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.
It’s once again time for more festival prep! The highlight of the year, the fest that I have been eagerly anticipating since the minute it ended last year, this is of course Fire in the Mountains. It’s now just around the corner, and I couldn’t be more excited to return to Red Eagle and experience a true spiritual and mental cleansing from all the bullshit that work, life, and the world throw at us. First up is some ripping new black metal from Niveous, who are not playing FITM themselves but aren’t without their own connection to the festival. Next is some Mesoamerican pagan anthems from first-time attendees Yaotl Mictlan, and finally a deep dive into the brand new track from Enslaved.
New & Trve: Niveous — Cult of the Void Star
Cult of the Void Star is the debut full-length from Milwaukee’s Niveous, and in a number of ways it plays like a “best of the second wave” (positive). “Harbinger of the Void Star” presents a classic familiarity with its wall of chords style riffing, but the band do a good job of frequently changing riffs and tempos. From blast beats to mid-tempo sections to slow, nasty, Deathcrush-style riffing and back, the band remain consistently engaging without feeling like they’re simply trying to throw every idea at the wall and hoping some of it sticks… this is of course a staple of good black metal since the inception of the genre. Extended tremolo-picked lines in the background additionally aid in giving the sound an icy, mysterious atmosphere. Previously mentioned was a connection to FITM, and this comes in the form of a guest vocal performance from the man behind 2022 attendees Visigoth as well as Gallowbraid (playing their second-ever show at this year’s edition of the festival). As Obsequiae and Stormkeep fans already know, any song gets elevated to a higher plane when Jake Rogers takes part; “Frostborne Resistance” is no exception.
Production-wise the album is solid, having a modern clarity without feeling overproduced. The bass is audible and robust, and the drums really stand out amongst the rest of the instrumentation (to their detriment, at times). I’m reminded of the Skaldr album from early last year in how middle-of-the-road the production is, balancing both old and new sonic qualities. Thrashier riffage in “Servants of the Monolith”, a Nightside Eclipse homage in “Baptism of Shadows” with its light symphonics and mid-tempo jamming, and most pleasant to my ears the multilayered, Sacramentum-style chords of closer “Boreal Stronghold” make for an album that’s both varied and well-written. Cult of the Void Star may feel a bit like a second wave black metal compilation with cleaner production, but that’s perfectly fine; in contrast to some of its peers in modern black metal, at no point am I looking at the time to see how much of the album remains.
Cult of the Void Star will be available July 17 through Hypnotic Dirge Records. For more information on Niveous, check out their Facebook and Instagram pages.
Old & Cold: Yaotl Mictlan — Sagrada Tierra del Jaguar
Starting off Fire in the Mountains’ Friday lineup on July 24th will be Salt Lake City’s Yaotl Mictlan. Their most recent album is 2020’s Sagrada Tierra del Jaguar (Sacred Land of the Jaguar), an epic, towering pyramid of pagan black metal. Originally from Mexico, the band have a distinct take on this style most often associated with Northern and Eastern Europe. The best way I can describe them is as the Mesoamerican answer to bands like Moonsorrow and Nokturnal Mortum… sans the “unsavory” associations those bands have (Mictlan themselves were associated with RABM in their earlier days, focusing instead on folklore and mythology by the release of this album). Rather than just playing folk-inspired black metal without any traditional instrumentation, here Yaotl Mictlan employed session musicians playing Prehispanic instruments, primarily flute and tribal percussion. The eight tracks of Sagrada are true anthems of war, with a ferocious, martial atmosphere carried throughout. In addition to the folk instruments, choral vocals are a staple of the album on tracks like “Coatlicue.” Channeling Quorthon’s Hammerheart choirs through an Indigenous American lens, they float above the harsh vocals with a ghostly quality.
What Yaotl Mictlan do so well on Sagrada Tierra del Jaguar is construct songs that live, breathe, and flow like living beings. “Tezcatlipoca – Espejo Relumbrante” is a great example of this in the manner by which the intro builds tension with a riff constructed entirely around string bends, and the chaotic feeling of the chromatic riff that slashes across the heavier sections. The album is not without its fair share of frenzied blast beats accompanied by grand chords, but more often than not it stays in mid-tempo grooves. I think my favorite aspect of the entire album is the guitar tone… I can’t think of any better descriptor than jagged. It’s a perfect balance between rawness, a cavernous sound, and just straight-up heaviness. Hit shuffle and you are guaranteed to find a banger, but the closing three are Sagrada at its best; “Neuvo Fuego” richly melodic, “Buho Lanzadardos – Entrada Teotihuacana” epicly anthemic, and 11-minute instrumental closer “Sombra del Mictlan” everything that makes the album great wrapped up into a single track. Sagrada Tierra del Jaguar is an album as vast as the first nations that inspired it, and I can’t wait to hear Yaotl Mictlan do it justice at Red Eagle.
Sagrada Tierra del Jaguar is available now through Pest Productions and the Yaotl Mictlan Bandcamp page. For more information on Yaotl Mictlan, check out their Facebook and Instagram pages.
Twilight Hour: Enslaved (feat. Kevin Kicking Woman) — “Spirit Helper”
“Spirit Helper” is the first new Enslaved song in over three years (as both of the Storm Weather Shanty Choir tracks from earlier this year are covers), and the song as well the story of its creation are truly special… so to put the song in its proper context, a bit of a history lesson is required.
Born out of the collaboration between Enslaved and the Fire in the Mountains, this all began when they were set to headline the 2020 edition of the festival at Heart Six Ranch in Wyoming. This was of course delayed to 2022, and not only did they headline the festival but Ivar Bjørnson was the fest’s first-ever guest curator for a showcase entitled “On Wings Over Utgard.” His picks included such incredible artists as Wolves in the Throne Room, YOB, Steve Von Till, and Wayfarer; as of writing I have seen Enslaved a grand total of eight times, and their headline performance that year is still the best show they’ve ever put on (ideally this changes on the 25th!).
Fast forward to 2025, and the fest had moved to its new (and hopefully permanent) home on the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. Bjørnson took part once again as not only an artist with his ambient project Bardspec, but as one of many workshop speakers in his role as founder of the label By Norse alongside Einar Selvik of Wardruna and their shared manager Simon Füllemann. Through the profound impact that the stories, humor, and struggles of the Blackfeet had on Ivar (and all of us who attended) a new collaboration arose.
“Spirit Helper” is totally instrumental on the Enslaved side of things, featuring vocals from Blackfeet elder and language/culture educator Kevin Kicking Woman, notable for being the first Indigenous Teacher of the Year for Montana. His singing on the track comes from a morning prayer, recorded in late 2025 on an iPhone at the Scandinavia House in New York City where a meeting of the Firekeeper Alliance — a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing suicide among Indigenous youth — took place. Bjørnson has described how the song was completely constructed around Kevin’s vocals, surely a refreshing change of pace for a composer who has long been the inception point for Enslaved’s music; the melody of the guitars mirrors Kevin’s vocals, living and breathing right alongside them. The track begins with some spacey synths before the introduction of clean guitars and Kicking Woman’s singing, carefully taking the time to build up to heavier riffage; I love the tone and groove of Grutle Kjellson’s bass during this buildup.
The rhythm of Kevin’s singing requiring Enslaved themselves to play in a highly syncopated manner, amongst odd time signatures, proves how much this collaboration is a match made in heaven. Were it absent of his singing entirely it would still sound like Enslaved, but the two disparate sounds come together and create something greater than the sum of their parts, joining in unity across space, time, and culture… something we could all use a little more of right now. A fittingly galloping snare builds up to a cloud burst of double bass and speedy picking in the track’s finale. I have little doubt about “Spirit Helper” seeing its live debut in less than two weeks at Fire in the Mountains, a beautiful meeting of cultures from opposite sides of the world that seems only possible at such a community-oriented and spiritually healing event.
I can’t say whether or not this will be the only new music we hear from Enslaved this year, but I’ll just say this… “Kingdom” was released as a standalone single well before the full announcement of Heimdal. Make of that what you will! I hope to see you in the shadow of the Backbone of the World very soon.
“Spirit Helper” is available through Bandcamp. For more information on Enslaved, check out their official website.
— Colin
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