I’ve been saying this a lot over the past week or so — to anyone who will listen, and quite a few who clearly couldn’t give less of a shit — that if you want the best Black Metal on the planet right now, you’ve got to look to France and Germany.

I don’t know what’s in the air, the water, or maybe the fucking beer over there, but something’s clearly taken hold. These two countries have grabbed the banner of extremity, soaked it in blood and despair, and are charging headlong into the abyss with it. No one else, and I mean no one, is producing such consistently groundbreaking, soul-destroying Black Metal that pushes the boundaries of the genre to breaking point and beyond.

And as if to perfectly illustrate my point, along come German Atmospheric Black Metal outfit Illusive Key with their new release, Consume Us — a four-track, 31-minute EP so drenched in tremolo riffs, pounding blast beats, tortured vocals, and oppressive dread that I’ll probably be having nightmares for weeks.

The first thing that hits you about Consume Us is just how dense it is. This isn’t an easy listen, and it sure as hell isn’t supposed to be. From the moment it starts, you’re swallowed whole. The guitars form a vast, impenetrable wall — not just sound, but force. It’s the kind of noise that doesn’t just fill a room, it crushes it, leaving you gasping for air.

The drums are relentless — machine-gun blasts that somehow manage to sound both chaotic and perfectly controlled. There’s a precision to the madness that’s deeply unsettling, like watching a surgeon dissect a body with psychotic glee. And then there are the vocals — Christ. They sound like someone being slowly dragged through Hell, claws raking across their throat, every scream more desperate than the last.

But what really elevates Consume Us beyond just another slab of blackened fury is its atmosphere. There’s a sense of space in the music, even when it’s at its most suffocating. Every layer, every shade of misery, every trembling note feels intentional. It’s not chaos for the sake of chaos. It’s carefully orchestrated devastation.

Each of the four tracks feels like a journey through different stages of psychological collapse. One minute you’re buried in a blizzard of distortion, the next you’re drifting through eerie, almost ambient passages that feel like the eye of a storm — calm, but you know the next wave of horror is coming, and it’s going to hit harder than before.

It’s in those moments of restraint that Illusive Key really shine. They understand that darkness only matters if there’s light for it to devour. The way they build tension and then let it explode is masterful. The tracks pull you apart slowly, piece by piece, until all that’s left is the ringing in your ears and the faint feeling that something inside you’s been rearranged.

Consume Us isn’t just a title — it’s a warning. Because that’s exactly what this record does. It doesn’t just play; it devours. It takes hold of you, drags you into its suffocating world, and leaves you trembling, hollowed out, and begging for more.

There’s no flash here, no gimmicks, no attempt to appeal to anything beyond the blackened heart of the genre. It’s raw, it’s terrifying, it’s fucking magnificent.

Consume Us is available now from the Illusive Key Bandcamp page.

CHOICE CUT: Yearning

BLACK METAL ARCHIVES VERDICT: A sonic monolith of despair and precision. Consume Us is proof, once again, that Germany’s Black Metal scene isn’t just thriving — it’s ascending into something darker, colder, and far more dangerous.