Review: Hauntologist – Hollow
Hauntologist offer with “Hollow” an album that rests between the dreamlike and the dissonant, a body of work more interested in atmospheres than in momentum. Built upon the collaboration of musicians with long roots in Poland’s extreme metal underground, the record is neither a straightforward black metal album nor a post-metal exercise. Instead, it floats in a grey expanse where sparse instrumentation, layered guitar drones, and aching vocals entwine, making each track feel like an extension of a single haunted thought.
The production is intentionally stark, almost brittle. Guitars scrape against silence, the drums often holding back to leave space for cavernous echoes, and the voice never rises above a pained murmur or an accusatory rasp. At times this restraint becomes hypnotic, drawing the listener into a space of uneasy calm. At other points, it risks inertia, as moments blur into one another, and the absence of urgency can create distance rather than depth. Still, when the band lean into a motif and let it bloom, as in the opening passages of “The Fall” or the closing weight of “Eternal Return,” they manage to transform minimalism into grandeur.
Musically, “Hollow” sits in dialogue with Poland’s broader black metal tradition but turns its gaze inward. Where other acts employ overwhelming walls of sound, Hauntologist thrive on what is not played—the gaps, the silences, the spectres left to drift between notes. There is a strange intimacy in the record’s pacing, an almost fragile quality that contrasts the genre’s usual brutality. It demands patience rather than adrenaline, and for some listeners, that will be a strength; for others, a barrier.
Thematically, the album orbits around the tension of memory, decay, and time’s erasure. Lyrics are sparse but weighted, leaning into cyclical images of absence and collapse. The record does not offer catharsis; it seems deliberately constructed to deny it, to keep the listener inside the hollow chamber its title evokes. This makes “Hollow” a challenging listen, but one that resonates more deeply the longer it lingers in the background of one’s thoughts.
No review of Hauntologist can avoid mention of Mgła, given the overlap in personnel. While Mgła’s stark minimalism and lyrical austerity inform this project, Hauntologist is a quieter, more experimental branch on the same tree. However, Mgła’s notoriety is not purely musical—the band’s political associations and ideological leanings have long been a point of controversy within the metal community. That weight inevitably bleeds into how Hauntologist is received. While “Hollow” is not an overtly political album, listeners must grapple with the broader context of its creators, and that knowledge complicates the otherwise meditative detachment the record seeks to foster.
Ultimately, “Hollow” is an album of restraint, ambiguity, and unresolved tension. It does not set out to conquer with immediacy or force; instead, it shapes an atmosphere where decay and silence hold sway. The results are uneven but compelling. For those willing to surrender to its stillness, the record offers a unique take on blackened minimalism. For others, it may prove too elusive to grip.
