Chamber of Unlight - Avernus (2026)

Featuring one of the most stacked line-ups in Black Metal, today we have Finland’s Chamber of Unlight with their sophomore release “Avernus”. Featuring a fierce and yet melodic BM sound, this release unleashes over 35 minutes of crafty music with plenty of atmosphere and harshness. While not as flashy as outfits like Moonlight Sorcery or Vargrav, these guys have a very punishing BM core that happens to be adorned by crafty synths and melodic passages.

Unleashing all fury with the whirlwind “One With the One”, we get a masterful guitar-driven piece with piercing atmospherics and a very raw and punishing vibe. Blistering past “Wraithlike”, and “Night Chasm”, we get that old-school Dimmu Borgir-meets-Tartaros vibe as the keyboards shine alongside crafty melodic riffs and pummeling drumming. The band’s sound is relentless, but masterfully adds melancholy and melody into the mix, creating a very powerful wall of sound.

Our personal favorite has to be the eerie “The Dagger” and its engaging atmospherics. This track creates a very hellish vibe thanks to its vocal arrangements and it completely takes off when the tremolo-picking comes around. We found ourselves furiously headbanging with “Rise Above” and “Where Light Does Not Dare to Enter”, two very old-school sounding tracks that deliver dramatic symphonic elements alongside hellish vocals and bass-guitar line.

Closing with the hypnotic and a bit industrial sounding “Dominus Tenebrarum”, Chamber of Unlight has managed to greatly improve over their debut full-length release while unleashing all kinds of chaos in the midst of brutality and melody. There is no doubt that the members of the band are quite talented, and it is quite interesting to hear how they deploy their skills in unleashing a different brand of Black Metal than in their countless other bands and projects.

Rating: 96/100