2025 Album Writeups

Blood Abscission - II

This is an interesting novelty listen as it's basically "atmospheric" black metal but with very sterile production. The overall clinical aesthetic package has me convinced that it is a very intentional decision.

There are some really neat movements, and some cool, subtle incorporations of ROCK melodrama, but overall the bold decision to make atmospheric black metal without atmosphere leaves me without much to latch on to.

Editors note: copying this review down a few months later, I have no recollection of this album at all. I will not be revisiting it to confirm or deny the above.

RATING: MID

Kêres - Skryer of the Lighthouse

This album is so good I was captivated with how the sound of the snare drum evolved over the course of a song. I don't even know why. It just GOT ME.

It's not incredibly long at ~48 minutes, but it actually feels a lot bigger than it is. It feels longer, but not because it's boring and padded, just because so much is jammed in.

It's got all the sick midpaced riffs you would expect, it's got some GLOOM, it's got some HOSTILITY. It even has some downright dreamy parts It kicks ass and I kinda love it.

RATING: GREAT/LOVE

Prison Hell - Incendiary Recoiling

Prison Hell is my favorite band right now. Or at least the currently active band I am most excited about. This one changes up from the previous album, Terraformed Deathscapes (which was my faovorite album of 2024), and inches a little more towards the NORMAL EVIL DEATH METAL

[I'll write more about this later]

This album has actually made me appreciate Brulvahnatu even more, beacuse it is really pulling in some sound and style from the last 2 Brulvahnatu albums.

RATING: GREAT/LOVE

Steröid - Chainmail Commandos

I was obssessed with this album when it came out and listened to probably every other day for I'm not sure how long. At time of writing I have 231 plays logged...

Maybe my favorite thing about this album is that just putting aside its own vision and charms and aesthetic, the actual composition here is a super slick mixture of earlier NWOBHM and HARD ROCK that GETS IT and frankly blows 90% of the other throwback bands out of the water. There's a reality where they slowed the songs down a touch, dropped the pitching and everybody drooling about Amethyst last year has Steroid at the top fo their list, but the coolest thing is that this is actually even better BECAUSE of how tight and comprehensive the vision is

[I'll write more about this later]

RATING: LOVE

Wælwang - Blood Sigil's Damnation

Something is happening in black metal.
There is a great wave of emo-fication.

This is manifesting in a couple different ways. Firstly, with a big wave of mostly young, mostly NSBM (and adjacent) bands overshooting the RAC punk thing you saw in the 2000s, and landing in a strange pop punk zone where you can absolutely hear the threads connecting what they are tremelo picking back to Blink182 or their midpaced riffs flying over the stompy Euro RAC Streetpunk sound and landing on American party punk.

Secondly, something similar and EMOTIVE is happening in the TRIUMPHANT end of things. Extending from Bilksirknir and Totale Vernichtung, but pushing a bit past it into midwest emo like was done on Flaming Ouroboros' last offering.

I have some guesses as to why this is happening, but this WAVE is leaving a dark cloud on a lot of recent black metal to me, and this one has the fog all around it, so it's starting at a disadvantage with me.

In any case, here we have another Sceadugenga joint. The first one under this name. It's classified as Black metal / Punk on metal archives, so maybe the punk influence is uh... emotive hardcore. Otherwise it's not worlds apart from Wuldorgast which was on my short list of 2024 favorites, this one is just a lot more ADHD.
When I first listened to the album I just made one single note: "little too emo for me," but after revisiting it, I changed my mind - it's pretty cool.
There are bits, especially on the front end , and ESPECIALLY the opening riff after the synth intro that strike me as very very emo, and kinda grate on me, but by the back half of track 3 it is sounding more properly triumphantly FRENCH and stays more solid from there, including some "spider crawling" rolling triumphant tremolo and some big melodramatic and stomping riffs.

The "Berserk" anime theme is pretty goofy to me, but so are 99% of themes other black metal bands use, so it doesn't bother me really. The incorporation of the 90s sounding synths in the opening, and the little VK / speed metal bits are pretty slick. I don't know if the melodramatic heavy metal leads are really Berserk-related but it sounds like something you could believable put over a montage of stills of giant robots fighting, so I'll call it anime influence.

It closes with a Death in June cover - Death of the West - which is a classic and one I've only heard maybe one other metal cover of, so that's cool. Vocals sound a little different on this one and it's like some straight up Donald Duck sound. It's kinda cool. Not sure how it connects to the rest of the sound or theme, but I like that song, and it comes at the end, so probably just a shoutout to something the dude likes.

RATING: GOOD