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If, like me, you played a lot of the original Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006), then you might agree that the game has a nigh unbeatable vibe. The densely forested hills rolling into the distance, the subtle call of a nearby Nirnroot, the grossly overconfident mudcrabs, the endearing jank of two townspeople conversing like they’ve only just discovered human language; it’s a distinctly cozy high fantasy setting that feels like home in a way few modern games could hope to replicate. Thus, I was excited to learn that Velothian, the epic post-black metal act that was previously featured on the 2024 EP Roundup for their Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind-themed EP Path of the Incarnate, now draws from Oblivion as inspiration for their debut full-length, Mythic Dawn. Path of the Incarnate enraptured me with its intimate riff-work and imaginative atmospheres, so with Mythic Dawn, has Velothian survived their first jump from EP to full-length?

Velothian play a folk-tinged, somber kind of epic/ethereal post-black metal that strikes a good balance between distant tranquility and gritty textures. While there’s a great deal of woodsy ambiance and dreamy chants, the metal enjoys a satisfying, weighty presence whether it’s airy, open-note chords à la Alcest (“The Great Forest,” “Forgotten Ruins,” “Mania”) or direct, blasting riffs (“The One From My Dreams,” “Dragonfires”). Mythic Dawn uses its inspiration tastefully to create something all its own, never feeling schlocky or gimmicky like “video-game metal” often does. Speaking of, I was elated to discover some references to the original Oblivion OST throughout Mythic Dawn. For example, the soft piano melody of Oblivion’s “Auriel’s Ascension” translates beautifully into acoustic guitars and serves as a jumping-off point for the sunlit harmonies of “Mania,” and the game’s main theme makes an understated appearance in “The One From My Dreams.”¹ I appreciate that Mythic Dawn never feels like a direct 1:1 of Oblivion’s music or aesthetic, maintaining its own identity and imagery even as it incorporates melodies from the game’s OST such that those unfamiliar with Oblivion won’t feel like they’re missing something.

In Mythic Dawn, Velothian have preserved that expansive yet grounded quality I loved about Path of the Incarnate and even improved on it through tighter songwriting and a more verdant soundscape. One ought look to “The Great Forest” for how Velothian construct atmospheres with intelligence and restraint: softly striking guitars ring between rich arboreal sounds and sparse chanting, blooming into a simple but textured, evocative riff in the verse. “Mania” is another atmospherically decadent track, sustaining nearly every note played to create a dreamy haze above gorgeous chord progressions. Velothian understand the benefit of brevity, never bogging a song down with an excess of mindless riffing or languid ambiance, which keeps a slower song like “Forgotten Ruins” or a more varied track like “Night Mother” engaging throughout. Whereas the textures and melodies paint the vivid imagery, it’s largely the guitar’s mixing that gives the music its tactile, grounded feeling. It’s felt especially strongly in the galloping “The One From My Dreams” where the riffs have a gripping, full-bodied crunch to them that draws you in and directly places you into the world Velothian are evoking.

It’s clear that Velothian have grown a lot in the time leading up to this debut, but that does serve to highlight the few areas that stand to further improve. While the mix is overall an improvement over Path of the Incarnate’s, the cymbals can be a little distracting in the heavier tracks, namely “The One From My Dreams.” Though both “Mania” and “Dragonfires” are well-written, each song ends with non-sequiturs that don’t feel properly fleshed out. “Deadlands” is the only track that actually loses me; the riff-work is solid, and I enjoy how the drums resolve into the chorus, but it lacks the quiet, moving majesty of the other songs that keep me returning to them. But ultimately, these finer details of Mythic Dawn do little to diminish its charm or impact. When Mythic Dawn ends (after a tasteful 40-minute runtime, might I add), the good always shines much brighter than the not-as-good.

I’ve long been excited for what Velothian would do after Path of the Incarnate, and Mythic Dawn has rewarded my patience. This album is an improvement on their previous work in many ways: the songwriting is tighter, the sound is crisper, and the atmospheres more vivid. Velothian are still a little rough around the edges, but Mythic Dawn nevertheless well establishes Velothian’s unique voice and songcraft. This is maturely written, and imaginative ethereal post-black metal that has cemented Velothian as one of the better video-game-based metal bands out there, and I shall be enjoying Mythic Dawn for a long time yet.

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Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Self-Release
Websites: facebook | bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: February 1st, 2026

The post Velothian – Mythic Dawn Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

Former Ariana Grande, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg bass legend revisits his punk rock past

Today, we have more marvelous music for your listening pleasure. As you probably know, there are many artists and bands out there, delivering incredible songs to the crowd, and when you think of soul rock music, American music outlets come to mind first. However, Ulrich Jannert, a German-born singer-songwriter now based in Sweden, demonstrates that […]

Winter is the worst time of year. Christmas falls at its halfway point, a celebration of its ending, almost as though we’re saying “Thank god, the light is returning.” Things are different in Finland. Toward the arctic circle, the sun is shrouded by the horizon. For fifty days a year, the country is lost in the deep, unending darkness of winter. The sun never rises. This is the place Atlas call home. ‘Sunder’ is their third album, one bathed in this atmosphere. It captures the dark, the torment of existing within it and explores how a massive guitar riff might just save you.

Using the opening track ‘Sermon Of The Dying Light’, they quickly establish the tone of what will follow; layering on that atmosphere bringing to mind the setting sun, the creeping sense of dread, the night stretching over the landscape. It’s a short but effective way of drawing you in. Then the riffs are unleashed. Like its name suggests, ‘Tower’ is a massive, imposing achievement. Perhaps the album’s most straightforward song, it is built around a huge groove and a stuttering, almost djent guitar. It has a strong sense of momentum and sets the tone using vocals that are a roar and cockroach hiss. This neatly establishes the band’s songwriting credentials before collapsing completely into a rumbling rush of double bass pedal and eerie moans. It is, in a word, great. ‘Salt and Sulphur’ shares its style and clear vision, but uses a pagan-style chanting and is the first time we hear gasps of beautiful singing. This is also where the album shows its hand; it’s both carefully layered and emotionally complex.

As a five-piece metal band with no designated synth or player, it is implied that the album’s tone and indeed its personality, are shaped by Buster Odeholm’s mixing and mastering; aware of its contrasts and striking a careful balance. It’s structured but never clean-cut, with vocals often relegated to being a strange, distant screech, almost like the void calling out, but it’s never glossy nor off-putting. The way the sounds weave together is dark and delicious, like a black forest gateaux; thick and rich, yet sinfully gluttonous.

The obvious comparison here is Orbit Culture and their recent album ‘Death Above Life’, not just because the bands are on tour together either. The sound is dark, heavy, propulsive and they share the same massive, eardrum bursting guitar chords and thumping rhythm parts. Although Atlas’ work shares the same sense of darkness it is more ruminant, more thoughtful, deeper. So, of course, they then start to do something different.

With three albums under their belt, they have the experience – and the established discography – to leave the straightforward behind. The deep and darkly beautiful ‘I Whisper Your Name Like A Curse’ is a masterpiece of haunting melancholy. It stings like snow blown across the wilderness, the cold and bitterness of the darkest nights. The aptly named ‘Coven Of Two’ combines a similar sound with a heavier, metallic structure and in doing so produces the album’s striking lead single. Impressive on its own, in context it becomes bridge between two emotions, it’s the point where the band’s muscles starts to flex.

At the halfway mark ‘Altar Of Your Love’ splinters the sound. The slow, thumping drums give it space to expand and shift the tone, creating a clear, thoughtful split. It’s like it physically moves the record from rolling despair to anxiety based distress. On the record’s first half the darkness is oppressive but it’s never smothering, ‘Tower’ and ‘Salt And Sulphur’ feel like big groove-based metal songs while on the second it’s more expansive and emotional, the trick is that it’s always compelling. It’s never insufferable, it’s never repellent, but equally it avoids a slight, mainstream sound. There’s a careful balance that is reinforced by the album’s short, focused runtime. Curiously, there is a shift, just a small space, where another track might have slotted, but what makes it so interesting is that it’s one you subconsciously fill with hope.

In Finland, national service is mandatory. All men are required to complete a year in the army. The meaning of this has changed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Less a formality, duty or an adventure, it comes with a sense of foreboding. The genuine sense that your life might be at stake in a game you cannot control. ‘Sunder’ has this in the back of its mind, it is no surprise the record embraces a sense of emotional turmoil, particularly in its second half. ‘Anodyne’, with the addition of female vocals and pick scratches, all wrapped in the shrouds found in the record’s first half, perfectly captures the sound of distress and makes it the record’s most striking and defining song.

The production is powerful and there is a slick sense of self; this is an accessible, artistic metal record, filled with strong songs. ‘Sunder’ is a portrait of distress and despair painted with the sadness of winter.

IAN KENWORTHY

“Don’t worry about old Dee”

Oni Logan hit the scene via the success of Lynch Mob’s 1990 debut, Wicked Sensation. The album, which was Logan’s first with former Dokken guitarist George Lynch, is beloved among hard rock enthusiasts. Songs like “No Bed of Roses,” “Wicked Sensation,” and “River of Love” showcase Logan’s soulful vocals, which accent Lynch’s heavy riffs and searing solos. For these reasons, Lynch Mob’s initial lineup of Logan, Lynch, drummer Mick Brown, and bassist Anthony Esposito remains beloved. Of course, they didn’t stay together. In fact, Lynch Mob’s revolving door has become a bit of a punchline, but that’s no fault of

The post An Interview With Oni Logan, Formerly Of Lynch Mob appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

Monolith Of Ephemerality is the ambitious debut of Italian quartet Dwellnought, which formed in 2023 and released one prior demo last year. The band proclaims it blends black metal and doom, but you’ll find moments of death metal within as well as a heavy dose of noise, which at times makes the doom ebb ever closer to sludge territory. As such, it will be more than fair for some listeners to feel this album is a bit disjointed. If, however, you look at Monolith Of Ephemerality as an exercise in dissolution that pits songs, and really the full journey of the album, against their end like age breaking the body, you may encounter a more unified experience.

As is common, the album opens with a brief intro track of ominous tones and bits of noise to set the stage before ceding to the 17-minute behemoth that is “The Final Desire Is Unbeing.” Starting the album in earnest with a song that accounts for about a third of its runtime is a bold choice and not the last Dwellnought will make. After a fade-in of drums, the song bursts forth with a squall of sound. The production for much of the album is raw and claustrophobic, made even moreso by the songwriting. At first, one guitar creates an oppressive sound, like a black cloud raining down on the rest of the musicians, while the other attempts to slash through it with tremolo riffs, like a machete in a dense jungle. The density of the songwriting and sound often leaves the drums feeling more like a thud than a thunder during these more domineering stretches. After a couple of minutes, the song does break open to let you catch your breath, but it doesn’t truly feel like a relief as the track pivots to cleaner notes and rhythms that start to feel almost hypnotic, as if they’re attempting to give you the Hansel and Gretel treatment and lull you into the oven. The pulse is broken, and the song spins into an ascending black-metal tornado of fiery riffs and animalistic drums, where the constant thud of the kick drums sounds like a rolling flat tire on a highway about to burst.

The song continues this sort of ebb and flow of ugliness, but does eventually crash back to Earth with a rockslide collapse of a guitar note. In fact, one stretch is reminiscent of Meshuggah’s “Mind’s Mirror,” which opens the door to our first real stretch of tearing a song down into the depths. Even when the tremolos do return, they feel like they’re attacking the song like that one final foot to the face as it’s gripping the cliff’s edge with little strength left. “The Final Desire Is Unbeing” is atonal, pulsing, ugly, slow, assaultive, oppressive and more before its slowly pummeled notes drag the listener to the finish line only to be greeted by a nearly Gorgutsian dissonant frying pan to the skull to start “Crystalized Flesh Identities Condensed into Wombs.” If the prior song was kicking you down a cliff, this one is seeing you fall into the abyss at the bottom of that cavern and slowly suffocated. Cristian Torrigiani’s drumming is pretty much the only buoy available to grab onto through these nearly 10 minutes. The entirety of track three is a miasma of uncomfortable noise and sustained guitar ugliness, even on the rare occasions a repeated riff does appear. Dwellnought makes the rather curious decision to subdue the song and end it with more than three minutes of a spoken-word sample backed by eerie sound effects. Perhaps the less assaultive nature was meant to give the listener a needed break, but it feels overly long and saps a bit of the momentum.

Monolith of Ephemerality by DWELLNOUGHT

Maybe that breather is intentionally too long, so that when the Obscene Majesty style opening to ironically titled “III Whispers” kicks in, it’ll give you a jump scare. This penultimate track is the final path to true dissolution. Dwellnought shoves its hands into the garbage disposal of brutal death metal, but with a hideous production that makes it difficult to comprehend, similar to the aforementioned Devourment album. During this stretch, they even fire off a squirrely, whirly little guitar “lead” to make it more chaotic. The proclamation of end times, however, comes with a raucous drum fill and sustained gurgle, ushering in the collapse of the song and the album as a whole. The final eight minutes of “III Whispers” feel like four musicians trying to beat their own song to death like it’s the printer from Office Space.  Sure, there’s still some pulsing doom and fits of blasting black metal, but ultimately, this song acts like the final scene on the train tracks in Drag Me To Hell, pulling the listener kicking and screaming into a horrible end. As that song ends, “Beyond the Mind” closes the album with nearly six minutes of atrocious noise, letting you know there is nothing left for you to hold onto.

As is typically the case with debuts, Dwellnought doesn’t seem to be quite fully baked yet, and that’s perfectly fine. There are some odd choices here and there on Monolith Of Ephemerality. The varied influences don’t always complement each other or smoothly blend into something new, but what they’ve put together remains an interesting experiment in aural assault. Chances are high that these Italians are only getting started, and the future is bright, so long as your version of brightness is ugly, hellish soundscapes.

The post Dwellnought – Monolith Of Ephemerality Review appeared first on Last Rites.

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Steven Wilson will perform with an orchestra and choir for the very first time with a live show featuring previously unheard arrangements of The Overview