SHADES OF BLACK: BONG-RA, UDRĘKA, VERDUN, FERNDOM, SEAR, LUCERNA MUNDI

(written by Islander)

Two days ago people in the tiny Spanish village of San Bartolomé de Pinares renewed a tradition that’s purportedly five centuries long — building bonfires in the central streets and riding horses through the flames. This is done on the eve of the festival of Saint Anthony the Abbott, the patron saint of domestic animals, because what honors domestic animals better than forcing some big ones to hurtle through an inferno?

I always look for photos of the event because they’re typically amazing and because they’re usually pretty good metaphors for people here and around the world trying to brave whatever fiery hells are burning around us. Lots of those to choose from these days.

Oddly, when I went looking for photos of this year’s ritual I had to wade through snowy photos of armed Greenlandic polar bears and sled dogs. What the hell was that about? (Well, I knew, and I guess it’s proof that AI is good for something besides kicking people out of work and threatening humanity with extinction.)

Photo credit: Manu Fernandez for the Associated Press, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026

Hellish photography also seems like fitting adornment for a weekly column that focuses on black and black-ish metal, but although it suits some of the new music I decided to recommend today, photos of a roller-coaster ride would also have been fitting.

I say that because I think if you make your way through everything I’ve assembled, you’ll experience some hair-raising twists and turns, ups and downs, and (hopefully) some thrills — as well as fear. And some further evidence (as if more were needed) that traditional ingredients of black metal (in greater or lesser quantities) can get deployed for unorthodox purposes.

 

BONG-RA (Netherlands)

Hold your horses, I’m aware that most people don’t think of Bong-Ra as any kind of black metal band. But to me the following new song feels right for this column, which I guess is just a lazy way of saying I don’t want to try to think it through or articulate an explanation for putting it here. But I will share the articulation of Bong-Ra’s Jason Köhnen concerning the song:

“‘Pleasures of the Flesh‘ is an inner struggle between the temptations of the physical and the perseverance towards metaphysical discipline. Hinting to the principles of duality that come from Hermetic teachings. It’s a constant internal struggle and a test of faith, nihilism versus spirituality, and ‘Pleasures of the Flesh‘ shows the angle where the shift leans towards hope being lost and those moments when one is captured by the temptations of the dark side. It hints to a machine control world.”

Okay, I didn’t promise that you would understand Köhnen’s inspirations. You also might not completely comprehend the lyrics, even when you see them spelled out in the accompanying video. I don’t claim complete comprehension either, but I do claim to be fascinated by that quote, and the words, and especially the music.

The song is a divergent one that does include angles and pivots. On the one hand, it is crushing and calamitous, thanks to its assembly of crashing, heaving, and heavily distorted chords, spine-cracking drums, savage growls, and eerily swirling and screaming tonal filaments.

The music also swarms and quivers, and even brightly dancing keys and be-gloomed singing don’t do much to relieve the song’s pounding, groaning, and oppressive heaviness. But the music does dramatically pivot, angling away into a slow and seductive but also sorrowful interlude of jazz performed primarily with piano, saxophone (by Colin Webster), and drums.

The song suddenly pivots again into an even more searing and clobbering musical assault, in which the vocals explode in raw howls and the bass undulates and rumbles like some rhythmic earthquake — and then pivots one more time, joining together strange electronic pulsations, abyssal chants, and wailing elements of sonic mysticism to craft a closing hallucination that does seem to hint at a machine-controlled world.

“Pleasures of the Flesh” is the first single from a new Bong-Ra album named Esoterik, which is set for release by Debemur Morti Productions on March 20th.

https://bong-ra.bandcamp.com/album/esoterik
https://www.instagram.com/bong.ra.official/

 

UDRĘKA (Poland)

No we’ll turn to two songs that are more centered in the fires of black metal, both of them from the debut album of the Polish quartet Udręka, which follows up their 2023 EP Zgnij.

The first one is the album’s title song, “Nieistnienie“. There, the riffing is mind-piercing in the way it roils and writhes above thundering bass-lines, hammering drums, and ferocious vox that slash and scald the ears, but the riffing also vividly darts and whirls around punk beats, seeming to channel wild exhilaration, and an electrifying guitar solo makes everything even more jubilantly wild.

The riffing and the drumming continue to morph, manifesting grimness, gloom, and anguish but also explosive firebrand passion. The riffs are especially strong, dominating and quickly addictive — and they again demand attention in the second song.

That second song, “ANTY“, cuts loose immediately with munitions-grade percussion and fierce fretwork assaults. Coupled with the unhinged vocals, they create an atmosphere of madness, but again the layered guitars warp, seeming to channel not only violent cruelty but also frantic confusion, cauterizing fear, and intense desperation.

“ANTY” is a completely breathtaking experience, and if you’re like me you won’t hesitate to play it all over again without delay.

Nieistnienie (the album) will be released on January 30th by Godz Ov War.

https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/nieistnienie
https://www.facebook.com/udreka

 

VERDUN (France)

This next song makes the third time I’ve put our spotlight on music from Transcending Obscurity Record’s recently released sampler of music they intend to release this year. It’s by the French band Verdun, who (I’m surprised to learn) are hereby making their first appearance at NCS despite having previously released two albums and a split with Seattle’s excellent Old Iron.

This song, “Funeral Of The Cosmic Knight“, creates a dramatic turn from those two Udręka songs. Its mid-paced, lurching march is immensely heavy and indeed funereal in the earthshaking weight of its gloom — but this is a cosmic knight whose funeral we’re witnessing, and so shrill guitars (and/or keys) eerily shiver and wail above the staggering low end.

The screamed vocals are utterly crazed in their throat-ripping intensity, and they provide another high-end tonal contrast to the rhythm section’s subterranean immensity. Another contrast emerges when the bass begins musing and the band set free a startling array of weirdly shimmering, grieving, and shrill seizure-like tones.

The music overflows into a dense and disconcerting sonic maelstrom of harrowing intensity, but the listener is rescued by a reprise of the song’s immense (and muscle-moving) opening phase — though the vocals remain far beyond rescue.

The song will appear on a new Verdun album named Abyssal Womb. Obviously, it will be released by Transcending Obscurity but I don’t yet know its release date. And by the way, if you let the player continue running you’ll hear another traumatizing cut of black metal from the sampler by the Mexican band Muerto.

I also want to remind you that proceeds from any money spent to acquire the sampler will go toward the upkeep of the Transcending Obscurity-run animal sanctuary, which includes more than 40 rescued cats and dogs, and others outside being fed and taken care of on a daily basis.

https://transcendingobscurity.bandcamp.com/album/2026-label-sampler
https://www.facebook.com/weareverdun/
https://verduntheband.com/

 

FERNDOM (U.S.)

This next band and their forthcoming debut album piqued my interest before I ever heard a note. First, it’s a one-person project from my hometown of Austin, Texas (the person goes by Vileinist, a clever name for reasons you’ll soon learn). Second, the name of the album is Tesuque, named for a place near Santa Fe in New Mexico that I and family members have visited frequently.

And, well, the third reason for getting interested is that Vileinist is a violinist, and uses an electric violin to replace traditional guitar parts throughout the album.

The first song available for listening now is “Cacophony of Ice“. I found it tremendously captivating, from the slow and soulfully mournful violin harmony and gently plaintive piano keys that open the song to the gripping fanfare that forms the bridge from that haunted opening to the powerful surge that then follows.

As the drums hammer like pistons and a cutting voice howls like a mountain lion on the attack, the layered violins waft, wail, and sing — still grieving in their mood but also glorious. Vileinist also turns up the heat, using the piercing violin melodies to transform the mood into one of seeming anguish.

Following gasped words and another dark, trilling bridge, the song’s mood becomes much darker too, but also mystical, showering the listener in shrill tones of mesmerizing mystery above big bass-level undulations. At the end, against a windy backdrop, the violin sounds like an indigenous flute, the most pointed reminder so far of the land that inspired the album.

https://vileinist.bandcamp.com/album/tesuque

 

SEAR (U.S.)

I owe thanks to Rennie of starkweather for linking me to a new record named O Merciful by the South Carolina band Sear, because over the course of its 8 tracks and 16 minutes it punched a bunch of holes in my head and heart.

I was intrigued by this one before hearing it because of the cover photo, and later by reading what Zegema Beach Records wrote about its inspiration:

The album serves as a loving embrace to vocalist/guitarist Austin’s grandmother “who has been the only consistent family member in my life. She raised me as if I were her own without being asked. She has been sick for a long time now and the thought of being alive without her sounds miserable. It’s a love letter to her. I want her to be at peace without suffering.”

I’ll use the song “Generational Blues” as a way of introducing what makes the whole album so compelling. That song delivers crashing jolts of explosive power and hardcore howls of palpable fury — but also beautifully ringing guitar melodies and vividly tumbling drums.

It will slug you senseless, scream bloody murder at your face, gouge your guts with toothsome bass-lines, and pile-drive concrete pavement into gravel. But it will again introduce gently ringing melodies that are heartfelt in their longing.

Like that song, the others are short — in fact, “Generational Blues” is the longest one. Like that one, the others are capable of inflicting pulverizing agro-assaults and vocals of raw, spine-tingling intensity, which range from explosively furious howls and traumatized yells to vicious snarls.

They include typhoons of scathing abrasion and blast-beat murder, plus bass-lines geared toward punching through walls and dissonant fretwork convulsions that sound like the house is on fire and you’re not getting out.

But the songs also include compulsive rocking beats and addictively throbbing riffs, as well as gently glinting arpeggios that bespeak heartbreak; the demolishing catastrophe that is “Bogie” even briefly includes a mesmerizing piano refrain, something like a saxophone, and sorrowful strummed chords. There’s also some lonely singing and deep spoken words in “Confined“, but that song will also ruthlessly pound you deep into the ground.

To return to where I began, every song, including all the ones I haven’t mentioned by name, have hit me hard in the head and heart. They may have that effect on you too, so I hope you’ll give this a chance.

O Merciful was released on January 12th by Zegema Beach Records and Tomb Tree Tapes. They recommend it for fans of Portrayal Of Guilt, Massa Nera, Crossed, and To Forget.

https://zbrusa.com/products/tt137
https://searcultt.bandcamp.com/album/o-merciful
https://tombtreetapes.bandcamp.com/album/o-merciful

 

LUCERNA MUNDI (Canada)

I should state up-front that if you’re not a fan of symphonic metal, you probably won’t be interested in my last selection today, because Lucerna Mundi’s orchestration is a very significant part of their new album The Great Darkening (which follows their 2022 full-length debut, The Fall of Man). It plunges deep into the earth as the music’s foundation, erects great towers of daunting magnificence, unleashes maelstroms of violence, and provides a striking number of sophisticated, mood-changing embellishments.

To be sure, the music includes other ingredients and experiences, which I’ll eventually mention, but the throughline of this album is dark immensity. The album’s title is explained in the ultimately towering overture track “1992“, in which deep spoken words (backed by solemn choral voices) identify not only the dread aspects of empire but also provide a reminder that “an empire built upon the suffering of its people is destined to crumble under its own weight” — a hopeful reminder in our current age.

In subsequent songs the music mounts assaults of breathtaking power and colossal extravagance — storms of furiously plundering drums, sweeping strings of sky-like expanse, and blazing horns — anchored by low-frequency undulations that are so heavy they seem like the movement of tectonic plates.

But, as mentioned, the songs include other ingredients as well — brutishly jolting low-end blows, vividly whirling guitars brilliant in tone, blast-beat furies, and vocals that are both scorching and bestially vicious, a mix of blistering screams, rabid howls, and frightening guttural roars.

Even the orchestration segues into phases of celestial mystery, pastoral beauty, haunting melancholy, and wrenching mournfulness, all of it classically influenced. Shrill flute-like melodies play a prominent role in “For the Trumpet Shall Sound“; brightly darting electronic keys surface in “Hymn of the 144,000“, along with monastic choral voices that send shivers down the spine; and tragic piano melodies briefly get the spotlight in “Sic Mundus Obtenebratus Est“, “Revelation 21” (which also features exotic Eastern melodies); and the heart-breaking but also spine-shaking closer “Lacrimosa“.

The compositions are continuously elaborate, but always geared toward the album’s themes and powerful moods, creating changing phases of cruelty and dread, of sorrow and despair, and of resistance and resilience.

It’s astonishing that Lucerna Mundi is the work of a single individual (Anthony Ba’al Abdo), including the production, mixing, and mastering.

The Great Darkening was released on January 16th by InViMa Records, and the merchandise is available through Post Mortuus Distributions.

https://linktr.ee/invimarecords
https://lucernamundi.bandcamp.com/album/the-great-darkening
https://www.postmortuus.com/store/p/lucerna-mundi-the-great-darkening
https://www.facebook.com/lucernamundi/