(written by Islander)
We’ve arrived at the last SHADES OF BLACK column for 2025.
If you read yesterday’s column (and surely you did, and no I’m not calling you Shirley) then you’ll know I’m flying the coop mid-morning today to watch a football game at the local sports bar (there’s only one), accompanied by my spouse and a good old friend. Despite that plan I did not wake up extra early (it is a Sunday, after all) to finish today’s column, and I wasn’t able to make much of a head start yesterday due to watching a very long movie set on a planet where the indigenous peoples have tails (watching in 3D, no less), followed by dinner at the very same sports bar where we’ll be returning in a couple of hours.
Given my limited time, I had to make some hard choices, but also some extremely impulsive ones. How impulsive? Well, despite the fact that I had my own very long list of candidates from which to select, I chose one thing I didn’t know about until this morning. However, the first thing below has been on my radar for a while.
GATES OF DAWN (U.S.)
I had been meaning to check out Gates of Dawn’s new album III ever since it was released this past September, following a premiere at Decibel. But I kept forgetting about it while in the throes of focusing on even more recent releases and then getting caught up on all the LISTMANIA stuff we’ve been posting. But it was some of that LISTMANIA stuff that reminded me about this album. Here, for example, is what Neill Jameson wrote about III in his YE list feature (“The Best of the Outside“) for NCS:
The award for most outside of the outside record of 2025 goes to III. There is simply nothing like this record out there, either this year or any previous. For as many bands over the years who have claimed to be “psychedelic black metal” this absolutely assassinates them. At least two of you will get that.
Mixing traditional second wave black metal with The Grateful Dead/Allman Brothers into easily the most original record of the year, there is no fucking reason Gates of Dawn aren’t much bigger than they are other than the fact a great many black metal fans (none of you reading this, of course) are fucking morons who don’t understand this sort of record because it goes so far out of their comfort zones nor does it feature a cover with three inch thick drawn borders and some asshole in a cloak. III is black metal taken further beyond its boundaries than anyone has taken it before, while still retaining the cold and dark core of the genre.
At around the same time as I read Neill’s writeup I also saw the album popping up on a few other obscure year-end lists outside NCS, and so all that reminded me. I’m grateful for the reminders because III really is as exceptional as Neill says it is. And I think while I’m quoting other people, I’ll add this excerpt from Decibel’s intro to their premiere of the album (linked above):
There’s a lot going on, and you’re never sure what direction the band will go in next. And that’s kind of the point, the music works like a trippy jam session that coalesced into a set of solid works, rather than a set of carefully constructed songs that adhere to a rigid format.
Honestly, I’m not sure what I can add about the album that would be useful. It really must be heard to be believed, which is to say (as those quoted above have said) that it goes in many different directions, not only from song to song but within songs. In that way it’s head-spinning, but it’s also a head-spinner because all the surprises and multifarious stylistic ingredients work so well.
Much of the time the only connection to “traditional” black metal consists of the caustic vocals, and even those seem to be replaced by a jazzy feminine voice in “Faces in Flames”, though it’s really not a human voice (it sounds like a trumpet, whether it actually is or isn’t). The other changing ingredients are too numerous to list — so I won’t try. Just keep an open mind and listen.
https://gatesofdawn.bandcamp.com/album/iii
HANDFUL OF HATE (Italy)
I’m glad no one is in a position to force me into choosing any particular style of black metal as my favorite. That would be a near-impossible task. But while I’m enamored of bands who make what’s easy to label as “atmospheric” or “avant-garde” or “vicious” (easy, because those terms are so amorphous), I’m also powerfully drawn to what I’d call “black metal delirium”, and I’d put this next song in that category.
“Libera Me” is fast and thunderous, and it blazes with wildly roiling and ecstatically pulsating riffage that’s electrifying to hear. The throat-ripping vocals are equally wild, though they briefly trade off with grim-sounding pronouncements.
The band also throw in a few changes, but not really enough to let a gasping listener catch a breath. The drums methodically boom as well as blast; the music briefly seems to groan; the riffing miserably writhes (while still soaring), and the layered guitars also feverishly skitter and dart. The mood can seem distressing as well as blazing and berserk. But the main takeaway is that the song is an enormous injection of head-spinning adrenaline.
This song is the opening track on a Handful of Hate album named Soulless Abominations that will be released by the Dusktone label on January 23rd.
https://dusktone.bandcamp.com/album/soulless-abominations
https://www.facebook.com/handfulofhateofficial/
THE BLOOD MOUNTAIN BLACK METAL CHOIR (and more)
I’ve previously written about The Blood Mountain Black Metal Choir (hereafter TBMBMC), specifically the Folklore demo released at the end of January 2025’s first week. What I didn’t realize until this morning is that the Georgia-based person behind that band (Annos) is also the creator of two other projects, Isleptonthemoon and Wounds of Recollection.
I came to that realization in reading a Machine Music recommendation of a new split that includes songs by all three of these solo outfits. And so, I impulsively listened to the split this morning instead of diving into other candidates for this coluimn that I already knew about. Here are some equally impulsive notes about what I heard:
TBMBMC’s song, “Language“, is opens with a slow, lonely, and sad piano melody, whose piercing tones persist even after the music starts jolting, hammering, and expanding in its breadth, and even after caustic snarls begin expelling the words.
The music seems to reach up, yearning with outstretched hands, and to sweep like the sun blazing on vast waters, and there’s a guitar solo that’s just gloriously exuberant. Even that sad melody begins to shine with a brighter feeling, a feeling of wonder.
Then comes “It Never Gets Easier” by Isleptonthemoon. A strummed acoustic guitar provides the initial rhythm, and a fiddle and soft singing express the melancholy melodies. Thumping drums and piano chords add to the swelling tapestry. And although you might expect the entire track will be a beguiling folk song, it surprisingly explodes like a storm front of black metal, orders of magnitude more wrenching. The vocals in particular are frighteningly intense.
The song also expands like “Language” did, reach sweeping, panoramic proportions, though it’s the piano and fiddle that provide the lilting and longing denouement.
And finally, the split includes “Soon, This Will All Be a Beautiful Dream” by Wounds of Recollection. With big rumbling and pounding beats providing the drive train, and scorching vox in front, the guitars ring and clang, swirl and soar.
The song rocks but also races, jolts but also sears, and the changes keep coming (including some bright picking and whirling arpeggios), creating an exhilarating and wholly immersive experience. Although this song, like the ones before, is veined with sorrowful or even anguished moods, it might also be the most wondrous of the three, the one most likely to put your heart in your throat — and the nostalgic closing phase, where a violin takes the lead, is simply sublime.
In a nutshell, the split is fantastic.
https://thebloodmountainbmc.bandcamp.com/album/all-things-which-came-before-split
https://www.instagram.com/thebloodmountainbmc/