Review by Dominik on May 8, 2026.

My best metal buddy has a soft spot for Serbian bands, and he seems to be on a one-man crusade through the local scene. Unwilling to let him conquer the ruins of former Yugoslavia solo, I figured I'd stake my claim on the other side of the border, before he annexed the entire geography for himself. That's how I stumbled into Croatia's corner of sonic hostility, and straight into the welcoming arms of Hibernum's "Djavo". Welcoming, in this case, meaning "like a brick to the face, but with artistic intent". Hibernum is essentially the solo vehicle of Insanus, a man who clearly decided that sleep, social life, and probably sunlight were optional. He took a look at the concept of "work-life-balance" and spat on it. The impressive (and mildly concerning) part is that he essentially is the album. Insanus handled every instrument himself and, to my knowledge, also produced the whole thing, which is a thick, dense wall of sound that hits you square in the face like a hymn book thrown by an angry priest. "Djavo" is the band's debut, but I'll be damned if this isn't a tightly coiled little gem of black aggression.

One feat that stands out immediately is the album's homogeneity and consistency. Or stubbornness, depending on your tolerance. The band knows exactly what kind of black metal it wants to create and Insanus brings that vision to life. He does so with the conviction of someone who has long since stopped caring what the neighbors may think. Which, given the genre, is probably everyone in a five-kilometer radius. Supported by this massive wall of sound the album takes us through seven songs which move forward preferably at a relentless pace, with interwoven, digestible melodies, while relying solely on the riffing and vocal performance to create atmosphere. The vocal pitch is brutal, though not "death metal brutal", more in the vein of many Polish or German bands which rely more on black metal guttural fury rather than complete vocal disintegration. We find none of that castrated-duck shrieking that occasionally passes for atmosphere in lesser corners of the genre. Instead, the songs bring enough mid-tempo breaks and subtle nuances to the table, to keep the formula from becoming monotonous. Sometimes the tracks sprint, sometimes they walk, and occasionally they just stare at you menacingly so you can catch your breath before the next attack.

My current album highlight is "Earthly Bondage" where everything clicks best. It combines merciless blasting with memorable melodies and serves up riffs and vocals which are fully in sync with the frenetic delivery. It's a relentless performance without being mindless. The main motif resurfaces as the song progresses, giving it a structural cohesion that keeps the whole thing from flying apart at the seams. It serves like a blueprint for destruction. Even when the pace drops, the intensity doesn't, and two-thirds in, the guitars offer a brief solo which is haunting, imploring, and deeply inconvenient if you were planning on remaining emotionally detached. "Apocalypse's Descent" is nearly as good, relying on a similar formula which moves between high-speed devastation and hard-hitting reprieve effortlessly. It is made slightly more unhinged by dissonant riffing that periodically abandons the conventional tremolo picking in favor of something altogether more chaotic.

"Goddess Of Darkness" is where Insanus pumps the brakes, at least relatively speaking. The slowest passages on the record live here, leaving you just enough breathing room to stare at the ceiling and wonder what specific experience in life made one Croatian man this furious at everything. The first half drags a bit compared to the relentless energy surrounding it, though it recovers well enough. It's not weaker, just… moodier. Its neighbor, "Laments From The Abyss", continues that vibe at first before ascending – or rather descending – into exactly what its title promises: a voice of pain and despair rises from a dark, empty void, creating a cold and bleak mood, what makes perfect sense as black metal thrives on this kind of imagery. Hibernum delivers it without a trace of irony.

The album closes with possibly its coolest song title: "Against Men, Against Gods, Against The World". It's a fitting endpoint, a final maelstrom of black beauty that introduces choral clean vocals dueling against the harsher black metal pitch, adding an almost epic dimension to the chaos. The title says everything the music communicates. Much like punk in the 1980s built its identity on being aggressively anti-everything, Hibernum's closing statement is equally unambiguous: whatever humanity throws in the way, they're against it. The weather, your landlord, the concept of Tuesday. All of it.

Rating: 8.3 out of 10, because it is an album that doesn't chase trends. It just commits fully to its vision and executes it with conviction. For a one-man project it's impressively crafted, cohesive, intense, even if it occasionally flirts with repetition. And sometimes, that's exactly what black metal needs: less innovation and more controlled destruction instead.