Published: May 5, 2024

Hekseblad is a United States-based black metal artist who has been making waves in the scene due to their latest release, Kaer Morhen. If you’re a fan of Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher novel series, video games, or TV show, you might have caught that reference to the old keep where witchers train. Hekseblad focuses on melodic and vicious fantasy black metal inspired by the lore of The Witcher series and classic second-wave black me...

Published: April 29, 2024

Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher is such a suitable fit for black metal that it could have overtaken Tolkein’s lasting influence had it come out sooner. It certainly seems more relevant thematically, with Lord of the Rings focusing on mythology, rucking, and setting up camp to eat with your friends while The Witcher is about isolation, apathy, and how we define humanity. Hekseblad, the two-person black metal group, recognizes th...

Published: April 21, 2024

Now we come to the full album I mentioned at the outset, from a band whose music was new to me. Hekseblad is a duo consisting of Bruxa, a vocalist and songwriter from Michigan who handles the lore and storytelling of the duo’s music (aWitch’s Amulet, Fanged Imp, Bruxa, Oaken Palace), and Frosk (Frog Mallet, Groaning Retch), a multi-instrumentalist and studio owner from Massachusetts who handled the instrumentation and produced th...

Published: April 17, 2024

Black metal often finds itself more suited for experimentation and pushing boundaries than other genres of extreme metal; just look at how much it has grown and transmuted in the 40 years since its arguable inception with Bathory’s debut. These countless iterations of the genre are all fine and good, but I’m always a sucker for bands that manage to recapture some of the magic of the second wave with enough modern flair to keep it fre...

Published: April 18, 2024

Do you like your black metal dripping with malice and inspired by the witcher? Yes? Correct! well then strap in as Hekseblad, Fresh off a run of successful EP releases and a well-received Split (w/ Vér and Nachtheir) unveils their debut full-length Kaer Morhen

Comprising of members Bruxa, a vocalist and songwriter from Michigan handling the lore and storytelling of the duo’s music (Witch’s Amulet, Fanged Imp, Bruxa, Oaken Palace) ...

Published: April 15, 2024

“Punk is dead” is a common refrain that’s so ingrained in music that it’s become memetic. It’s gone from earnest to rejected to ironic to post-ironic and all the way back again, constantly igniting debate about what the phrase and the genre itself even mean. Although no such phrase exists for black metal, a similar sentiment has lurked within the culture for decades, ready to decry the death of the “trve kvlt” and incite argu...

Published: April 12, 2024

Today, I am honored to present the final pre-release single The Taste of Ash from the upcoming debut full-length “Kaer Morhen” by the USBM duo Hekselblad. I have a theory about the number four spot on an eight-ten track album, which is where this track falls. To me, the track placed here tells me a lot about whether the album is a few bangers and a bunch of filler, or if the album is more likely to be full of excellence. You see, I...