Veilburner are becoming as prolific as they are masterful at swirling, hellish metal that revels in the dramatic and weird.
Release date: October 16, 2026 | Transcending Obscurity Records | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp
Y’all know I love my freak-ass metal and Veilburner are one of the better bets in that realm as of late. Putting out nine damn albums in 12 years is a hell of a feat, but with three of them being done in the last three years alone, there’s always a risk of overexposure, of making the material wear thin. Even though I’ve only been following the band for a few years now, All That Glimmers is Gloam is testament that the risk of their oddball blackened death metal running out of steam is pretty low even at this higher rate.
The last decade-ish, there’s been a number of bands popping up that adopt this exaggerated spoken word approach to vocals in various extreme and heavy scenes. I’m a fan of it when done right and Veilburner belong in that category. Vocals are injected with a syringe of drama and monstrous degeneration behind the ear, flowing from raving monologues about the profane and gnostic to melted diatribes devolving into madness. Each track is otherworldly, piloting us through unfurling realms with their own steward. There’s hardly any track that sounds like another on here in any way except overall vibes which are all kaleidoscopically vivid and profound, if coated in an off-putting malaise or, as the title insists, a gloam.
Bubbling and gurgling synths match up to the deepened, mantric vocals on “Dis’ Obedient Woe” that remind me of a less forlorn “Planet Caravan” by Black Sabbath. It’s like being on an alien ghost ship forever drifting through the black, a journey that would be enjoyed were it not for the sense of finality it holds, like you’re stuck on the ship until death. It’s a fine midpoint in the album’s nine tracks where most operate in much more avant-garde territory, each with their own calling cards. “Of Godslave and Blood Mortar” for instance has some of the most upfront melodies during its runtime. Some genuinely catchy licks and progressions here that almost betray the band and album’s weirder faculties. This is a different feel from “Vitriolic Hiss” which has a dense chug underpinning the track’s angular dissonance and hellishly modulated vocals.
Extraterrestrial synth hums help decorate “A Séance to Spectre”. It’s the longest track on the album by a fair amount and you can’t even tell much because of how fluidly it moves. It sounds like the color green to me, though maybe that’s the album’s cover influencing that thought, and also has some of the most cataclysmic instrumentation on the LP. I love the eerie guitar picking on “Here is Thine Sabbath, So Mote it Chasm”. As an intro the album, it’s great at introducing all the various types of elements you encounter on this project. The theatrical lyrics and vocals that color in each track, metal ferocity that acts as guardrails through even the album’s most abstract moments, and a strong sense of creativity that makes Veilburner shine brightly.
I’ve been playing a lot of Warhammer video games lately and their grimdark, ornately brutalist settings fit so well with music like this. This is stuff I’d imagine the servants of Chaos to listen to as their aesthetics seems to line up most with Veilburner‘s. I can see a psyker ranting in a similar manner as the vocals if they fall too far to the Warp’s power. That is to say, it’s wildly lovely stuff that is just on the rails enough so as not to lose itself in the void. Like Warhammer, I’m not very well-versed in the totality of what Veilburner have to offer having only heard about half their output, but this is strongly and convincingly among the top rung of what I’m familiar with.
All That Glimmers is Gloam is momentous and powerful even as it seems to seep away in a vacuum of sanity. Its stranger proclivities walk a razor-thin line between being a half-step that doesn’t imbue the music with any personality or going too hard so the genuine artistry and creativity is drowned out. In other words, it’s really, really good – a fissure between multiple metal spaces that adds some fire to everything it touches.
