Heretoir - Solastalgia (2025)

Having previously made fans wait for around 6 years between full-length releases, David Conrad and company returned in just two years with Heretoir’s fourth full-length release “Solastalgia”. Featuring 11 tracks and over 60-minutes of music, the band unleashes an interesting mixture of their old Post-Black Metal/Blackgaze style, with a cleaner and dreamier Shoegazey and Post-Rock edge. Creating a very moody and atmospheric release, this album takes the band to new territories while consolidating their standing in the scene.

Starting with the multi-layered “The Ashen Falls”, we get some of the band’s traditional melancholy very quickly as lush guitars and dreamy vocal arrangements. While there are definitely Heretoir staple elements, this track also has many SOM and Mountaineer Shoegaze/Dream pop vibes, making an evolution for the band. This evolution permeates excellent songs like the demoralizing “Season of Grief”, and the very emotional and melodic “You are the Night”.

As the album progresses, tracks like “Inertia” and “Rain” really bring the desolate and bleakness we have come to love from the band, while “Dreamgatherer” and “The Heart of December” has that more modern and cleaner edge, but with intense and crafty drumming and a a hefty balance of aggression and atmosphere. The album title track, clocking in at 9-minutes, is the most cathartic piece in this release, with a dense atmosphere and a harrowing feeling of hopelessness. Truly one of the band’s all-time best songs.

Closing with a cover of In Flames “Metaphor”, the band soothes the listener into the next spin of this release. Overall, “Solastalgia” is definitely a more mature and layered release from Heretoir, that while keeping their signature elements, they also explore more and look into their sound’s evolution. We particularly love how melancholic and full of bleakness this release is, keeping things dreamy and yet aggressive. Definitely one of the candidates for top albums of 2025 for us.

Label: AOP Records

Release: Septmeber 19th, 2025

Genre: Post-Black Metal/Blackgaze

Country: Germany