I have generally enjoyed anything that German vocalist/ instrumentalist Baptist has been involved with; Mavorim, Eisekult, and this, Atronos, an outlet for more medieval, melodic black metal, founded by guitarist Henker (also in the above two bands as well as Drudensang).
But after three good albums, including 2022’s Erwachen, I didn’t see this coming, as Gram (grief or sorrow) is going to be one of my very favorite black metal albums of the year, and is in serious running for one of my overall albums of the year.
Gram is absolutely fucking killer. Despite its more somber overarching theme of grief, anger etc, it’s still melodic black metal at its heart. It has that triumphant, Véhémence, Passéisme, medieval style. Still, without some of the wispy, fluty, folky atmospherics (there are a few keyboards scattered around, but noticably less than Erwachen), this is just epic, searingly melodic riffs upon riffs. And the songs are a bit shorter and direct than on Erwachen – no 8 or 11-minute songs here.
It starts with “Geisterflug”, an absolutely fucking banger of a track and one of my favorite tracks of the year; the blistering, main riff is perfect, the rousing, militant marches and vocals (Baptist delivers an array of gruff bellows, traditional black metal rasps, as well as monk-ish chants) are perfect. It just rips.
But whereas Cnoc Ad Tursa slightly struggled to keep things going after starting their recent album with a scorching opener (“The Caoineag”), Atronos just keeps the excellence coming for the next 45 minutes with song after song of just downright epic, rousing, blood-pumping black metal.
I could call out each song, as most of the following 9 songs after “Geisterflug” are unskippable. But certainly the almost black ‘n’ roll gallop of “Ein Raunen im Sturm”, the varied stomp and blast of “Kummertreiben”, yet another melodic scorcher in “Knochen”, with its angelic clean vocals/keyboard climax, the haughty, bouncy “Mit Hass im Aug’ und Stahl im Blut” (the transition around the 2:34 mark is just amazing), the somber but blistering “Titanisches Erbe”, the varied, but still rousing gallops of ” Richtschwert deiner Sünde” and rollicking “In Ketten” (with some Garm -ish clean vocals), all kick all sorts of ass.
I just wish closer “Zorn” had been a more emphatic endpoint, as the sudden ( and jarring) falsetto vocals and more thrashy tones, while still pretty rip roaring, don’t quite end the album on the high note I wanted.
I sort of had the upcoming Vallendusk album already pencilled in as my favorite melodic black album of 2026, but Gram is certainly going to make that much more questionable, as it’s been getting more playtime than any other album, of any genre, in 2026 so far.
