Imagine an ancient horn echoing through a frost-bitten forest at the edge of time. That’s the kind of ritual The Silver Key unfolds. I first heard it in headphones at my desk, muted daylight around me, and it tremored the silence deeper than I expected. This debut from Barcelona’s Gjallarhorn’s Wrath is symphonic blackened death made for immersive listening, dense, cinematic, and unapologetically grand.
The album opens with At The Center Of Infinity a short atmospheric briefing before the real storm hits. Then Wiccan Wyrd crashes in like a celestial conflagration: thunderous rhythm, soaring orchestration, vocals that flex between cryptic chants and gut-level bellows. It grabbed me instantly, the kind of hook that doesn’t say hello, it declares war.
The Abysswalker and Mistletoe’s Secret shift gears with unexpected agility, the first one brooding and vast, the other tinged with spectral melody and ancient mysticism. The album moves like ritual incantations come alive. It’s not just music; it’s invocation.
Holding this entire structure together is With Souls Reborn, a near-epic adoption of upwards of six minutes. It’s stately and jagged with shimmering keys, layered guitar chords that ripple like horn-cast shadows, and lyrics that feel like resurrection embedded in melody. In progression, it pulls off that rare trick: it’s massive without feeling stacked, expansive without sacrificing intensity.
Even the shorter tracks such as Falcon Of Darkness and Fangs Of Fate carve their own narrative imprints. The former zooms on metallic wings, the latter strikes with lethal glint. Pain Remains The Core Of This World slows you down into creeping riffs that feel rot-tangled and bittersweet. The closer, A Silent Scream, is fitting mournful, resigned, the echo at the edge of oblivion.
In an office setting on speakers, this album becomes architectural, walls step back, the bass becomes tactile, and the synths hang like haze in corners. But on headphones, that architecture is skeletal and ornate; I almost caught myself mentally walking through its corridors. That dichotomy is the record’s strength.
If you need a comparison, think Septicflesh circa The Great Mass crossing paths with Behemoth’s atmospheric gambits. However, Gjallarhorn’s Wrath build, not emulate. This feels like a myth forged in sound, wrapped in shadow. Production? Clear enough that each melodic line resonates yet layered so the orchestration never over-clarifies. Details bloom through the murk instead of burning it away.
The Silver Key doesn’t just rattle expectations. It walks in, keys out the locks, and invites you into a cathedral built for ritual. It demands immersion. Let it in with headphones on and a few late-night hours to spare.
A majestic, haunting debut. Cinematic in scale, ritualistic in execution, and impressively alive with dark life. 9/10
Faun - Hex (Pagan Folk Records) [Matt Bladen]
Faun are the latest in a long line of bands classed as Pagan folk, Heiling and Wardruna being the most notable examples. There's just something about breathy often tribal grunts alongside ethereal vocalisations that seems to transcend it's genre tags and often finds itself headlining 'metal' festivals. German band Faun are one such offering from the world of pagan folk, but they are no newbies as Hex is their twelfth studio album.
A majestic, haunting debut. Cinematic in scale, ritualistic in execution, and impressively alive with dark life. 9/10
Faun - Hex (Pagan Folk Records) [Matt Bladen]
Faun are the latest in a long line of bands classed as Pagan folk, Heiling and Wardruna being the most notable examples. There's just something about breathy often tribal grunts alongside ethereal vocalisations that seems to transcend it's genre tags and often finds itself headlining 'metal' festivals. German band Faun are one such offering from the world of pagan folk, but they are no newbies as Hex is their twelfth studio album.
This record is about witches, female healers and wise women, as four of the members contribute vocals, creating their own coven of voices to tell these stories of female magick that are from the those told in the Grimm tales. Like with most pagan bands there's a definite link to the last to the pre-Christian culture of the country they are from.
Here it's steeped in Germanic and Anglo-Saxon folklore and the natural world that surrounds Germany and Britain. Be it Arthurian Legend, spells or the historical documentation of wise women and feminine magic, the stories told through acoustics, flutes, fiddles, lutes, bagpipes, hurdy gurdy and all those traditional instruments that are so prominent in folk music, underpinned with a heaviness of rock from guitars and synths.
Here it's steeped in Germanic and Anglo-Saxon folklore and the natural world that surrounds Germany and Britain. Be it Arthurian Legend, spells or the historical documentation of wise women and feminine magic, the stories told through acoustics, flutes, fiddles, lutes, bagpipes, hurdy gurdy and all those traditional instruments that are so prominent in folk music, underpinned with a heaviness of rock from guitars and synths.
They collaborate with musicians who are also steeped in this style of music from Türkiye (Umay), or Sweden as the sound of the English troubadour Nick Drake is visited on their cover of Black Eyed Dog as Belldonna is an Irish folk song that sets the tone. If this pagan folk style appeals to you then Faun are great part of it, for me what sets them apart are the vocal harmonies they use across this advert. A coven of collaboration on Hex. 7/10
Coltaine - Brandung (Lay Bare Recordings) [Matt Bladen]
Now this is a bit of me, German post/doom band Coltaine play the sort of moody, ethereal, dissonant and haunting music that I love.
They've only been a band from a few years but with Brandung they capture a moment, this is a band who have embraced who they want to be, a thrilling, often disconcerting menagerie of psych, post rock and blackgaze, as the riffs of guitarist Moritz Berg and bassist Benedikt Berg undulate and throb, like a creature taking its last breath.
There's heavy layering here, acoustics take up most of the melody on Memories Of Ice. While the band lean into a post punk drive coming through on Keep Me Down In The Deep, the fuzzy bass tones driving those eternal realms of Siouxsie Sioux, as the guitars jangle and Julia Frasch's incredible, evocative vocals have that howl of Grace Slick, while on the title track there's an ache, an intense longing for some kind of release.
This is the follow up to their debut Forgotten Ways, is a record that flows organically, the shorter instrumentals creating that atmosphere of being drawn away, switched on to another world, the cult like call of Wirbelwind is an invocation rite to the slow burning psychedelic climb of Above The Burning Sand where Amin Bouzeghaia's percussion breathes life into the track that shifts into the industrial drone of Maelstrom.
Brandung translates from the German as "the foam made as waves break on rocks or on the shore" and as Solar Veil dreamily washes away with that sense of innate calm you get at the breakwater, it's translated into the feeling for what Coltaine are trying to do with their music and that is craft some sonic beauty with their second album. 9/10
Falling Leaves – The Silence That Binds Us (Meuse Music Records) [Spike]
You know that moment when you're wearing headphones late at night, and a record steps forward, not with drums, but with emotion? The Silence That Binds Us did exactly that. I listened to this very late at night after a difficult day and it felt like walls collapsed inward, replaced by echoes of grief so tangible I could almost touch it. This probably is over sharing but that moment, that day something which defined grief, pain and loss was needed. Music can be so damn powerful at times.
This is melodic death-doom sculpted from desolation, formed in Dubai and Jordan, there’s no “winter landscapes” clichés here. But speaking of cold, opening track Carvings cuts deep with mournful riffs and melancholic tremolo, only to bloom into piano-flecked choruses that feel carved from ice. It’s the sonic equivalent of a frozen lake cracking under your weight, unexpected and unnervingly fragile.
The Angel On My Shoulder carries that weight forward, fading whispers anchored by agonized roars. It’s sorrow you feel in your bones, aching but articulate. In We Are Alone a haunted piano pulls you under before guitars rise with sorrowful clarity. It’s a moment of stillness amid the storm.
Ashes Of My Mind drips sorrow like molten lead, each phrase a guttural confession. I sat in the dark with this one, focused even more though the headphones until it ran its course. This one mattered. Shattered Hopes lands next, and though it could’ve been the closer, it’s more like a final inevitable blow. There’s anger in the melody that cuts deeper than raw aggression.
Mid-album, The Everlasting Wounds rings with persistent scars, clean vocals that echo loss, then vocals that roar like discovering a wound still open. The Visions Of The Forsaken drifts into dreamlike territory, chords mournful enough to feel sacred.
Closing with Re-Silence (Part III), they demurely strip back into piano, whispers, and a sense of finality. It doesn’t fade, it leaves a memory. That one left me still with some silence and for once, made that day feel like I was waking from an odd dream.
Production by Dan Swanö keeps it vivid without smoothing edges, the piano isn’t polite, the drums don’t over-polish, and guest vocals from Paul Kuhr land like old ghosts stepping back into the frame. It’s classic death-doom in spirit but refined in execution. These are songs that are deliberately paced, never indulgent.
If doom metal is sometimes a slow drag through despair, this is more, much more than that. It was like having grief slowly unwrapped, examined and acknowledged. It’s atmospheric in a way that plants you somewhere time forgot, then lets the weight settle as it fades.
Not just a return for Falling Leaves, it’s a reckoning. This was beautiful, brutal, and unforgettable. And very much needed. It is so close to full marks it’s all I can give it. 10/10
Coltaine - Brandung (Lay Bare Recordings) [Matt Bladen]
Now this is a bit of me, German post/doom band Coltaine play the sort of moody, ethereal, dissonant and haunting music that I love.
They've only been a band from a few years but with Brandung they capture a moment, this is a band who have embraced who they want to be, a thrilling, often disconcerting menagerie of psych, post rock and blackgaze, as the riffs of guitarist Moritz Berg and bassist Benedikt Berg undulate and throb, like a creature taking its last breath.
There's heavy layering here, acoustics take up most of the melody on Memories Of Ice. While the band lean into a post punk drive coming through on Keep Me Down In The Deep, the fuzzy bass tones driving those eternal realms of Siouxsie Sioux, as the guitars jangle and Julia Frasch's incredible, evocative vocals have that howl of Grace Slick, while on the title track there's an ache, an intense longing for some kind of release.
This is the follow up to their debut Forgotten Ways, is a record that flows organically, the shorter instrumentals creating that atmosphere of being drawn away, switched on to another world, the cult like call of Wirbelwind is an invocation rite to the slow burning psychedelic climb of Above The Burning Sand where Amin Bouzeghaia's percussion breathes life into the track that shifts into the industrial drone of Maelstrom.
Brandung translates from the German as "the foam made as waves break on rocks or on the shore" and as Solar Veil dreamily washes away with that sense of innate calm you get at the breakwater, it's translated into the feeling for what Coltaine are trying to do with their music and that is craft some sonic beauty with their second album. 9/10
Falling Leaves – The Silence That Binds Us (Meuse Music Records) [Spike]
You know that moment when you're wearing headphones late at night, and a record steps forward, not with drums, but with emotion? The Silence That Binds Us did exactly that. I listened to this very late at night after a difficult day and it felt like walls collapsed inward, replaced by echoes of grief so tangible I could almost touch it. This probably is over sharing but that moment, that day something which defined grief, pain and loss was needed. Music can be so damn powerful at times.
This is melodic death-doom sculpted from desolation, formed in Dubai and Jordan, there’s no “winter landscapes” clichés here. But speaking of cold, opening track Carvings cuts deep with mournful riffs and melancholic tremolo, only to bloom into piano-flecked choruses that feel carved from ice. It’s the sonic equivalent of a frozen lake cracking under your weight, unexpected and unnervingly fragile.
The Angel On My Shoulder carries that weight forward, fading whispers anchored by agonized roars. It’s sorrow you feel in your bones, aching but articulate. In We Are Alone a haunted piano pulls you under before guitars rise with sorrowful clarity. It’s a moment of stillness amid the storm.
Ashes Of My Mind drips sorrow like molten lead, each phrase a guttural confession. I sat in the dark with this one, focused even more though the headphones until it ran its course. This one mattered. Shattered Hopes lands next, and though it could’ve been the closer, it’s more like a final inevitable blow. There’s anger in the melody that cuts deeper than raw aggression.
Mid-album, The Everlasting Wounds rings with persistent scars, clean vocals that echo loss, then vocals that roar like discovering a wound still open. The Visions Of The Forsaken drifts into dreamlike territory, chords mournful enough to feel sacred.
Closing with Re-Silence (Part III), they demurely strip back into piano, whispers, and a sense of finality. It doesn’t fade, it leaves a memory. That one left me still with some silence and for once, made that day feel like I was waking from an odd dream.
Production by Dan Swanö keeps it vivid without smoothing edges, the piano isn’t polite, the drums don’t over-polish, and guest vocals from Paul Kuhr land like old ghosts stepping back into the frame. It’s classic death-doom in spirit but refined in execution. These are songs that are deliberately paced, never indulgent.
If doom metal is sometimes a slow drag through despair, this is more, much more than that. It was like having grief slowly unwrapped, examined and acknowledged. It’s atmospheric in a way that plants you somewhere time forgot, then lets the weight settle as it fades.
Not just a return for Falling Leaves, it’s a reckoning. This was beautiful, brutal, and unforgettable. And very much needed. It is so close to full marks it’s all I can give it. 10/10
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