Review by Dominik on March 4, 2025.

Black metal has always been an accommodating genre, capable of twisting any concept into something furious, bleak, and—if done right—utterly mesmerizing. It is like this old, haunted house—every time you step inside, something new and terrifying emerges from the shadows. Germany's Sun Worship proves that even the imagery of solar devotion manages to flip the traditional themes of light and divinity into something dark, ominous and downright apocalyptic. With Emanations Of Desolation, the band doesn't just worship the sun; they sacrifice themselves in its infernal glow and let the listener watch in horror.

I've followed the band since Elder Giants, which already was testament to the talent of something exceptional lurking beneath the raw aggression. But it wasn't until Emanations Of Desolation that I truly felt their potential had erupted into full force. A key shift occurred when Lars took on double duty—handling both guitars and vocals. His work in his second engagement Ultha casts a shadow over some of the riffing here, but unlike Ultha's sprawling, atmospheric compositions, Sun Worship remains a much harsher, more immediate beast. After a two-minute introduction, the band throws subtlety into a ditch and hits the gas.

Two things define this album. First, the guitar sound, which balances on the knife's edge between being overwhelming and perfect. Multi-layered, brutal, and at times flirting with a death metal density, the riffs here could crush a cathedral and still have energy left for an encore. Lars' vocal approach is perfectly complementing the guitar work. This isn't your standard black metal shriek; it's deeper, meaner, and full of menace, like something you'd rather expect from a death metal frontman, who he is not.

Of course, perfection is a myth—something even black metal must accept, and this brings me to the second defining factor. Here, imperfection takes the form of "Pilgrimage", another five-minute ambient interlude that does little except test my patience and interrupt the album's otherwise relentless pacing and coherence. Whether this was an artistic decision or just a well-timed opportunity to refill the beer fridge, I can't say, but I would have happily taken another punishing track instead.

The album's first true standout is "Void Conqueror", A title that sounds like it should belong to a supervillain or a particularly evil vacuum cleaner, but no—it's an unrelenting blistering barrage of nearly down-tuned guitars, fast pounding drums and a vocalist who reminds you that the only sun being worshipped here is pitch black. The sheer density of sound is suffocating, and only the brief, ghostly clean vocals offer an illusion of humanity before you're dragged back into the inferno. One feat becomes crystal clear in these first 6 ½ minutes: Sun Worship found their signature sound and manages to keep the intensity high even when they slow down for no specific reason.

Then comes "Torch Reversed", which finally answers the question: what happens when you hold a torch upside down? The answer is: you burn yourself and become addicted to the pain. Clocking in at nine minutes, this track delivers a masterclass in dynamic brutality and crushing ferocity, effortlessly shifting between chaos and controlled slowdowns. The clean vocals play a more prominent role here without giving reason to believe, that the band suddenly wimped out. Around the 5:30 mark, the emotional climax hits with the weight of a collapsing sun. This is a high point of sheer emotional devastation. If you're not fully immersed by then, you might already be dead inside.

Despite having only two members (and zero bass guitar), Sun Worship conjures a maelstrom of monolithic sound that feels more like a demonic orchestra than a duo. "Soul Harvester" begins with a slow, foreboding crawl, Lars' vocals cutting through the ceaseless double bass like a scythe and sounding like a curse being etched into stone. The guitars build relentlessly, battling the drums in a layered frenzy that somehow feels both oppressive and majestic at once.

This feeling of epic grandeur continues into the closer "Without End", which is ironically named, because its biggest flaw is that it ends. This 12-minute tour de force is the album's final crowning achievement, an unholy fusion of every trick Sun Worship has deployed so far. It's everything Sun Worship excels at: ominous clean vocals, creeping buildups, then an explosion into pure, blistering madness. The hypnotic riffing towards to end ensures that before you even realize it, an hour of sonic devastation has passed—and you're left staring into the ashes as the album abruptly leaves you abandoned in silence.

The perfect production is like a symphony of scorched earth with just the right amount of filth. It's one of the album's greatest strengths. It's raw without being muddy, overwhelming without being unlistenable. There's no polish, no overproduction—just a merciless wall of sound that grinds you into dust and makes you say "thank you" for the experience.

Sun Worship may have started as an underground gem, but Emanations Of Desolation proves they deserve far more recognition. This is an album that doesn't just deliver black metal—it engulfs you in it.

Rating: 9 out of 10, because some burns are worth it.

Review by Dominik on March 4, 2025.

Black metal has always been an accommodating genre, capable of twisting any concept into something furious, bleak, and—if done right—utterly mesmerizing. It is like this old, haunted house—every time you step inside, something new and terrifying emerges from the shadows. Germany's Sun Worship proves that even the imagery of solar devotion manages to flip the traditional themes of light and divinity into something dark, ominous and downright apocalyptic. With Emanations Of Desolation, the band doesn't just worship the sun; they sacrifice themselves in its infernal glow and let the listener watch in horror.

I've followed the band since Elder Giants, which already was testament to the talent of something exceptional lurking beneath the raw aggression. But it wasn't until Emanations Of Desolation that I truly felt their potential had erupted into full force. A key shift occurred when Lars took on double duty—handling both guitars and vocals. His work in his second engagement Ultha casts a shadow over some of the riffing here, but unlike Ultha's sprawling, atmospheric compositions, Sun Worship remains a much harsher, more immediate beast. After a two-minute introduction, the band throws subtlety into a ditch and hits the gas.

Two things define this album. First, the guitar sound, which balances on the knife's edge between being overwhelming and perfect. Multi-layered, brutal, and at times flirting with a death metal density, the riffs here could crush a cathedral and still have energy left for an encore. Lars' vocal approach is perfectly complementing the guitar work. This isn't your standard black metal shriek; it's deeper, meaner, and full of menace, like something you'd rather expect from a death metal frontman, who he is not.

Of course, perfection is a myth—something even black metal must accept, and this brings me to the second defining factor. Here, imperfection takes the form of "Pilgrimage", another five-minute ambient interlude that does little except test my patience and interrupt the album's otherwise relentless pacing and coherence. Whether this was an artistic decision or just a well-timed opportunity to refill the beer fridge, I can't say, but I would have happily taken another punishing track instead.

The album's first true standout is "Void Conqueror", A title that sounds like it should belong to a supervillain or a particularly evil vacuum cleaner, but no—it's an unrelenting blistering barrage of nearly down-tuned guitars, fast pounding drums and a vocalist who reminds you that the only sun being worshipped here is pitch black. The sheer density of sound is suffocating, and only the brief, ghostly clean vocals offer an illusion of humanity before you're dragged back into the inferno. One feat becomes crystal clear in these first 6 ½ minutes: Sun Worship found their signature sound and manages to keep the intensity high even when they slow down for no specific reason.

Then comes "Torch Reversed", which finally answers the question: what happens when you hold a torch upside down? The answer is: you burn yourself and become addicted to the pain. Clocking in at nine minutes, this track delivers a masterclass in dynamic brutality and crushing ferocity, effortlessly shifting between chaos and controlled slowdowns. The clean vocals play a more prominent role here without giving reason to believe, that the band suddenly wimped out. Around the 5:30 mark, the emotional climax hits with the weight of a collapsing sun. This is a high point of sheer emotional devastation. If you're not fully immersed by then, you might already be dead inside.

Despite having only two members (and zero bass guitar), Sun Worship conjures a maelstrom of monolithic sound that feels more like a demonic orchestra than a duo. "Soul Harvester" begins with a slow, foreboding crawl, Lars' vocals cutting through the ceaseless double bass like a scythe and sounding like a curse being etched into stone. The guitars build relentlessly, battling the drums in a layered frenzy that somehow feels both oppressive and majestic at once.

This feeling of epic grandeur continues into the closer "Without End", which is ironically named, because its biggest flaw is that it ends. This 12-minute tour de force is the album's final crowning achievement, an unholy fusion of every trick Sun Worship has deployed so far. It's everything Sun Worship excels at: ominous clean vocals, creeping buildups, then an explosion into pure, blistering madness. The hypnotic riffing towards to end ensures that before you even realize it, an hour of sonic devastation has passed—and you're left staring into the ashes as the album abruptly leaves you abandoned in silence.

The perfect production is like a symphony of scorched earth with just the right amount of filth. It's one of the album's greatest strengths. It's raw without being muddy, overwhelming without being unlistenable. There's no polish, no overproduction—just a merciless wall of sound that grinds you into dust and makes you say "thank you" for the experience.

Sun Worship may have started as an underground gem, but Emanations Of Desolation proves they deserve far more recognition. This is an album that doesn't just deliver black metal—it engulfs you in it.

Rating: 9 out of 10, because some burns are worth it.

Review by Nekrist on June 28, 2025.

Extreme metal is full of variety, fusions, and very interesting subgenres, yet many extreme music enthusiasts insist on trying to create what I call "micro-subgenres." While these may seem like completely unnecessary and inconsequential terms in many cases, in others, they can help give us a much clearer idea of ​​what the music we're about to immerse ourselves in will sound like.

Many of us are familiar with terms such as "war metal", a perfect example of what I explained earlier, a "micro-subgenre" that attempts to explain the chaotic sound of such bands. Although it's essentially simply a brutal fusion of various extreme metal styles, it's still a "useful" label to better define said musical style. Another label I've come across with numerous times is the term "cosmic black metal". A name that can be evocative for some and ridiculous to others, however, there are bands that manage to perfectly capture and convey what this term is trying to set forth. There are many examples of bands with a "cosmic" or "space-like" sound, a few names I can get from the top of my head are Blut aus Nord, Almyrkvi, Cosmic Church, and Darkspace. However, today we're here to talk about a rarely mentioned band that possesses all the necessary ingredients to be an elite "cosmic black metal" band.

From the Czech Republic, Inferno delivered their latest full-length in 2021, entitled "Paradeigma (Phosphenes of Aphotic Eternity)," an enigmatic and powerful record that explores the most remote corners of the internal and external universe, the microcosm and the macrocosm. Displaying a modern black metal full of nuances and masterful songwriting that captivates from second one. This extraordinary work consists of just five songs (plus a brief instrumental intro), totaling 35:48 minutes, a perfectly timed and coldly calculated runtime.

Just after the intro "Decaying Virtualities Yearn for Asymptopia" ends, the instrumental onslaught immediately begins, suffocating and overwhelming with each note. The riffs are hypnotic, immersive, and creeping, guiding the rest of the instruments with sinister melodies that evoke a sense of dread and mystery. The drums are simply brilliant, delivering a masterclass of elegance and precision that lends impressive compositional stability to the overall cacophony of sound we are in front of. While the guitars and drums weave their dark threads, the vocals seem like distant aeonian shrieks, almost like simple stormy echoes that timidly emerge from the mix. One point that pleasantly caught my attention was precisely that the vocals were used as another layer within this "wall of sound."

However, what truly gave this album its master touch was, without a doubt, the sublime, precise, and minimalistic use of synthesizers, polishing the already abrasive and enveloping atmosphere of Inferno. Everything is so cohesive, so well crafted and put together that it's impossible not to listen to the album again and again non-stop, almost involuntarily. It's one of those records that must be listened to several times to fully grasp all its sonic nuances and colors, a true delight for anyone who considers themselves a fan of extreme music, an absolute ten and highly recommended.

Rating: 10 out of 10