You know, I had almost given up on Bandcamp. I’ve spent the past few days trawling through release after release, trying to dig up something worth my time, and all I seemed to run into was Dungeon Synth and DSBM. And look, if you’re into that sort of thing, good for you — but I’m not. After the fourth project that sounded like someone crying into a keyboard in their mum’s basement, I was ready to throw my phone out the fucking window and wait for the next PR email to show up in my inbox.
And then I stumbled across Haematophoryktos by Hadopelagyal. Well, “stumbled” isn’t the right word — more like I was smashed in the face with a shovel and dragged headfirst into a Class Five tornado.
This record doesn’t ease you in. It doesn’t try to charm or seduce. From the opening seconds of Swarthseleniasmos, it’s full-throttle, unrelenting, and hostile in the way only truly savage Black Metal can be. It doesn’t just hit you — it fucking consumes you.
The first thing that slams into you is the wall of noise. This isn’t lo-fi fuzz where you can sit back and smugly say, “Oh yes, very kvlt.” No, this is a towering inferno of sound, a sonic obliteration that chews up your ears and spits them back out. The guitars don’t so much riff as they erupt, building into a near-constant barrage that feels like being caught in an avalanche with no way out. The drumming doesn’t hold back either — it’s an unbroken chain of blasts, pounding and surging with the kind of stamina that leaves you breathless just listening.
And then there are the vocals. Christ. They don’t sit neatly on top of the mix like some nice little garnish; they’re buried in it, woven into the chaos like another instrument, and that’s exactly how it should be. Sometimes they’re low and guttural, dragging you down into the mud, other times they screech high and piercing, cutting through the noise like glass on skin. It’s not about clarity or articulation — it’s about adding another layer to the maelstrom, another weapon in the arsenal of sheer brutality.
It takes a few moments for your brain to adjust to what Hadopelagyal are doing here. At first, it feels overwhelming, like you’ve been thrown into a hurricane blindfolded. But then something clicks. The chaos resolves itself into something purposeful. The riffs emerge from the wall, the patterns in the drumming reveal themselves, the vocals start to feel like a guiding hand through the madness. And when that happens, Haematophoryktos stops being noise and becomes revelation.
Over the course of eight tracks, the record never lets up. There’s no ballad, no quiet interlude, no gentle reprieve. Hadopelagyal aren’t here to hold your hand or pat your head. They’re here to strip flesh from bone, to grind you into dust beneath a sound so merciless it borders on transcendence. Yet for all its brutality, there’s a strange beauty to it — the way the instruments layer and collide, the way moments of sheer violence open up into passages that feel almost hypnotic. It’s not melody in the conventional sense, but it’s a kind of dark architecture, a design hidden inside the storm.
What makes Haematophoryktos so effective is its refusal to compromise. This is Black Metal at its most savage and unrepentant, a record that takes the genre’s most violent impulses and cranks them into the red. It’s the kind of album that makes you feel smaller just by listening to it, like you’ve stumbled across something vast and hostile and completely indifferent to whetheryou live or die.
In short: Haematophoryktos is relentless, destructive, and utterly brilliant. It’s not an easy listen — it’s not supposed to be — but if you’re willing to surrender yourself to the storm, it’s one of the most rewarding pieces of Black Metal you’ll hear this year.
Haematophoryktos is available from the Hadopelagyal Bandcamp page now.
CHOICE CUT: Halios Enthroned in Hyperdiluvian Kataklysmos
The Black Metal Archives Verdict: A towering wall of chaos that turns raw brutality into art.
