Yet another astonishingly versatile Black Metal album. Blackbraid has been using the genre to illustrate the indigenous North American people for just over three years. It is actually a one-person endeavour led and exclusively created by Mexican immigrant Jon Kriegar. This is his third record, by far the strongest. It continues his redirection of the claustrophobic and nihilistic might of black metal towards the mistreatment of both the indigenous people of North America but also the environment they now share with the newcomers.

It is an astonishingly versatile and virile album. The darkness inherent within this music is repurposed to illustrate the horrors that have been inflicted upon those who originally called North America home. Use of native American instrumentation and musical forms doesn’t in any way feel gimmicky or tokenistic. Instead, it gives the album real depth and character. A rich, expressive record that shows that there is so much more to Black metal than just an obsession with the devil. A protest album like no other.

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