Cold icewinds sweep my weightless body over the bridge to unknown lands. The fog was thick before me as I fell into the unknown realms. The darkness had fallen before me, as I saw my body fall into the ground. I am far away, I am far away from the sun… Beyond All Horizons features shorter reviews dedicated solely to black metal: a new release, an older album (a month, a year, a decade, or perhaps even longer), concluded with a hand-picked track of the week.

In just a few weeks I’ll be attending another metal festival for the first time, Seattle’s Northwest Terror Fest. Worm’s Necropalace live debut, Dungeon Serpent, and Jordan Day (accompanied by Charlie Anderson and Andrea Morgan) are a few of the acts I am most excited to check out, but there’s a bevy of others that I will certainly enjoy… three of which are featured in this edition of Beyond All Horizons.

First up is the ripper of a brand new split from occult black metallers Nixil and black/death act Drouth, followed by the most recent album from another NWTF performer: the Appalachian experimental black metal enigma that is Primeval Well. And lastly, a look at a new track from a favorite underground act of mine, Final Eclipse.

New & Trve: Nixil/Drouth — Toward Dead Temples

Toward Dead Temples marks my first exposure to Baltimore’s Nixil, and they leave a pretty strong impression! Their side of the split encompasses three tracks manifesting the eradication of the Christo-fascist oppressor (perhaps a bit timely, eh?) in the form of dark, riffy black metal that casts a wide net. First wave-styled intensity and eerie, more dissonant waters on “Never Rise Again,” Hellenic-inspired chugs and tension-building start-and-stop riffs on “Bloody Footsteps on the Path of Bones.” Brooding “I Am Not Here” starts off slow and creeping, before martial snare hits help usher in a finale of big riffs and triumphant melodicism. The vocals are similarly as diverse, ranging from harsh blackened rasps to strained whispers as befitting the mood. Nixil’s work here will no doubt appeal to fans of mid-era Behemoth, Yoth Iria, and Rotting Christ, and has certainly made a fan of yours truly.

I didn’t end up spending as much time with it as I would’ve liked amongst all the other fantastic releases last year, but like our own Zyklonius I too enjoyed Drouth’s latest full-length The Teeth of Time. Their side of Toward Dead Temples features two tracks originally recorded as part of that album session, hitting the ground running with “Cathartes Aura.” This one hits square in the oversized Far Away from the Sun ventricle of my heart, sharing that album’s knack for multilayered waves of chords, ultra-satisfying melodic flourishes and linear construction… but with a far more visceral and death metal-y tone and approach. “The Outer Church” ups this death metal side of the band further, even featuring a devastating chugging riff that wouldn’t be out of place on a metalcore album (Converge or Harm’s Way-style metalcore, that is).

A fantastic effort from both acts, and if their live shows are half as good as this split I’ll be in for a real treat. If you’re not fortunate enough to also be going to NWTF, the duo are following up that appearance with a West Coast tour throughout May.

---

Toward Dead Temples will be available April 24 through each band’s respective Bandcamp page (Nixil | Drouth). For more information on Nixil, check out their official website. For more information on Drouth, check out their Facebook and Instagram pages.

---

Old & Cold: Primeval Well — Talkin’ in Tongues with Mountain Spirits

Kentucky is Austin Lunn’s love letter to the state he once called home and the people who live there, along with the rolling hills and green forests of Appalachia. In stark contrast, Primeval Well’s 2021 full-length Talkin’ in Tongues with Mountain Spirits may just be its own kind of love letter to Appalachia… but is rather one dedicated to the darkest hollows of those ancient mountains, untouched by modernity and inhabited by spirits far more ancient than the United States. The flagship act of Ryan Clackner and his own label Moonlight Cypress Archetypes, Nashville’s Primeval Well play long-form, piercing black metal in the vein of Krallice… but with a uniquely Southern twist. More than just folk instrument interludes and traditional country covers, Clackner and company fully merge bluegrass and gothic country with black metal on tracks like the standout “She Flies Undead.”

Alternating back and forth (nearly ad nauseum) from a train beat, twangy guitar lick, and uplifting country vocals to ferocious blasts and an atmospheric wall of blackened chords, this track is the encapsulation of everything Primeval Well has to offer (and having seen the band open for Panopticon back in 2024, I can confirm it’s even better live). The intro track for Talkin’ in Tongues is titled “Psilocybin Psychosis by the Mountain Top Cross,” and I presume that there’s not much of a better descriptor for what this album is meant to feel like. The folk elements provide some much-needed respite from the punishing black metal, with Clackner’s Southern shredding being perhaps the best trait of the album (see the title track). I feel like I’ve barely touched the surface of what this album entails… you’ll have to descend into the Appalachian hollows for yourself. One of the most distinctive sounds I’ve ever heard in black metal, I can’t wait to raise up antlers to the mountain gods once again in just a few short weeks.

---

Talkin’ in Tongues with Mountain Spirits is available now through Moonlight Cypress Archetypes. For more information on Primeval Well, check out their Facebook and Instagram pages.

---

Twilight Hour: Final Eclipse — “A Foul Surround”

This edition’s featured track is not a Northwest Terror Fest feature, but comes from a surprise drop a few weeks ago from one of my favorite underground acts, the mysterious Final Eclipse. As if the logo and overall sound wasn’t a dead giveaway, the album art for The Darkest Era all but confirms this band is the successor to the (presumed) defunct New Jersey act Death Fortress. Like their assumed forebears, Final Eclipse play atmospheric black metal heavily influenced by Eastern European acts such as Hate Fortress, Drudkh, and Walknut (minus the fascism). “A Foul Surround” hits just about every aspect of this sound that I love; the plodding rhythms, guitar riffs at a temperature of absolute zero, and the overwhelming atmosphere of dreariness and melancholia. I think I prefer the preceding album The Dark World (to be elaborated on in this column at some point in the future, no doubt), but “A Foul Surround” and the album it’s featured on nail a specific black metal soundscape I can’t get enough of.

---

The Darkest Era is available now through Final Eclipse’s Bandcamp. For more information on Final Eclipse, check out their Encyclopedia Metallum page.

---

— Colin