01. The Unseen World
02. Love As We're Falling Down
03. Her Still Singing Limbs
04. What's Yours Is Yours To Carry
05. Hex Upon Our Heads
06. Sister Faith & Sister Chance
07. Cherry Knots (The Sun Shines Through You)
08. Pink Lights Soiling To Copper
09. The Quiet Current
10. To Part The Abelia Springs

Let's take a journey through the darkest reaches of black metal where Ultha shine A Light So Dim that reaching it can be an emotionally daunting undertaking.

Ultha is a German black metal band formed in 2014. Their style is primarily atmospheric black metal, but unlike most bands associated with the genre, they tend to incorporate a wide range of genres such as doom, dark wave, and post-metal into their style. They have an impressively consistent discography that's certainly worth looking into if you favour the melancholic side of black metal, or prefer your atmospheric black metal to be a bit more experimental. They push those boundaries that extra bit further on their fifth album A Light So Dim, creating an album that will sound unlike any other in 2026.

A Light So Dim is a 74-minute cinematic journey that's caught in a place between darkness and light, where reality meets fiction. The concept is about finding hope in a world overshadowed by darkness and lost to despair, where you must try and reach the diminishing light at the end of the seemingly endless tunnel before you're consumed in madness. Taking on this journey can certainly seem like a mammoth undertaking, a tormenting malevolent ride filled with an array of emotions, and you must endure brooding, unsettling soundscapes throughout. The band is certainly no strangers when it comes to blending genres, but here they've managed to go that extra step further, successfully incorporating industrial, shoegaze, post-metal, dark wave, ambient, and doom, all while managing to retain their signature sound and atmospheric style.

There are multiple factors as to what makes A Light So Dim so different to all other albums in black metal, the songwriting itself for starters. It's very diverse, with each song having its own approach in style and coming with its own set of emotions. They've furthermore delved deeper sonically, creating a much more dense sound to that of previous albums while adding further layers to the song structures. This is due to the unique blending of genres, which are masterfully merged together without the elements sounding out of place or crammed together for experimentation's sake. 

The end game is all about immersing yourself deep in the atmosphere, which is unlike anything they've achieved before, and what this album lacks in melody and ferocity it certainly makes for in emotion. The rhythm tends to pulsate in a hypnotic gazy fashion or gradually build intensity in a post-metal manner rather than be rapid and energetic, although the tempo does surge in short bursts. The dark eerie synths, melancholic piano keys, and various other sound effects also play a vital role in creating its atmosphere. The vocals are perhaps the main standout element; they are performed with such emotion and are very diverse, ranging from devastating high-pitched shrieks, tortuous wails, and growls of anguish, to haunting female singing, choirs, and spoken word.

A Light So Dim lives up to the standards of what has already been set in their quite faultles discography, and arguably surpasses the quality of 2022's All That Has Never Been True. It's clear that Ultha intends to make no album sound the same, always striving for something different, something more, something atmospherically gripping, and something the listener can be emotionally attached to. While it doesn't leave me speechless or in awe, as such, by the end, but A Light So Dim certainly leaves a lasting impression and sets a high benchmark.

Performance:	8
Songwriting:	7
Originality:	8
Production:	8