Ba'al - The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here (2025)

Unleashing a highly melancholic and very cathartic release, today we have UK’s Ba’al with “The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here”. Featuring over 60 minutes of a brilliant amalgamation of Sludge/Post-Metal/Doom Metal, and some sprinkles of Black Metal, this release is fierce and punishing. Creating masterful emotionally charged soundscapes, this album will sneak up on you and you will find yourself playing it over and over again.

Opening with the moody “Mother’s Concrete Womb”, the band sets a bleak and yet pummeling mood, thanks to crushing Sludgey riffs that blend into lush Post-Metal territories. There are plenty of tempo changes into fierce and brutal Black Metal-ish territories, perfectly adorned by the harsh,and familiar, screams of Joe Stamps, of current Hecate Enthroned fame. The band seamlessly transitions between dreamy atmospheric passages, like the opening of “Waxwork Gorgon” as it transitions into heavy walls of distortion and moody Sludgy/Post-Metal atmospherics.

Tracks like “Floral Cairn” delve into masterful Deafheaven-esque onslaughts of Shoegazey riffs, and quickly alternate into dramatic atmospherics. With all tracks being nearly over eight minutes long, they can expertly grow from atmospheric, to frantic, to cathartic in different well crafted ways, as “Well of Sorrows” and “The Oceans that Fills a Wound” showcase. This shows the band’s ability to craft very engaging and diverse tracks with lush atmospherics and a hefty dose of fury and aggression.

As a whole, “The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here” is one hell of a release filled with very crafty songs and masterful arrangements. The band excels in creating songs that are moody and yet crushing when they need to be. We particularly enjoy the underlying Doomy and melancholic influences that make songs more cathartic and versatile. Hard to peg by a single genre, Ba’al excels in combining established elements into their own unique and devastating sound. Do not miss out on this release.

Label: Road To Masochist

Release: July 18th, 2025

Genre: Sludge/Black/Post-Metal/Doom Metal

Country: UK