Well, that didn’t take long for 2026 to drop an early contender for an album that will be on my 2026 year-end list!

Upiór (a Polish word meaning ‘Revenant’) is a newish project formed by Tomasz “Josh” Jaskuła, based out of France, and he has some fairly notable folks helping out, including Ben B on bass from Gorod,  and drummer Kevin Paradis (Construct of Lethe, ex-Aborted, ex-Benighted).

And to no surprise, if you know my tastes, this is highly symphonic/orchestral death/black metal with Jaskuła composing all the orchestration, and it’s top notch. Think more savage melo-death, like Mors Principium Est, mixed with, say, Fleshgod Apocalypse‘s, Xaon‘s, or Brain Blast‘s super-orchestrated sounds.

According to the band’s bio, this sophomore album draws inspiration from Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz’s and his poem ‘Dziady’ as well as from the psychological darkness behind Francisco Goya’s ‘Black’ Paintings. That’s well and good, but it’s the music that really stands out here as a truly epic, bombastic form of melodic death metal that’s about as good as anything in the genre of late.

The 11 tracks contain 4 instrumentals, but the 8 ‘proper’ tracks deliver bombastic, but elegantly fierce music, with oodles of riffs, some expectedly twangy bass lines, and tons of epic moments, all wrapped up in a stellar production.

The whole album is basically one long standout, but certainly, I kept coming back to “The Woman That Weeps”,  “Forefathers’ Eve (Part II)”, and “Spells of Necromancy” as truly exceptional songs that I will enjoy the rest of the year for sure.

Of note, later in the year, the band will be releasing Forefathers’ Eve (Damnation), a different interpretation of the album’s songs with the orchestration removed. It will be interesting to see if it hits me as hard, as even though songwriting is strong regardless of the symphonic elements, orchestration is often my favorite element of these albums.

[Visit the band's website]

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