SCHREIGARM - Mara comes and Darkness shall reign CD

Formed in that cursed year of 2020, SCHREIGARM are a unique entry into the oft-overlooked but always-vital Teutonic black metal scene: though based in Germany, both members are actually Ukrainian. Such a mixture surely results in a sound that mixes both the austere melodicism of the nowadays Teutonic school and the stargazing mysticism endemic of the Ukrainian form throughout the years. And if 2023's The Mysteries of Fate debut was unjustly underappreciated, then SCHREIGARM's subsequent Mara Comes and Darkness Shall Reign should doubtlessly right this injustice.

If there's one thing that unites the most enduring corners of both German and Ukrainian black metal, it's professionalism and dynamics, and SCHREIGARM possess both in spades on their second album. Revealing more than a touch of the pagan, Mara Comes and Darkness Shall Reign surges and sashays with a stouthearted sturm und drang that's all-enveloping - and awe-inspiring. Totaling eight tracks across 48 minutes, SCHREIGARM's second album is as EPIC as it comes as well as conceptual, and yet each of those songs feels like its own self-contained world, cresting and cascading with equal parts melancholy and majesty, woe and wonder. That their soundfield is so full and fleshed-out is no accident; the duo's songwriting simply demands such a bold, polychromatic palette. "Cathartic" only comes halfway close to describing Mara Comes and Darkness Shall Reign - SCHREIGARM's hearts are on fire!