I have had the promo for the debut album from this California-based symphonic black metal act for a few months now, and it continues the strong 2025 that the genre had, with a fine early entry in 2026.

Formed by members of some acts I have not heard of like Mortal Filth, Wartroll amd Horrorborn, the band appears to be the brainchild of Valira Pietrangelo, as she does the vocals, lyrics, guitars, and piano/keyboards. She is joined by Ron Graves on Bass and Nick Brown on drums.

I don’t know what her other projects sound like, but Vesseles has some clear influences from the likes of early/mid Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of Filth, Agathodaimon, Ancient, and Dismal Euphony. That’s to say, very theatrical, almost gothic, symphonic black metal from the 90s, and they do it quite well.

They make no bones about originality, preferring to lean pretty hard into the genre’s tropes, especially the excellent and heavily present piano work from Pietrangelo (i.e., start of “Home”, “Perpetual Chasm of Black Mirrors”), which is front and center throughout. The production is thick and glossy, there are a few decent clean vocals, and there’s the requisite atmospheric piano interlude (“They Wither”)- it’s all here in dramatic, vampyric, costumed glory.

The album takes a couple of tracks to get going, but around “The Beneath” and the title track, the album really takes off with some strong songwriting to back all the symphonic, grandiose bombast and theatre. Tracks like “Until They Are Dust”, “Scriptures Etched Into the Mind’s Pillars”, and the excellent, more restrained closer “This is Not Home” all could have come from any of the bands above from the late 90s and early 2000s.

This, along with Saille’s upcoming Forebode,  and upcoming Ruins of Faith and  Nazghor releases, looks to make sure 2026 continues where 2025 left off with some excellent symphonic black metal.

[Visit the band's website]

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