Reviews: Enslaved, The Berzerker, Somnent, Sea Bastard (Paul Hutchings & Mark Young)

Enslaved - Mið (Nuclear Blast) [Paul Hutchings]

"On Mið (English: “mith”), the Old Norse word for ‘the centre’, ‘the middle’, we are reaching for the centre of ourselves, a journey in all directions”. So reflects the Norwegian powerhouse Black Metal Machine Enslaved, as they prepare to release their 17th album.

As with their most recent releases, including the excellent Heimdal from 2023, the band’s sound continues to evolve in organic style. There is plenty of harshness, with Grutle Kjellson’s vicious gruff roars and yelps a foil to the stylish cleans of Håkon Vinje and Iver Sandøy. Blast beats switch with slower paced tempos; majestic epics intertwined with the thrust of more immediate songs.

Consistency is the watchword here. The blistering progressive exploration of closing song I Miðju the classic example of a band locked in and focused on harmony in their sound. It’s a sprawling giant, complete with atmospheric outro that hangs in the air like mist in the morning.

As an album, Mið doesn’t overstay its welcome. At 43-minutes its compact, especially with eight tracks that include the one-minute intro of Non-Being. Things soon heat up with the explosive I Am Ice which features Sami teacher and musician Johan Sara Jr. 

There’s another important guest, Kevin Kicking Woman, an esteemed Native American educator from the Blackfeet Nation whose contribution provides more texture and layers to an already highly crafted record. His part, on Spirit Helper sees Enslaved expand their natural concepts of the earth and land and captures the band’s determination to make their own rules and sounds. There is plenty of new approaches here once again.

Unafraid to mix keys and synths with their crushing riffs, Enslaved has once again created a superb record that will delight their hardcore and potentially pull in many more. As a final suggestion, dive deep into the eight-minute plus The Parting. It’s a gloriously epic soundscape that draws on native sound and vibes to create something totally unique and in the Enslaved market. 

Another fine release from a band who don’t do anything but excellent. 9/10

The Berzerker - The Reawakening (Apocalyptic Witchcraft) [Paul Hutchings]

If there was one band responsible for pulling the 2026 edition of Damnation Festival towards a sellout, it was the unholy carnage of a resurrected The Bezerker. 2026’s line-up features creator Luke Kenny, alongside Sam Bean, Matt Wilcox and Todd Hansen.

It’s no coincidence that alongside the return of this extreme Australian outfit, the band’s fifth and final album The Reawakening is being reissued via the Apocalyptic Witchcraft label. There are few better combinations with Conor Droney, the man behind the label commenting, “Discovering The Berzerker on a compilation at 15 was a life-changing moment that set me on the path I’m on today. It is only right that The Berzerker would end up working with Apocalyptic Witchcraft. The kings of extreme metal have returned.”

To the uninitiated, this is hell of an entry point. A chaotic explosion of carnage via brutal death metal and industrial programming, it’s like being slugged repeatedly by The Terminator. It doesn’t mess around. Ten tracks in just over 35-minutes is economical, yet here it’s the intensity of the delivery that sucks the breath out of the lungs. Few albums make you gasp for air in the way that this release does.

The programming is aggressive, nasty, powerfully guttural. Thunderous drumming accompanies savage riffs and the snarling, visceral and slightly unnerving vocal delivery. Take the plunge via opener Wisdom And Corruption and brace for impact. It hits hard. Very hard and doesn’t let up. 

Songs with titles like central track Evolution Of Aggression aren’t going to deliver introspective philosophy. Instead, try having your face sand blasted. You’ll probably have a similar experience. Your Final Seconds provides a filthy techno diversion before diving in a swell of carnage that will snap limbs. This is music that destroys.

If you can reach the final bludgeoning of An Unforgotten Force, you’ve demonstrated some staying power. The ultimate Apex predator has returned. If you are Damnation, be afraid, for this will be something special. And frightening. Industrial savagery is back on the menu. 8/10

Somnent - Heirloom (Ardua Records) [Mark Young]

The majority of reviews I do are based on an initial listen while driving. I suspect I’m no different from anyone else in that I consume a lot of new music while commuting. Normally, the car provides a decent barometer of how an album is going to land. Did you skip a track? Could you listen to it all the way through? Did it last the journey?

Sometimes, though, that works against you. An album previously dismissed because it didn’t work can take on a new dimension once you’re able to sit down and simply digest it. That is Heirloom all over.

It is a piece of work that skirts around melodic doom and death metal, but what is definite is the gigantic melancholic pall that dominates every minute. Every chord, drum strike and vocalisation, clean or harsh, has it seeping from every pore. Now, just because I’ve finally understood how to approach this, it doesn’t mean I love it.

By their own admission, the experiences that provided the album’s emotional backbone saw them return to childhood and back again, mining every difficult moment to give it the weight it needed. There are moments of sheer beauty here, an aching and mournful beauty that fights to keep its head above water.

They make no bones about this being a difficult journey, and to classify it as simply another mixture of clean and harsh vocals with black-metal stylings would be wrong. Listen to it in one sitting, without distractions, and it becomes a moving experience, one that brings you in to share their grief while looking towards the possibility of hope and moving forward.

It’s one of those albums where simply dissecting each song in terms of riffs, heavy guitars or blast beats would not do the music justice. The songs have to be heard as a whole because that is how Heirloom has been built.

From the delicate A Voice Of Inner Child, with its cold piano and the almost-whispered vocals of Natalie Drepina, Heirloom seeks to bring you along for the ride. Each song provides another part of the backdrop to this painful journey until we check out with The Feeding Hand, a closing powerhouse that neatly wraps everything in black cloth.

Throughout, Giovanni Antonio barely puts a foot wrong, delivering a measured and controlled vocal performance at every turn. The lead break on the closing track does exactly what it needs to do, recognising its place rather than reaching for the big show. Don’t come here unless you’re prepared to give this album the respect it deserves.

It has taken them four years to get this on tape, a monumental effort to channel whatever experiences have shaped them in this way. In its own fashion, Heirloom becomes an uplifting experience once it finishes, but it takes a toll getting there. That never-ending shroud doesn’t move. The sun barely shines, yet within the darkness is a collection of songs that, taken as a whole, makes this one of the best releases of the year.

I can say that while acknowledging it is not really for me. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate beauty when I hear it. 9/10

Sea Bastard - Cyclopean (Road To Masochist) [Mark Young]

This is a tough album to get through. I think that Sea Bastard and their latest opus Cyclopean will take the award for most punishing release of 2026. To give this a manner of context, hands up who remembers the endurance races in Grand Turismo? You couldn’t pause, save halfway through or anything like that. 

Once you pressed start, that was it. For me, this is a lot like that, an album that exacts a heavy toll on the listener in being able to sit and take this on in one go. It is apt that the label is Road To Masochist, I mean you can’t make that up. 

Cyclopean is the Brighton mobs first new album since 2017 and is the very definition of a long-form experience. 4 songs, one hour and 15 minutes of dissonant, sprawling, lugubrious doom of the filthiest order. I don’t want to insult your intelligence (or theirs) by trying talk round each song, there is zero point in me doing that.

If you imagine that there are bands who say they are heavy, and those that are just heavy and can just do it without breaking a sweat. This isn’t just guitars tuned low, it is the way that the songs are built, the way that they have been constructed to satisfy their expectations and wants, not yours or mine.

I’ll be honest, Sea Bastard push beyond what I’m normally able to tolerate within a genre that has thrown me some real treats. Those bands by comparison feel lightweight, and that Sea Bastard have decided to return to show that maybe doom was losing its way. 

Of course this is just supposition on my part, I’ve no evidence or fact to back that statement up and its not like I’m going to do a straw poll on it. Its an honest reaction to a set of songs that are brutal, harsh and as pummelling as any death metal. I can’t even give you the highlight or best song, its just redundant for me to even try to say. 

What you will take from this is dependent on the threshold you have; To say that if you like doom then you will love this is probably not the right thing to say. I won’t sit here and tell you l loved it, that it was riff packed or any of that old pony. It doesn’t feel right to say that it feels twee and a disservice to what they have dropped here because this is massive, I mean properly massive.

If I go back to my opening words, It was an attempt at trying to level a useful comparison with how something that is supposed to be fun can also be genuinely painful. I could have said who remembers the Banyan Tree in Jet Set Willy as being something painful but that would be showing my age. 

They have made an album that ticks all of your heavy boxes and gives you all the treats you want but you are going to work for it. 7/10