Weekly Digest, Week 01 / 2026

Happy new year headbangers! The metal train keeps on chugging, building up some serious steam with these releases from Ellende, Night Savage, Upiór and Woe.

Forget the big stuff, they're still hibernating. Except for...

Ulver - Neverland

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TOP PICK OF THE WEEK

Ellende - Zerfall

Genre: Atmospheric black metal

Subjective rating: 4.5/5

Objective rating: 4/5

Country of origin: Austria

I jumped on the Ellende appreciation train with 2022's "Ellenbogengesellschaft", and remained sufficiently unfamiliar with their discography to not catch the fact that 2024's "Todbringerin" was a re-recording of 2016's "Todbringer" until after I'd already written a review. No matter, it's excellent regardless, and the same can happily be said about their latest, completely new full-length "Zerfall". Sadness is still the prevailing emotion, but, as before, it's not treated with the ugly vehemence and bitterness that would be typical among the scowling denizens of the black metal realm. Nor is it wrapped in fluffy layers of naïveté or shoved into your ears with heavy-handed earnestness. It's like watching prolonged snippets of natural events that simply feel tragic to the human sensibility. The band experiments with musical styles, scaling up and down the sense of grandeur to suit the moment, but also to give each song distinction, and I do feel like I've been part of something comprehensive and significant at the end of it. It might feel a tad too tame and overly patient to some in parts, but to me this is very close to the perfect balance between beauty and emotional pain.  

Highlights: "Reise" and "Wahrheit Teil II"

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Night Savage - Eternal Revenge

Genre: Heavy metal

Subjective rating: 3.5/5

Objective rating: 3.5/5

Country of origin: Chile

Riff-o-licious 80's-style heavy metal that manages to combine a small dash of sleaze with a shadow of doomy darkness. It's very much exploring a time-stamped, very specific style, but doing so with a great sense of fun and not content to simply copy. The production is full and warm, yet allowing for crisp detail. The lyrics and melody lines are well written if not phenomenally original, with a good sense for the memorable, without resorting to ballads or getting overly anthemic. Nothing disappoints and the performances remain solid throughout.

Highlight: "Space Master"

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Upiór - Forefathers' Eve (Redemption)

Genre: Symphonic death metal

Subjective rating: 3.5/5

Objective rating: 3.5/5

Country of origin: France

A French symphonic death project that goes big on drama and technicality, with a strong sense of storytelling to go in between the bass drum barrages. It's the kind that will envelop you with sound, awe you with its majesty and inspire vivid images of epic-tragic scenes. It can't quite match the level of Fleshgod Apocalypse in terms of memorable songwriting, but will no doubt please the same kind of audience, as it delivers many of the same qualities. It's precise, lofty yet dark and aggressive, and doesn't lose focus of the task/story at hand despite a good number of instrumental interludes.  

Highlight: "Forefather's Eve (Part II)"

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Woe - Legacies of Human Frailty

Genre: Black metal

Subjective rating: 3.5/5

Objective rating: 3.5/5

New York band Woe has mastered the ability to make "middle of the road" black metal with a clear signature of their own, that doesn't try to crawl back under the bark of the original Norwegian subgenre tree. It brings in traces of atmosphere and melody, but remains relentlessly aggressive and fairly nihilistic. They show off a decently wide gamut of vocal- and guitar techniques, and successfully employ a dynamic rhythm approach with smooth transitions from section to section. Fresh ideas are mixed with dependable tricks, and they do a great job of highlighting and expanding strong melody- and riff lines as the backbones of the songs, without them getting repetitive.

Highlight: "Fresh Chaos Greets the Dawn"

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HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Lay Waste - Lay Waste

Genre: Grindcore/hardcore

Country of origin: USA

Wildhunt - Aletheia

Genre: Thrash/heavy metal

Country of origin: Austria