After nine years of silence, Martröð unleashes psychedelic black metal majesty on their debut album Draumsýnir eldsins.
Release date: December 12, 2025 | Debemur Morti Productions | Bandcamp | Facebook
Any metal dude will tell you that the approach of winter can only mean one thing: it’s black metal time. The cutting cold and longer, darker nights just lend themselves perfectly to the genre, enhancing the atmosphere and making the music bite that extra bit harder. And as my own neck of the woods is facing its first snow and sub-freezing days, it felt only fitting to dig into whatever new black metal was coming up. And as luck would have it, my stumbling around the review list led me straight to Martröð.
Right off the bat, Martröð‘s stats were intriguing. An international project, they formed in 2014 and managed one (well regarded) EP in 2016 before nine years of silence. Come 2025, the project has landed on Debemur Morti Productions for their debut, Draumsýnir eldsins. A mere duo, the band’s lineup is admittedly formidable, featuring Alex Poole of Chaos Moon/ex-Skáphe (among others) fame and H.V. Lyngdal, whose album The Feral Wisdom under the Wormlust moniker remains one of my favorite albums from the formidable Icelandic black metal scene. And as anyone who recognizes those names may have already guessed, my initial listens to Draumsýnir eldsins proved one hell of a ride.
Dissonant. Furious. Psychedelic. Ambient. Majestic. Depending on what moment of Draumsýnir eldsins you’re at, any one, or more likely multiple of those descriptors would apply perfectly. As one could assume from the band’s pedigree, Martröð‘s style here is a knotted, discordant approach to black metal that’s prone to nimble turns into trippier, quieter passages or building into oddly regal, emotive crescendos, bolstered at times by nods towards classical music that help set Draumsýnir eldsins apart from the greater dissonant metal pack. Bells, organs, and even strings and choral underpinnings elevate the more atmospheric moments beyond the usual haunting synths of black metal.
In effect, Draumsýnir eldsins feel more organic, natural, and dare I say human than a lot of Martröð‘s peers. Even the most hallucinatory moments feel less like they’re chemically induced than they do the product of fever or sleep deprivation, which makes for a great counterpoint to the more synthetic trippiness that typically comes with bands tagged as psychedelic black metal. It gives Draumsýnir eldsins a feeling of real heart (as the album art implies) that is sometimes lost in this particular subgenre.
One of the other key aspects in which I feel Draumsýnir eldsins truly shines is the sense of pacing Martröð display. As of yet, I haven’t mentioned any individual tracks, and that’s partially because the band tends more towards a flowing, stream-of-conscious writing style that doesn’t focus too hard on down and dirty riff work. Rather, Martröð paints in broad strokes, providing most of the album’s blunt force on the opener (“Sköpunin”) and closer (“Dauðinn”), while the center tracks (“Líkaminn” and “Tíminn”) tend to lean more into ambience and more contemplative passages. But then, the band knows when to throw or pull punches, and “Líkaminn” does include some churning guitars to offset the airier stretches while the album’s peak brutality on “Dauðinn” is preceded by nearly three minutes of relative quiet driven by organs.
Indeed, Draumsýnir eldsins is one of those albums where breaking it down track by track does a disservice to the greater whole. For all the qualities of each individual song, the album flows so logically and naturally that it just feels incorrect taking any moments out of context. Which isn’t even much of a pain when the album sits just shy of 37 minutes. It’s the sort of album to let wash over you, and the band is adept enough to never once make the experience feel too overwhelming OR too hollow. It’s perfectly paced, sounds excellent, and is oddly approachable for a dissonant, psychedelic black metal album where no song finds its way under the eight-minute mark.
I figured that Draumsýnir eldsins would be good when I first saw its personnel, but I didn’t quite anticipate it being a late-coming spoiler for my end of the year list. It’s really some of the best black metal I’ve heard all year, honed to a blackened shine by some of the genre’s more underrated masters. With Draumsýnir eldsins, Martröð has crafted a hallucinatory journey from within that embraces forceful chaos and uneasy peace in equal measure. Here’s hoping their next collaboration comes sooner, but I can’t argue with the absolute gem they’ve gifted us here.
