Review: Blackbraid – Blackbraid III

Review by Justin Joseph

Blackbraid – Blackbraid III

Record Label: Independent

Year: 2025

Rating: 9/10

We often traverse this plane with a mind plagued by the cacophony of negativity, where its anchor becomes the noose, and the thought of salvation becomes like ashes upon a mouth that has lost the meaning in its enunciation. For what we seek is a means to be freed from these shackles, for let it be inherited by another force, and onto this force, let the veins be drained of this malice, let it be that these emotions that erode the mind dissipate as we are drained and refilled in the same motion.

“Blackbraid III”, the third offering unleashed by Blackbraid becomes the very chalice that lips can drink upon, and for when the tongue tastes its elixir, a fervent splendor is experienced by the consciousness, for the very sounds that are expelled from this entity becomes the torrential waters that strip away the jagged edges from a languid mind, for what is experienced, is a cathartic ritual etched in sound…sound transfigured into a weapon wielded by the mind.

Blackbraid Photo by Necroshorns

A triumphant spirit surges through these melodies, for tracks such as “Wardrums at Dawn on the Day of My Death” and “The Dying Breath of a Sacred Stag” covers itself with the soil of Melodic Black Metal, akin to the resonance of Panopticon, Saor and Pan-Amerikan Native Front even blending in that folk-like dissonance of Black Metal in similar vein to Scandinavian counterparts like Kampfar. The atmosphere which permeates through each track is amplified via the production which bestows unto these sounds a new shape to be delineated, for the manner in which the percussions and strings concatenate in unison feels livid in its animation, as though you can trace the edges of its very being, like the hands that see with every touch so too does the sounds exude in its aura. “God of Black Blood” is another track which displays the jewel that is bred from this album, for within this song, a world is uncovered…a world beneath the flesh, a world beyond sea of blood and bones, for the introspective nature that is exhaled from this track carries unto every other song, in my opinion, this very quality becomes the sinew that binds the album together.

A point that is stressed is the atmosphere, not the atmosphere carved from just the instrumental magic, but the atmosphere that latches onto the consciousness, elevating the senses to take flight upon each note. However, the spell that permeates and dictates the orphic motion of this sensation is commanded through the vocals. “And He Became the Burning Stars…”, is a track wherein the mouth that unleashes this litany becomes the roaring river that is unshackled by its own banks, shaping the rocks and carving the earth to its rhythmic tongue, so too does the vocals feel in its expulsion.

Even though the transmission of these sounds summons forth the strength of a warrior within the soul, the album in my opinion is naught just a musical piece, but rather a conduit for which the spirit can bare itself naked with palms outstretched, and from whence the weeping stigmata flows, these wounds of strife are cauterized and washed away by the sounds emitted from this album, for the unification of an unbridled, feverish soul coupled with the language of motion of Black Metal births a rather palpable sensation, where at the end of this journey, the mind rediscovers the taste of peace through submitting itself to these waters.