SHADES OF BLACK: WOE, INNER CLOISTER, PILLAR AMONGST WILLOWS

(written by Islander)

I had grand ambitions for this column but they were derailed when I spent more than five alcohol-assisted hours yesterday afternoon and evening watching an especially important football game with my spouse and friends, and then celebrating the outcome. When all was said and done I must have needed a really long period of sleep, because that’s what I got. As I write this, the day is well underway but my head hasn’t caught up yet.

Well, enough about me. I should turn to the music I’d like to recommend, even though the lateness of the hour and the slowness of my mind have conspired to make this column shorter than originally planned.

 

WOE (U.S.)

In 2023 Woe released a breathtaking concept album named Legacies of Frailty. For the first time since 2007, Woe’s Chris Grigg made the album almost entirely by himself (Lev Weinstein provided additional drumming on three tracks). On January 1st of this new year, Woe released a revised version of the album, titled Legacies of Human Frailty. How does it differ from the original? Here is how Woe explains the changes at Bandcamp:

The original Legacies of Frailty was written throughout the COVID pandemic and performed almost entirely by founder Chris Grigg, returning Woe to its roots as a solo project. In 2024, with a renewed live lineup, the songs evolved to become more chaotic and ferocious. Armed with new perspectives and a year of touring, the band recorded the reinvigorated interpretations in the summer of 2025.

Legacies of Human Frailty was recorded instrumentally live in the studio with minimal overdubs and edits to leave the primal energy intact. Vocals were added in single takes. The natural, aggressive mix allows sonic imperfections to remain and breaks down the barrier between a live and studio recording.

I also want to quote what Chris Grigg wrote on social media:

Compared to the original, there are a lot of subtle changes that combine into something significant: the synth is louder and some of the choir tones are different, we matched the live guitar arrangements by removing any leads that don’t happen when we perform, and of course the guitars, drums, and bass all benefit from Matt, Mike, and John’s interpretations. The vocals are very different and probably the biggest change you’ll notice: the lows are lower and there are more highs, shrieks, shouts, and generally manic feeling vocals. This changes my relationship with the material the most and something that I needed to play the material live to really discover.

The people identified in that quote are bassist John McKinney, guitarist Matt Mewton, and drummer Michael “Megaton” Kadnar. Lev Weinstein is also credited with contributions to “Fresh Chaos Greets the Dawn” and “The Justice of Gnashing Teeth”, and the new cover art was made by Rotting Reign.

“Scavenger Prophets” was the first song I heard in advance of the original album’s release. It was the second track on that album but it’s the opener on the new one. So I listened to these two songs back to back as a way of personally experiencing the changes described above.

If you do this yourself you would not mistake the new version as a different song. The bones of both are the same, but there are detectable differences. The vocals in the original were a changing mix of gritty, bear-like roars and wild punk yells; in the new version Grigg vents utterly unhinged screams, even more spine-tingling in their impact, and even the lower-range bellowing and baying vocals sound more emotionally ruinous.

Beyond that, I would say the new song is somewhat more immense, somewhat more engulfing, somewhat more raw and ravaging — though a placebo effect may also be at work.

Despite what I originally intended, I didn’t repeat this comparison exercise with each of the other songs on the two albums (see the first paragraph of this column). I simply continued through the new album. With the exception of the fantastic “Distant Epitaphs“, which has been shortened by half a minute, the song lengths are quite similar. Like this album’s precursor, it’s tremendous — both elaborate and emotionally explosive, often titanic in its scale but also ethereal at times, and both raging and severely stricken in its moods, a real soul-shaker in all its aspects.

If you already own the original album and you’re not a “completionist”, I guess you’ll have to decide whether the differences are worth an extra six bucks now at Bandscamp or five bucks at Ampwall, which are the costs of the digital downloads (I suspect a physical edition of some kind will come our way later). You can stream both via the links below.

If you don’t own the original, then I think getting the new one is the right choice, if for no other reason than this is the sound of Woe in their current form and as you’re likely to hear them on stage, but also because (to repeat) the new record is tremendous, and a stunning way to begin this New Year. I have happily added it to my own collection.

https://woeunholy.bandcamp.com/album/legacies-of-human-frailty
https://woeunholy.bandcamp.com/album/legacies-of-frailty
https://ampwall.com/a/woeunholy
https://www.facebook.com/woeunholy/

 

INNER CLOISTER (U.S.)

Because of where I live I tend to check out bands from the Pacific Northwest more reliably than bands located elsewhere. And so when I saw that Inner Cloister is based in Seattle, I spent time with their debut released in November by Cestrum Nocturnum Recordings — Demo MMXXV. But before I knew where they were from, it was this line from near the end of a Machine Music roundup that drew me to the Bandcamp page:

We all know Hissing rules and anything and everything Hissing related rules as well, thus this fucking thing rules too. Should have done a whole entry on it, ran out of space and time, but Inner Cloister is the jam. Black metal as god hates it.

I presume the Hissing reference is accounted for by the fact that Inner Cloister’s drummer (SNP) is also a member of Hissing. The other member of Inner Cloister (NSP), who is responsible for guitars, synths, and vocals, doesn’t have any other groups listed at Metal-Archives, but of course that’s not definitive.

As for further clues about the music, here’s the text at Bandcamp:

Sinister northwest US unit INNER CLOISTER announces their arrival with 2 offerings of creeping, otherworldly lofi black metal. Channeling the darkest and strangest reaches of contemporaries such as ASH BORER, FLUISTERAARS, GRAV, and THRÄ, as well as dusty recollections of luminaries such as WEAKLING and BETHLEHEM, this is dense, layered black metal with fleeting eruptions of melody and dramatic crescendos, balanced by raw atmospheric sensibilities.

The demo includes two songs, and they tend to make those descriptive references ring true. “Delving Horizons” brightly sizzles, weirdly warps, and clangs like wailing, corroded bells, while the drumming veers from plundering to cantering to rocking, and the vocals yell and scream like a red-eyed wraith. The bass performance is noticeable and nimble, like an acrobat who almost steals the show.

Before that show ends, the music becomes even more eerie and otherworldly, like some moonlit or twilight excursion led by a twanging guitar. That crepuscular atmosphere is enhanced by the reverberation of ghostly singing and other high-pitched sounds that slash and swirl, though the rhythm section still get their hooks in a listener’s reptile brain. At the end, the music softly glistens, and creates a seamless bridge into the chilling but spellbinding beginning of the second song, “Nadir“.

“Nadir” is perhaps even more sinister and cloaked in nightside hallucinations than the first song. The music swirls like sonic spirits and again peals like chimes, but it also includes a vibrantly trilling guitar melody that seems to rise in ecstasy and descend in confusion and distress. Meanwhile, the rhythm section continue seizing attention as they relentlessly move from one tempo and pattern to another, and the vocals are again mad (though there’s singing at the outset).

And there’s still more ahead, including changing guitar work that never sounds quite tethered to this world, and a new instrumental facet near the end which sounds like the dancing lilt of a fiddle or an accordion.

This demo is a very impressive debut, idiosyncratic in many respects and for that reason very memorable. I had no hesitation about buying the download despite its hefty price for a two-song work (it’s also available on cassette tape).

https://innercloister.bandcamp.com/album/demo-mmxxv

 

PILLAR AMONGST WILLOWS (U.S.)

To close this too-short Sunday collection of black metal I have the long opening song from a new album by Pillar Amongst Willows, the solo project of Ohio’s Ben Vanweelden, whose self-titled 2025 debut album I commented on (in part) here.

This song, “Clock of Resolution“, begins with a dreamlike, pastoral overture, mystical and mesmerizing in its effects. Chimelike tones slowly ring and a bass muses, creating an introspective mood, but other more scratchy chiming tones sound more distressing — a foreshadowing of things to come.

What comes is a dense and swarming envelope of searing riffage accompanied by pounding bass throbs, steady drum-cracks, and scorching screams. The riffing creates sensations of despair; the vocals vent red pain; and the drums begin hammering; all of that combining to torque the tension to the breaking point.

When it does break, the music becomes gentle and musing again, though the piercing pulse of a siren intrudes, as does an explosive outburst of shrill, frantic riffing, frightening shrieks, and turbocharged drumming.

More changes lie ahead, including sharp rhythmic snare strikes, catchy bass-pulses, and brilliantly swirling tonal cascades. That episode might make you feel like bouncing, even as it might also feel like it’s burning out your mind with an acetylene torch. The blasting drums and cauterizing vocals return, along with gently chiming keys, but the surrounding music for a time remains incendiary, until, in a different way, the song becomes mysterious, musing, and mesmerizing once more.

A fascinating and entirely absorbing song. The name of the new album is Kindred Odyssey. It will be released by Centipede Abyss on January 29th.

https://centipedeabyss.bandcamp.com/album/kindred-odyssey
https://www.facebook.com/TheCentipedeAbyss/