The seeds of our ruination have been planted for the sake of cruelest self-destructive humours, a greed for power and hatred rising in the blood, which spreads across the senses in tar-like suffocating mass despair. For their sophomore full-length album German doom metal quartet BLACK REVELATION raise the obsidian mirror of fate upon the doom-afflicted masses one towering piece after another and in the process reveal the face of death as the great equalizer. A work of cursed catharsis purporting universal damnation within intimate yet exaggerative narrative ‘No Light Upon Us All‘ crosses many generational lines in sourcing its impressive, now doubly refined classics-minded craft.

Black Revelation have been around since 2016 with great persistence for a hybrid of traditional doom metal and 80’s epic heavy metal where they’d managed a connection between the longform stretches of peak Reverend Bizarre stylized closer to the early sounds of Solstice and Candlemass. Their work was impressive from the moment it were unveiled via a debut LP (‘Demon‘, 2024) where ambitious yet plodding pieces merged the resilient stance of heavy metal with the mortifying sermon of doom. It was a sound that was seemingly in the spirit of post-millennial Finnish doom metal at face value but also took liberties with a less polished movement, plenty of noisy guitar tones and leads-a-flying which resembled oaken spirit of olden doom.

‘No Light Upon Us All‘ appears six years beyond Black Revelation‘s last release with a new drummer and a more refined sense of performance follows per experience gained. Production values (via the immense Temple of Disharmony) are warmed to richer rhythm section presence, guitar tones have been wrangled into lushly obsidian space and away from amplifier nox while vocal performances from M.K. (Warcry, Journey’s End Records) bring increasingly ambitious arrangements. All of these refinements now serve nearly doubly long pieces, average at least 10+ minutes for all but the Saint Vitus cover (“One Mind”) that closes the experience. In fact I’d actually double-checked the integrity of the files provided in case the song lengths might’ve been misrepresented by encoding issues. Nope, they’re just long-ass songs, but not quite as demanding in their stretches as say ‘III: So Long Suckers‘ or the latest Acolytes Of Moros LP.

In fact the immersive value of Black Revelation‘s work, the searching and howling torment expressed within, is one of their greatest virtues as each piece manages its own character despite similar pacing and an uncomplicated, no frills setup. Sitting with “Thoughts of Ruination” and following M.K.‘s vibrato shaken account might be my favorite pure doom metal moments of the year full-stop and, sure, overlooking the earlier Lord Vicar-esque bustle of the main riff. There is some manner of believable despair in this piece from my point of view which makes it easy to look beyond the familiar tropes of niche specific traditions applied and, sure, obviously the effect is well in line with the title of the song and the greater voice of the band.

Each of the five main pieces included here bear some manner of brilliancy wherein patient reveal and grave affect carry doom metal apropos heavy-headed sunder though there are a few which stood out for how much they do with the longer format. The exaggerative Reagers-level horror which introduces “A Burning Life” stuck with me most on successive rolls through ‘No Light Upon Us All‘ and its ~70 minute dirge for its build toward striding movement, one of the more direct analogues to their style on ‘Demon‘ which almost begins to shake out into rocking movement vaguely ah via earlier Pagan Altar. The song also features some of the better lead guitar work on the album as I’d found far fewer pockets of soloing this time around and more of a focus on vocally directed movements.

You’ll find the first four pieces here are wall-to-wall consistent, of one mind, and carry on with some of the better traditional doom metal I’ve heard in some time but the last two songs on ‘No Light Upon Us All‘ mix it up a bit. “Veil of Eternal Nightfall” has this hard rocking meets ‘Hallow’s Victim‘-era swagger to its main riff and features guest vocals from Frank A. who I don’t recognize. That ends up making sense next to their cover of “One Mind” from Saint Vitus‘ underrated ‘Die Healing‘ which as it turns out is my personal favorite doom metal record. I don’t know how well this all ends up flowing together depending on your level of fixation but I’d appreciated that Side D turned the page and paid tribute. Infinite respect for keeping the cover note-for-note but giving it some of their own exaggerative flavor.

With such a raw drought of pure doom metal in my inbox these last couple of years there was admittedly some wild thirst readied-up for the introspective dark world provided by Black Revelation‘s second LP and the more time I’d spent in their noose the more I’d gelled with their style. Sure they could pare down some of the girth of ‘No Light Upon Us All‘ or whatever but there is something damned impressive about a doom metal band holding their own, even flexing their way through a classic cut, on the way through over an hour of music and not draining the will to repeat. A high recommendation.

https://ninerecords.bandcamp.com/album/no-light-upon-us-all

---