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.
Took an extended break from this column mostly due to my Far Away from the Sun retrospective but I have returned with more black metal new and old. Introspective, infernal, and perhaps somewhere in between. First up is the new album from the Dutch atmospheric act Nachtheem, followed by the second full-length from German melodists Shores of Ladon. We conclude this edition of blackened offerings with a track from symphonic collaboration Gardsghastr.
New & Trve: Nachtheem — Waan van de leegte
Waan van de leegte is the debut full-length from the mysterious Dutch entity Nachtheem, following the great demo Nacht, zij met ons... and two splits released in 2024-25. I stumbled across the demo early last year and was immediately struck by its similarities to Vemod’s 2012 underground darling Venter på stormene, and the full-length very much continues in this vein. A guitar tone that shimmers like an aurora in the night sky, an extended interlude track (“De ontwaking”) and the tendency to transform base components of atmospheric black metal — repetition, riffs based primarily around melancholic chord progressions, and frequent blast beats — into something that doesn’t quite have the bite we typically associate with black metal (but isn’t fully in the realm of what we’d call blackgaze or post-black metal either).
A major component of this is the overall production; softer guitars, prominent bass, and drums that are a far cry from a pummeling, machine gun-like attack in spite of the prevalence of blast beats. Vemod has described their music as “dark ethereal metal,” and the same would apply to Nachtheem. The works of Agalloch and early Ulver are invoked through arpeggiated chords backed by acoustic guitar on “Verdoemd door de tijd” and when the drums aren’t “soft blasting,” most of the beats take the form of mid-paced plodding such as Wolves In the Throne Room and Eastern European pagan acts have championed. Haunting, multilayered cleans are featured across the album (channeling the spirit of Valfar to these ears), serving as the finishing touch on a nocturnal atmosphere meant to be experienced in a pine forest under a full moon. Nothing here hits as hard as the beautiful three-chord progression on the demo track “Drift van nostalgie” that embodies just about everything that makes atmospheric black metal so powerful; nevertheless, Waan van de leegte is a great debut full-length from an act already perfecting the art of invoking the sublime beauty and mystery of the natural world.
Waan van de leegte will be available June 6 through Terratur Possessions. For more information on Nachtheem, check out their Encyclopedia Metallum page.
Old & Cold: Shores of Ladon — Witterung
This album is a very recent discovery, so this assessment will be a bit more off the cuff than normal. Aside from Nagelfar, Drautran, and the early works of Falkenbach and Bergthron, a lot of German black metal has eluded me thus far (not counting The Ruins of Beverast, as Alexander Meilenwald has more than transcended the genre at this point). But seeing some positive reception along with the descriptors of both melodic and atmospheric black metal, I figured Witterung was worth a shot. Lo and behold, it’s pretty solid! This 2021 full-length from Shores of Ladon may look folk-inspired or in the epic black metal vein based on the rustic album art, but in reality it’s a fairly raw combination of the subgenres mentioned earlier (yet the cover doesn’t end up being a total misdirection).
Warm guitar tones blanket the ears as a stream of tremolo-picked chords, borrowing from the atmospheric world of black metal via repetition while incorporating the melodic side of things through melancholic lines that change measure by measure. Second track “Fliegengott” is most notable for the polyphonic arrangement of its guitars, as ascending arpeggios and upper register leads bounce off of each other in a beautiful dance. Yet the more I listen to the album, the more apparent the similarities in song structure become. Wall of chords in the intros and outros, with middle sections throwing in some of the outside influences (trad metal riffing, strings, pensive, slower chords); “Sirenen Song” is just about the only track to begin at a slower pace. But after all, this is black metal! Not every band is gonna throw you for a loop in terms of stylistic diversity. Perhaps if the drumming was more than just standard blasts and speedy kicks with standard black metal rhythms, or the vocals had more variety this would be less obvious. Yet when it comes to solid riffs and an ear for catchy melodicism without sacrificing the darkness at the heart of the genre, Shores of Ladon do a fine job on Witterung.
Witterung was available through Sol Records. For more information on Shores of Ladon, check out their Encyclopedia Metallum page.
Twilight Hour: Gardsghastr — “Beasts of Horn and Wing”
Gardsghastr was a one-off collaborative project featuring two of the most prolific musicians in black metal, none other than Alex Poole (Chaos Moon, Krieg, Skáphe) and Swartadauþuz (Bekëth Nexëhmü, Greve, Muvitium). “Beasts of Horn and Wing” is one of the best tracks from their singular 2019 album Slit Throat Requiem, a dense, claustrophobic take on the ’90s Norwegian vein of symphonic black metal. Joined by Steven Blackburn (Chaos Moon), the trio layer eerie guitar lines atop grandiose keyboards and the relentless drums of Jack Blackburn (Enfold Darkness, Inferi, Ringarë), orchestrating a track that alternates between a maelstrom of blast beats, dark choirs, and a more pensive, slower-paced middle section. The ice cold final ingredient is the Ihsahn-esque shrieks of vocalist Glömd. These elements combined unleash an infernal sound that is perhaps more chaotic and technical than the sum of its parts (Blackburn’s drumming being the primary factor in this regard, no doubt) while retaining a classic mysticism; no hint of modern “dissoblack” and the like to be found here. Basically every symphonic black metal act for the past thirty years has been riding in Emperor’s wake, and Gardsghastr do an impressive job of both recapturing and adding to that majestic nightside sound.
Slit Throat Requiem was available through Profound Lore Records. For more information on Gardsghastr, check out their Encyclopedia Metallum page.
— Colin
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