” that segues into “Asphodel” feels more at home in the theater than the recording studio. Spoken word, all in the band’s native Greek, humanizes the performance and reinforces the narrative concept (“Morus,” “Mitera”). While the production shows its limits in the black metal riffage, Euphrosyne know how to use silence and space when it counts, particularly at the edges of their songs (“Morus,” “Funeral Rites”). Morus is also edited well, running at a well-rounded 43 minutes with not much fat to trim. The slimmer run time allows the listener to fully appreciate the story on their first pass, and then discover layering and thematic through-lines on repeats.

Euphrosyne drip creativity with their more adventurous sections, but they seem to move to the tried and true side of melodic metal elsewhere. Eva’s performance is solid throughout, but the constant reliance on a clean vocal chorus becomes rote by the end of the album. The black metal passages of the album, while serving their role as a pressure valve for the music’s pent-up emotion, feel by-the-numbers and more like a bridge between the more exciting, less heavy moments. Production is handled by Psychon of Septicflesh fame, and while the mixing/mastering job lends the quieter parts of Morus breathing room, the crushed DR5 rips any sense of dynamic from the black metal blasting and trilling, an industry-standard approach that takes away from Euphrosyne’s unique take on the genre. Its difficult to pinpoint specific songs that work better than others since they all contain aspects of the “post and the black,” but it’s easy to see after a couple weeks of focused listens that Euphrosyne shine in the empty spaces when they’re less restricted to a post-black label.

Despite these gripes, Morus is a deeply affecting album, one that moved me more the longer I left it to marinate. I don’t know that singular pain of losing a parent, but I know the pain of losing someone very close to me, and Despotidis’ memoir has brushed that scar tissue. Though this score may seem to describe a somewhat middling listening experience, I highly recommend this album for fans of dark, weighty music that tells a story. I think with some fine-tuning, Euphrosyne have quite the mark to make in the post-black world. Until their next effort, I’ll keep Morus in my back pocket for the grey days when I need to commiserate with another wounded soul.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Black Lion Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: March 21st, 2025

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RELEASE YEAR: 2024

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