Band:	Blackbraid
Album:	Blackbraid II
Style:	Atmospheric black metal, Melodic black metal
Release date:	July 2023

01. Autumnal Hearts Ablaze
02. The Spirit Returns
03. The Wolf That Guides The Hunters Hand
04. Spells Of Moon And Earth
05. Moss Covered Bones On The Altar Of The Moon
06. A Song Of Death On Winds Of Dawn
07. Celestial Passage
08. Twilight Hymn Of Ancient Blood
09. Sadness And The Passage Of Time And Memory
10. A Fine Day To Die [Bathory cover]

Blackbraid’s debut album took the world by storm last year. In 2023, with the element of surprise now no longer a factor, can Blackbraid II continue to impress?

Blackbraid I rather came out of nowhere, and immediately gathered attention due to being 'the Native American one-man black metal band'. After listeners spent time with the album and looked past the marketing, many came to recognize that this was a very solid atmospheric black metal debut, albeit one that didn’t seem to be all that distinctive from a musical standpoint given the uniqueness it was presented as having; in particular, comparisons to Agalloch’s music were hard to overlook. Blackbraid I was a taut package, clocking in at just over 35 minutes; a year on, Sgah'gahsowáh (again accompanied by Neil Schneider on drums) has come out with something with a vision clearly aimed at being more epic, as Blackbraid II is almost twice the length of its predecessor.

When comparing the two, one can hear a minor yet notable step up in the audio quality of the album. Blackbraid I had a fairly optimal level of lo-fi rawness that added bite without undermining the clarity of the sound; on Blackbraid II some of the sharpness in the blackened assaults has had the edge slightly smoothed down, but conversely there’s now a bit more weight to the heavier riffs. Aside from the altered production, Blackbraid is still very recognizable musically, although as far as folk musical influences are concerned, this new record arguably feels closer to European folk than the debut. The record opens with an acoustic introductory track, “Autumnal Hearts Ablaze”, and the chord sequences sound like something I would expect to hear in a Medieval British period piece film. I’m not complaining about it at all, as it sounds very nice and sets the stage nicely for the record, but it does further cement my feeling that the ‘novelty’ of Blackbraid comes more from the marketing than the music.

“Autumnal Hearts Ablaze" is followed later in the record by two more acoustic neofolk interlude-style ditties, “Spells Of Moon And Earth” and “Celestial Passage”; both are lush (the latter particularly stands out for the Marrow Of The Spirit-esque distorted guitar drones and flute sounds), and they also do a good job of dividing up the remaining hour of black metal that comprises this album. As far as the metallic content of the album is concerned, it starts off strongly with “The Spirit Returns”, a solid chunk of melo/atmo-black filled with memorable riffs and a nice mid-tempo bridge section that offers breathing room in between long chunks of full-pelt blackened assaults. There’s more in the same vein in “The Wolf That Guides The Hunters Hand” and “Sadness And The Passage Of Time And Memory” (sidenote: how cool are the song titles?); the former is similarly relentless for most of its runtime, but is rounded off by a scintillating solo near the end, while the latter sees Blackbraid exhibiting a slower side, nicely blending acoustic and distorted guitars.

The core of the album, however, and where its real treats lie, come in the middle of the tracklist in the form of two songs that have a combined length that's approaching the entire runtime of the debut album. “Moss Covered Bones On The Altar Of The Moon” was the first single released from this album, and as weird as it might be to choose a record’s longest song as its single, Blackbraid did show off the best of Blackbraid II first. This 13-minute leviathan runs the gauntlet, from a brooding tribal percussion intro, through a range of stirring mid-tempo riffs and melodies that take obvious inspiration from Nordic folk/pagan metal (albeit with a cameo from the flute/pipes), before unleashing a thrilling rampage for home that is ultimately stalled in favour of a dirge-like conclusion. “A Song Of Death On Winds Of Dawn” immediately follows, and is given a hard task in trying to stand out in the aftermath of what has just come before, but its increased focus on those American folk elements amidst the blazing blackened fury enables it to stand out on its own terms.

As mentioned already, Blackbraid I is quite a long album, and given my past form of critiquing long albums that end with a cover, you might be expecting me to say something negative about the closing track, a cover of Bathory’s iconic A Fine Day To Die, but you won’t hear it; it’s probably not going to be the definitive cover of the song, what with Emperor’s version existing, but it’s well-made and slots into the vibe of the album. If I was to pinpoint any aspect of this release as superfluous, I would probably question whether the sudden detour into thrash metal in the second half of “Twilight Hymn Of Ancient Blood” really fits in with the rest of the material here, or is impressive enough to elevate the album despite being incongruous. To be honest, for any listens I give Blackbraid II going forward from this point, I’ll probably find myself skipping this track.

That aside, this is a really solid sophomore release that will only further grow the well-deserved budding reputation that Blackbraid has attained. It’s still a bit too rudimentary from a black metal perspective for me to go all-in on the hype, but I doubt there’ll be many releases in a similar vein in 2023 that give it much in the way of competition.