Review by Michael on December 19, 2024.

"In times of fire, in times of war" - it is really sad that the first words on the album reflect the worlds' situation that is so drastic and true. So it's also not a big surprise that Ereb Altor on their already 10th full-length album sounds very angry and harsh. The first track on Hälsingemörker is 'Valkyrian Fate' is a quite fast song which combines the typical trademarks of the Swedes. Clean vocals mixed with harsh black metal shouts and all of that is underlined with some dramatic Scandinavian melodies and an atmospheric keyboard.

But what turns out to be clear is that Ereb Altor focused more on some sad and pensive sounds on their new output. Sure, there is the typical riffing they did on their previous albums, too but the main arrangements appear to sadden the mind much more.

'Ättestupan' is a very good example for this. Kept quite doomy and dark, the song structures are highly melodic with emotions that might make you feel very unsettling and sad. Mats' bright vocals underline this hopelessness and sadness, maybe it is also to blame to the vocals mix that make them hall pretty much. Apart from these stylistic tricks, the pace is kept in a very strange rhythm, just like what Cannibal Corpse did on their last album with their title track "Chaos Horrific".

'The Last Step' though is much faster and sounds like a desperate trip through the vast winter landscapes of a deep frosted Sweden. Here you have all emotions – hope, desperation, hate and resignation altogether. Yeah, okay it is also their longest track on Hälsingemörker but this doesn't mean often too much. But not here, this song is super epic and diverse. Maybe one of their most diverse and best ones ever, I'd say.

What I cannot say from 'The Waves, The Fire And The Pyre' unfortunately. This song ripples through its over 7 minutes running time and not too much happens here. You have a certain atmosphere here, all fine but this is too much atmosphere and too little action. Just like sailing when there is calm on the lake. Sorry, but this, you can do better! 'Skögsrået' is another one that doesn't excite me too much because of too little tension. But this one turns out a bit better because of the traditional Swedish violin that appears here. But again, a little bit more would be fine.

Fortunately these two songs are the only ones that are falling off the quality of the album and with 'Vi Är Mörkret' they offer us a fast disgusting black metal song with evil vocals and pummeling drums. Of course there are also the Ereb Altor-typical clear vocals so that it doesn't turn out to be "pure" black metal but it's very close to that.

As you probably can read from my lines, there is some light and some shadow on Hälsingemörker, in which there is more light to find here obviously. Apart from the songs, the production of the album is very saturated and powerful again, no reason to contemplate here. Also the album cover looks very nice again, so I would assume that we have a better than average Ereb Altor album with this. Some extraordinary songs vs. two more or less unspectacular songs make (at least in my subjective point of view) a…

Rating: 8 out of 10

Review by Carl on November 26, 2025.

It has taken them some five years, but it's finally here: Caustic Wound's second full-length album. Spoiler alert: it was well worth the wait!

As on their first offering to the world back in 2020, the band delivers another acidic blob of grinding death metal mayhem. If you'd drop Rotten Sound, Incantation and Terrorizer in a blender, with a pretty generous scoop of Repulsion and a puff of Nails added, the end result would most probably sound very close to what Caustic Wound has to offer us mere mortals. Throughout a selection of short, aggressive and certainly heavy songs, the band is firing on all cylinders, belting out a vicious concoction of blasting grindcore velocity, squirming death metal riffing, shredding leads that would not sound out of place on a Morbid Angel album, as well as calculated doses of crawling heaviness. The music is doused in a heavy-ass layer of downtuned distortion, making the mixture sound simply crushing, yet without everything deteriorating into an impenetrable mush. A lot of attention has gone into the short and pointy tracks, which are brought with a punk-ish energy and heaps of conviction, delivering hooks aplenty. At their slowest, the band gives off a vibe reminiscent of Incantation at their most morose, with the more crushing side of Godflesh also having left some bloody marks in Caustic Wound's sound, something that works very well with both the heavy guitar sound and speedy sections on offer. This is some seriously ripping stuff, absolutely executed to the nines, something which helps to alleviate the fact that the rough and low roaring vocals tend to get somewhat monotonous towards the end. Admittedly, this is a minor critique, one that's easily swept under the rug by a total and relentless battering of an album too, but hey, a nerd like me needs something to bitch about, right?

That a band like this needs a fitting production shouldn't even be mentioned, and on this point, this album delivers as well, because this sound mix makes the music offered land like a brick in the face. It's clear as crystal without losing that raw edge needed for this type of stuff, while ensuring that the heavy guitars simply roar throughout the runtime of this album. The clearly audible presence of the bulldozing bass in the mix is more than welcome, adding even more crushing density to an already punishing production job. There are oodles of death metal bands out there that would sell an organ for a sound like this, I'm sure.

With this second offering, Caustic Wound successfully continues down the path they started on their debut (and most probably earlier than that), breaking bones, snapping necks and splitting heads all along the way, proving that savage grinding death is still a force to be reckoned with. At the time of writing, 2025 is not even halfway, but I'm getting this itchy feeling that I may have already found my album of the year.

Rating: 9 out of 10