Review: Martröð – Draumsýnir Eldsins

Review by Jeger

Martröð – Draumsýnir Eldsins

Record Label: Debemur Morti Productions

Year: 2025

Rating: 8.5/10

As you embark further upon your journey through the hallowed corridors of Black Metal legend, and as you develop your palate, you’ll no doubt eventually encounter Black Metal of the Icelandic kind: bold, complex and sophisticated. The Icelandic scene has developed rapidly over the decades into one of the world’s most celebrated yet oft overlooked movements: Misþyrming, Auðn and Martröð – just a few of the ambitious projects to come out of the Land of Fire and Ice. The latter began their transformative BM journey in 2014 and have thus far released one LP, “DRAUMSÝNIR ELDSINS”, unveiled on December 12 via Debemur Morti Productions. And so the time has come for us to strike up our torches! Don our cloaks and proceed not gently into where ritual and magick dare. On this night, nothing matters but sweat, blood and fire. Relinquishing ourselves, our essence over in service to the mystification of the night.

There’s the intensity of a hundred summonings to be felt during the duration of “Sköpunin”, as its energy surges and twists like a whirlpool; unforgiving undertow swirling you about violently, all the while as maddening soundscapes penetrate through the vortex into your cranium like some kind of fucked up Thorazine osmosis; rendering you helpless against what I can only describe as a Blut Aus Nord-level sonic event. All of this eventually turns over into a deep ritualistic experience. Just tinkering with their instruments like a madman quizzically fingering through small intestines; creating a primal sense of buildup for the track’s closing melodious couple of minutes.

I mentioned sophistication earlier and that’s probably the most proper way to describe “Líkaminn” – elegance and power intertwine like orbiting planets where each phase serves the other without ever being in contact. And then it’s into the sphere of bewilderment with you, as you live out what feels like a Blackened Psychedelic nightmare of beatnik-esque abstract experimentation, sending your imagination into overdrive and your heart rate into the red. A lot of this has been an uneasy experience and therein lies the beauty of it! To appreciate real art is to appreciate its dark side, as well as the allure. And there is plenty dark to unearth here. The mood alone is enough to keep you on seat’s edge.

Shades of Celtic Frost’s “To Mega Therion” surface from the epic intro to “Tíminn”, as I’m reminded of the beginning moments of “Innocence and Wrath”. Every bit as grandiose and majestic, only steeped in its own unique sort of wickedness: twisted, macabre and unsettling. Culminating now with “Dauðinn” – a dark ambient, contemplative first couple of minutes, an explosive incursion of intense, laser-precise, air-tight Icelandic Black Metal to close it all out. At just over 34 minutes of runtime, you’ll actually be able to sit through the entire thing! Albums of this variety can be so pretentious and so full of bullshit that they become insufferable, but not this one. With “DRAUMSÝNIR ELDSINS”, Martröð delivers an epic experience without putting you through the compositional wringer.

In a class of its own is the Icelandic scene. Much like Ukraine or Hungary, Iceland’s Black Metal Artists continuously but quietly set new recording and conceptual standards with each album of theirs that gets released. And pushing the creative envelope always in regard to songwriting. Some would argue that there’s not much distinction between scenes, but upon listening to “DRAUMSÝNIR ELDSINS” and upon experiencing the music of their Icelandic counterparts, you will soon understand that the above argument simply doesn’t hold. And while some of the music in Scandinavia and other parts of the world has begun to sound a bit stale, the Icelandic scene has raised its banner high and its players just continue to astonish enthusiasts and frustrate other musicians. Fire, Ice and true fucking Black Metal done the Icelandic way. Well done.