(written by Islander)
This is the final edition of SHADES OF BLACK.
The final edition of May 2026! (Sorry if I made you gasp – but I hope I did.)
The last day of May marks the end of Spring in the northern hemisphere, at least if you use the common meteorological definition of the season. In astronomical terms, it won’t until June 20th this year, the day before the summer solstice.
Today is also the 151st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar, which means that 41.37% of this year is over. Not exactly a memorable percentage, and not really far enough along for us to be taking stock of anything. We won’t reach the halfway point until noon on July 2nd.
And that’s nearly all I have to say by way of introducing this column today, other than this:
I’ve picked six recently revealed songs to recommend, five of them from forthcoming albums and one standalone single. For the most part they are all fast and intense. Some of them also reach glorious heights, and some give you just enough of an introspective or haunting pause to catch your breath.
FYRNASK (Germany)
This past week brought us the third single from Fyrnask’s new album Íosir. The name of the song is “Krýndur af tóminu“, which I think means “Crowned by the void” in English.
The video for the song is a blood-congealer. It’s not the first time a metal video has displayed someone dragging a corpse or a coffin across some remote rural landscape, but it’s still a chilling thing to witness.
The music is also chilling, a storm of layered, dissonant riffing that’s equal parts deranged and dismal, searing and suffocating, backed by furious blast-beats and fronted by gruesome roars, unhinged howls, and rabid screams. The dense music maniacally writhes and violently swirls; its explosive madness puts nerves on edge.
When the blistering pace briefly slows near the song’s midpoint, the swarming riffage more frontally channels the music’s dismal aspects, as do the vocals, which segue into haunting song. When the blasting resumes, Fyrnask reinforces the song’s aura of nightmarish hostility, frantic desperation, and feverish dementia — and those sensations persist even when the solo guitar throbs and moans at the end.
Or is it a corpse? And who is the victim here? Well, I won’t spoil the video’s surprise ending.
Íosir “follows a single consciousness through the realm of the dead — across burning gates, wrathful and luminous forces, and a final dissolution.” It will be released by Ván Records on June 12th. I’ve also included streams of the first two singles from the album, “Loginn Ómyndaði” and “Í Munnlausri Dýrð“.
https://van-records.com/Fyrnask-Iosir-12LP_1
https://van-records.com/Fyrnask-Iosir-digiCD_1
https://fyrnask.bandcamp.com/album/osir-2
https://www.facebook.com/Fyrnask/
MAERUND (U.S.)
During this past week I, Voidhanger Records announced another trio of releases, with individual song streams premiering for each of them. One of those forthcoming albums is a split named Sunthema by Deathspiral Of Inherited Suffering, Elysian Blaze, Panegyrist, and a new project named Maerund, whose song “Manna Pharmakeia” is the first one revealed from the split. It will be jointly released with the Rubeus Obex label, with which all of the bands are associated.
The releases of Rubeus Obex are curated by Maerund Arednum Eremite and Elijah Gwhedhú Tamu, and it appears that Maerund is the solo work of Maerund A.E., with session drums and percussion on this release performed by Vincent Ippolito (Panegyrist), and additional percussion by Elijah.
The music of all the bands on the split, including Maerund, have a pronounced spiritual inspiration, and one that is far from orthodox for black metal. That inspiration isn’t easily summed up. It’s a form of Christianity, but not a belief system taught in any church I know of. Here is an excerpt authored by Maerund from the Bandcamp page for the split:
“This collection of recordings, a work of four wills corded together, is itself a sunthema: catalyzing devotion driven by blistering worship, an adversarial taste for Divine blood, and holy Faustian maniacism. For those with the eyes to see, perceive the sign. Take His throne. Breathe His flame. Become into His telos. The stained-glass window becomes itself when filled with the light of the sun.”
The Bandcamp page also quotes the final lines of “Red Crystal Lattice“, the song with which Maerund closes the album:
Pneuma, flame, and stone.
Water, blood, and bone.
Dust and light of Sun.
Flesh and God made one.
Turning now to “Manna Pharmakeia“, the riffing generates a roiling whirlpool of sound, or a veering firestorm, but with an enormously momentous yet nimble-fingered bass and continuously varied drum rhythms anchoring the dense, high-pitched arpeggios.
Like the music, the vocals channel burning passion through their explosive cries and scalding screams. The music generated by the layered fretwork also morphs — ecstatically levitating, spinning as if possessed, seeming to frantically flail in signs of despair, and dissonantly contorting. The vocals also shift into reverent chant-like singing.
All in all, it’s an elaborate and almost overwhelming experience that will get heads spinning and hearts beating fast, and there’s so much going on at every instrumental station that one listen isn’t nearly enough to appreciate the full panoply of riffs, leads, and percussive variations.
The album will be co-released on June 26th by I, Voidhanger (EU) and Rubeus Obex (U.S.). Elijah Tamu created the stunning cover art.
https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/sunthema
https://rubeusobex.bandcamp.com/album/sunthema
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61554233459817
https://www.facebook.com/RubeusObex/
CON (Sweden)
Roughly seven and a half years ago we premiered an EP named In Signo Draconis by the occult Swedish black metal band CON. It’s an understatement to say that CON doesn’t churn out music at a scurrying pace. That EP followed the band’s debut demo by more than 16 years, and until now no new releases have followed In Signo Draconis.
However, we have learned that later this year CON intends to release a new album named The Shrine Within. It will include re-recordings and revisions of previously released songs and one new song named “Lucifer“. Recently CON debuted one of those revised versions of an old song, “Alogos“, which was included on that 2009 demo.
The song opens with an amalgam of diabolically swirling fretwork and big, imperious blasts of sound. That swirling riff then persists, but the surrounding sound seems to expand, and to become infernally grand. The vocals are as demonic as the music, but even more cruelly ravenous and viciously unhinged.
The song benefits from repeated drum variations, though the pulse-pounding double-bass is a constant presence — until the music segues into a phase of esoteric mystery led by swirling and spiraling guitars backed by a potent bass-throb. The soloing combines notes that flicker and wail, both electrifying and haunting, as if a veil has been lifted on a profoundly unearthly scene.
We’re told that The Shrine Within will be released in August by Deäth Postüre Records.
https://www.facebook.com/consweden
ARS MORIENDI (France)
I think it’s fair to say that anyone who has ever heard Hordanes Land, Enslaved’s 1993 EP (or album, depending on how you define such things) won’t forget it. The French one-person black metal band Ars Moriendi certainly hasn’t, because last week the Ukrainian label Archaic Sound digitally released an Ars Moriendi cover of a song from that record.
The song is “Balfor (Andi Fara / Prologr)“. Seeing the cover gave me a welcome excuse to listen to to the original, which I hadn’t done in a long time, and then the cover, which is excellent.
It’s the kind of cover that mainly stays faithful to the original rather than “re-imagining” it, and that was a smart move because the original song itself is an unusual, inventive, and wildly elaborate affair, especially for its time, and it holds up extremely well despite the passage of more than 30 years.
In some ways it’s jubilant, almost like a devilish instrumental carnival (even the pianos bring calliopes to mind), but it’s also menacing, even fiendish, and the vampiric vocals are so blistering as to strip paint from walls — except when the vocals become apparitionally strange as the blasting begins. The song is also packed with hooks, despite what a kaleidoscopic and often twitchy spin it is.
And really, everything I just wrote applies with equal force to the cover. Tackling a song that’s as instrumentally rich as “Balfor“, and as prone to head-pivoting twists and turns, isn’t an easy task, I would imagine, especially for a single performer who’s standing in for so many Enslaved talents.
But Arsonist pulls it off with aplomb, including the ethereal, clean-sung vocals; the extended guitar solo near the end is especially enthralling. This is a joy to hear.
https://archaic-sound.bandcamp.com/track/balfor-andi-fara-prologr-a-tribute-to-enslaved
https://www.facebook.com/arsmorie/
NIVEOUS (U.S.)
My next recommendation is a song from the forthcoming debut album of a Milwaukee trio named Niveous. They made their first mark last year with an EP named Endless Snowfall, and the album’s name is Cult of the Void Star. It seems to be a concept album, the musical narrative of a fantastical tale described as follows:
When a vast monolith from deep space crashes into Earth and plunges the planet into a new ice age, a fanatical cult devoted to a timeless entity known as the Void Star rises amid the apocalyptic chaos. Opposing them are the Ice Tribes—human survivors adapted to the dark, frozen world. Their leader, Cala Garin, is the last living descendant of an ancient race known as the Sorn. War erupts between the Cult and Frostborne survivors as Earth is consumed by black storms and endless blizzards, the world reduced to a frozen wasteland.
As the Void Star hurtles through deep space toward the Monolith, time runs short for Cala and her resistance. When an unexpected signal begins transmitting from the far northern frontier, she gathers her strongest allies and leads a team northbound toward its source. Driven by hope, they vanish into the endless ice—unaware of who, or what, awaits them.
The album’s first single is “Servants of the Monolith“, and you’d best gulp some deep breaths before listening, because the song is electrifying.
The song begins with a dismal, dissonant, and eerie overture, but with a quickly twitching riff it gets a whole lot more devilish and dangerous. Eventually the drums start blasting, the vocals start scorching, and the riffing becomes a swarming feeding frenzy.
But this is a very multi-faceted song. The riffing changes constantly (backed by constantly changing drum patterns), creating an array of changing moods. The vocals bring in ugly growls and haughty chants to accompany the hair-on-fire screams, and the music levitates as it whirls, but also delivers vigorous thrash-paced lashings, as well as a slower expression of demonism that connects with the song’s opening — and a diabolical guitar solo that spirals high.
Really a fantastic piece of Hell-spawned art. I bet it would be fun to watch a live performance of this turn a circle pit into a frothing whirlpool.
Cult of the Void Star will be jointly released on July 17th by Hypnotic Dirge Records and Void Star Records on LP and CD, and Silver Shield Records (Out of Season) on Cassette.
https://hypnoticdirgerecords.bandcamp.com/album/cult-of-the-void-star
https://www.facebook.com/p/Niveous-61573532996206/
SNORLAX (Australia)
For today’s final selection I stepped away from black metal, but I think you’ll find it isn’t a huge step away.
What’s coming is the first advance track from Toxic Current, a new album by the Brisbane one-man band Snorlax, the one man being multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Brendan Auld. The album includes two covers from Australian grind and hardcore bands, Agents Of Abhorrence and The Fevered, and that’s a clue to where Snorlax is musically moving on Toxic Current.
Regarding the new album’s themes, Auld explains:
Toxic Current anatomizes the mental turmoil of existing within an economy that fuels corruption and endless war. It posits that hostility is a rational response to witnessing the slaughter of the innocent, exploring the profound cognitive friction birthed when personal goals inadvertently lubricate a killing machine beyond human comprehension.
As the burden of this knowledge transcends the threshold of despair, the narrative reaches an ultimatum event horizon: the surrender of biological autonomy. In a world destined for geometric chaos, humanity succumbs to the singularity, trading flesh for machines in a desperate wager that a truly just future will prevail within the void.
“Into the Void” is the name of the album’s first single, and it’s a head-spinning blood-rush. The drums blast away in a fury; the shrieking vocals spit rage and vitriol; the riffing is fast as cheetahs and even more eviscerating and crazed.
The song also includes brutally pounding grooves; wildly roiling and dismally whining guitar-leads; monstrous bellowing; jaw-dropping drum-fills; and notes that sound like the peal of bells made of misery. By the end, it becomes a soul-suffocating as well as a blast-furnace experience.
Toxic Current will be released on July 10th by the Unorthodox Emanations division of Avantgarde Music.
https://avantgardemusic.bandcamp.com/album/toxic-current
https://snorlaxbm.bandcamp.com/album/the-necrotrophic-abyss
http://www.facebook.com/snorlaxbm/