Aephanemer – Utopie
- Carlo
- Nov 5
- 2 min read
Label: Napalm Records
Release Date: October 31st, 2025
Symphonic Power Death/Black Metal, whatever the fuck you wanna call this. Utopie the 4th album (produced by Dan fuckin Swanö), released on Halloween, by French band Aephanemer, was my first experience with the band. I loved every damn second of it. All 6120 of them.
Utopie is packed with orchestral grandeur, the sharp bite of melodic death metal, lush polyphonic musical texture, blood curdling screams you’d find on a black metal release, and a driving force akin to power or epic metal. If only I had a suit of armor, a longsword, and a horse to journey forth on, things would all fall into place. There are many instruments on here and they are all awesome, I could go pick them all out and list them here, but you go fucking do that. The guitars man, the guitars are so fuckin good. I love me some simple guitar riffin, it’s often better and more effective in my opinion. Love me some little brain dummy death metal shit too, but I also love classical guitar virtuosity. This shit, is a god damn classical assault.
This album is peak cinema. Shit is like stepping into a new fantasy universe, one filled with triumph, tragedy, epic battles on a large scale, and the darkest forces of evil. The songs are in the bands native French, so like me, unless you speak French, you will have to translate the lyrics if you’d like to decipher them. Utopie is such a awesome fucking listen. The feeling is epic and the music commands your attention. The initial 51 minutes went by so quickly. This is a double album (1 hour 42 minutes full runtime) with the 2nd half being just instrumentals of the first half. While the 2nd half instrumental part of the album is not an essential part of the listen, the songs were just as awesome to listen to without vocals as they are with vocals. Some real soundtrack shit. Play Elden Ring with this on, maybe. I haven’t played it. I’m not good at FromSoft games, leave me alone. I’ll play the Oblivion remaster or Baldur’s Gate 3 with this on instead.
It’s hard to pick standout tracks because the record is very cohesive, all the songs are equally as important and interesting as the next. La Règle de Jeu, Par-delà le Mur des Siècles, and Contrepoint are possibly-maybe my favorites on the record. But if you’re going to listen to this, I’d  just start from track 1 and give the album a listen in full.
This album is an epic, beautiful and heavy journey, that I believe is a must listen for anyone who likes to make album of the year lists. As I said, Utopie has been my first experience with Aephanemer, and a fantastic experience it’s been. It is surely not going to be my last experience with them. It is now time to listen to the rest of their discography, relisten to this album and look forward to their future releases.Â
Score: 9/10
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