In a genre often criticized for stagnation, Heaven Shall Burn continue to evolve, proving that metalcore can be both intellectually stimulating and emotionally devastating. “Heimat” is not just an album, but an experience, one that lingers long after the final notes fade. It’s the kind of record that rewards repeated listens, revealing new layers with each spin.
“Hideous Aftermath” feels like being hit repeatedly with the same blunt object: oddly satisfying at first, then numbing. It’s grotesque, absurd, and loud, but behind the noise, you can hear a band circling the edges of its own exhaustion.
Solbrud’s “IIII” moves like weather over stone: slow, patient, and implacable. It doesn’t seek attention so much as endurance, trading immediacy for immersion. When it works, its vast grey landscapes feel alive and immense; when it falters, you’re left staring into the fog, waiting for something to shift.
“Fællesskab” pushes you in the liminal space where belonging turns to burden and unity to silence. It feels like standing in a crowded hall and realising no one is listening, the collective warmth dimmed to ritual and noise.
A Single Flower blooms in ruin and reflection; heavy, sprawling, and achingly beautiful in its vastness. It may lose pace sometimes, but when it connects it lingers long after the final chord fades. We Lost The Sea prove once their skill and creativity once more.
“Soma” moves like a slow tide of ash and memory, equal parts meditative and suffocating. It doesn’t always find its direction, but when it does, BÅKÜ sound like a band discovering the beauty hidden inside exhaustion.
“To Conquer Eternal Damnation” is the sound of melodic death metal clawing its way out of the grave with conviction rather than nostalgia. It’s the kind of album that feels cut from the same cloth as mid-90s Gothenburg, but scoured with modern production grit and a distinctly Bay Area sense of weight.
“The Bestiary” feels like a fever dream carved from stone and smoke, where heavy metal’s past is reborn as mythic theatre. It’s imperfect, sprawling, and utterly sincere and honest.
“Solastalgia” feels like the year’s slow descent into silence, with fallen leaves, fading light, and the ache of something ending. It may waver in pacing, but its sincerity and sense of place make it linger long after the air turns cold.
“Defiance” is a hammer blow wrapped in poetry, part chainsaw-death, part atmospheric lament, testifying that Nightbearer are more than just worshippers of old Swedish death—they are its sharper, angrier evolution. The album stumbles just a few times in pacing and mix, but even those stumbles are over terrains of riffs and ideas worth stumbling over.