Winter beckons. The frost is real. Black metal abounds. Oh yeah, baby. It’s time for the penultimate Kvlt Kolvmn of 2025.
Year-end content round ups approach swiftly, and we can’t wait to share our best of the best with you. In the meantime, here are the records that spoke unseemly words to us in October. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did.
See you for the grand finale. Until then…
Stay frosty.
-Jonathan Adams
Winter’s Crown
Yellow Eyes - Confusion Gate
With death, comes life. It’s corny, but there are few truths in the universe more constant and unmoving. Destruction begets creation, rot becomes energy, fire brings restoration, and ends often precede beginnings. In the case of Gilead Media, the end of one of the most magical labels in the extreme music world sent shockwaves of sadness throughout the community. The amount of incredible albums I’ve personally discovered due to Gilead is inestimable. But with the end of the road in sight, the label and their most distinctive black metal luminaries Yellow Eyes unleash a swan song that is, without question in my eyes, the greatest album of the band’s career and one of the best to be released in Gilead Media’s history. It’s that good, and one of the best black metal records of 2025.
Opener “Brush the Frozen Horse” gives listeners everything they need to be able to assess the record’s performance quality. With gorgeous riffs aplenty, Yellow Eyes waste no time reminding you of their superior talents as songwriters and musicians. The guitar tones, kit intensity, and atmospheric haze all coalesce here into something that feels greater than the sum of its parts. It’s equal parts punishing and lush, showcasing a band operating at the peak of their powers. Pulling elements from their last non-metal record Master’s Murmur and incorporating them into their ethereal black metal template works wonders for the band’s overall sound, with “The Thought of Death” being a particular highlight. Feeling simultaneously like a triumphant black metal composition akin to the likes of Obsequiae with the expansiveness of Spectral Lore and an excerpt from the Highlander soundtrack, it’s one of the most gorgeous black metal tracks I’ve heard in years.
There’s really nothing to knock Yellow Eyes for with Confusion Gate. It’s a gorgeous, at times vicious, magisterial work of art that highlights what this band is capable of achieving. If it is truly one of the final sonic bows of Gilead Media, it is truly a glorious finale. Confusion Gate is absolutely going to be appearing on my genre year-end list, and may crack my general top 10. A supremely effective record.
-JA
Best of the Rest
Thormesis - Nevertheless
As the cold sets in, German post-black metallers Thormesis manage to hit me where my heart lives in the darker seasons of the year. Offering a highly melodic take on the Harakiri for the Sky-esque style of post-black metal, but without the need for stretching out their compositions beyond need, these teutonic tear-jerkers sink their hook in right from the get go. Opener “Am Morgen, Wenn die Sonne Untergeht” sets the stage with confidence and poise, establishing a juxtaposition of guitar leads sticky as black tar, interspersed with powerful chugging riffs, a punchy rhythm section and a mix of HftS rasps and burly clean chants.
Second track and highlight “Entzweit” drives home the power of their formula, boasting both energetic riffing and drums and one of the most enthemic, hum along-ready choruses I’ve heard from a post-black band in a long time. The way they segue back into the last iteration of that chorus, and tack on a humdinger of a little solo before cutting off with a keen ear for where to end a banger has been living rent-free in my brain for a few weeks now.
“Made of Nothing” further exemplifies the Harakiri-sims, while also referencing Woods of Ypres
In the deep and mournful vocal melodies and surprisingly catchy melodies. “Lonesome - A distant Memory” embeds Thormesis further in their national post-black scene by collaborating with Ellende, another qualitative mainstay in the German post-black scene. The album's second notable highlight arrives in “Fahnen”, with its powerfully layered vocals and chunky yet melodic guitar work.
Thormesis clearly have an established formula, and most tracks stick to the contrast of slower, more melodic passages interspersed with quick bursts of distorted-chuug aggression. They confidently carry this tried-and-true template through the cold atmospheric rain by consistently writing truly sticky melodies, and knowing when to lower the coffin and move on to the next mournful anthem. Where many of their peers are plagued by a lack of self-editing, Nevertheless never overstays its welcome and shows that less can be more on its concise 39 minute runtime.
Thormesis do not reinvent the weepy wheel here, but they show a maturity and ear for melody that makes this one of the most enjoyable and memorable post-black metal records I’ve heard this year. If you like your catharsis catchy and bite-sized, look no further.
-Boeli Krumperman
Kamra - Unending Confluence
There are many ways for metal to disgust you, as disgust is one of the basic aesthetic gestures at its core. Bands can utilize guttural vocals, walls of noise, samples, and more. But Kamra have a different approach, a more esoteric one: what if an album constantly felt like the world was churning around you? Unending Confluence is a lot but it’s a lot in a very specific way. This isn’t the excess of atmospheric black metal or even the aural assault of the punk infused second wave. This is instead a sort of roiling, unwinding, buzzing sound that is very easy to lose oneself to but that also has a faint layer of discomfort and friction to it. In short, it sounds exactly like its cover art looks, which is saying something considering how weird it is.
Look no further than opener “Unlightment”. Why are the “quiet” sections so busy? Why does it feel like there are a million cymbals always going off in the background and why are they so wet? When the heavy parts are ringing out, it feels like being enveloped in that cloud of smoke from the cover, smothering you with an excess of notes. But even the “relief” of the doomy, dragging section at the end is no real relief as it undulates between slightly “wrong” note to another. To conjure forth the drums again, they are always doing something sneaky and unique, denying you even footing and keeping you guessing.
And then there are the vocals. Occultic? Ecstatic? Agonizing? A little of each is probably the right answer, like listening to a sermon being given by a priest who is actively, currently, on fire, perhaps an unholy one. Just trust me on this one - spin Unending Confluence at least a few times and give it your undivided attention. There is so much hiding beneath the surface that comes together for an experience that I cannot call enjoyable per se. Challenging? Satisfying? Cathartic? Definitely. And something else besides, something that is hard to put a finger on but which keeps me coming back.
-EK