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Unearthed #15
New releases
Let’s kick things off with two standout industrial albums. First up is WIELORYB with God's Final Breath. It opens with a heavy rhythmic noise track and never lets up. It’s as harsh and pounding as a machine, backed by a dense, dark atmosphere.
Another release from the same artist, Ritual, is also a must for industrial fans. This one feels more hypnotic and rave-like, yet remains just as uncompromising. Grab both.
For something a bit more relaxed: Imminent by HLAD was released on January 27. It retains an industrial, noisy edge but leans into hypnotic textures rather than heavy rhythms. As the release notes suggest, it’s “recommended for fans of Dark Mechanical Temples.”
Ubekvem’s Human explores the course of life across eleven tracks, from conception to death and beyond. It features heavy textures, eerie vocals, and some impressive, atypical sound design, lending the album an organic feel that fits the title perfectly.
Insectarium’s latest arrived right on schedule this month. Skullmark is filled with slow, spacious soundscapes and strange noises. It’s a trip through abandoned places (just mind the warning signs).
Recurring Phases by Torus Dome is likely my favorite among the new releases. It’s 30 minutes of melodic dark ambient featuring subtle percussion and haunting choirs. Highly recommended.
To settle into an even calmer mood, there’s Sentient Being by Steve Roach. It leans more toward space ambient than dark, but it’s not to be missed.
Finally, a special one from Deserted Ghost: The Great West Drone Sessions offers eight tracks of desert drone. It sits on the organic, nature-inspired end of the spectrum rather than harsh industrial, making it the perfect record to close out this week’s list.
Mixes
The latest Nacht Radio Show features TeHÔM, Talst, Randal Collier-Ford, RNGMNN, and others.
Also, the January playlist over at This is Darkness is well worth a listen.
Unearthed #14
New releases
Welcome to the first Unearthed of 2026 to feature albums actually released this year.
Our first selection is Echoes from the Void of Time by Torus Dome. It’s a half-hour dark ambient piece built on slow-moving drones and eerie choirs; the atmosphere is excellent.
No Future by Runes Order is a re-release but it’s definitely worth mentioning here. It’s the reissue of the 1993 cassette which was limited to 30 copies. The theme of the album is nuclear war, specifically a post-apocalyptic landscape. It doesn't sound like your typical modern dark ambient (having been written in the nineties), and I highly recommend it.
BlackWeald (hailing from my home country, Hungary) has released Ahtola, an album running over three hours. It transports you into a sunken world through deep drones and ritualistic percussions. A long and slow journey that is well worth the time.
Insectarium’s new album, With Wings Removed was released on the first day of the year. It features great atmospheric soundscapes, quality work as usual from Joel.
Endless Cold, Endless Darkness by Ugasanie is a “cold and harsh album focusing on snow blasted dark ambient” as the release page says. It’s perfect for the current weather here in the northern hemisphere. If you’re south of the Equator, however, there’s no need to wait for the cold to arrive before listening.
Aconitum Napellus by Wilted Perch is a strange record, filled with distorted noise, glitchy electronics and haunting soundscapes. It demands your attention but it pays off. The Bandcamp page recommends it “for fans of: Megaptera, Inade, Burial Hex, Ain Soph, Zoät-Aon, Black Mountain Transmitter, and Raison d’être”.
Brotherhood of Sleep recently released Enter the Nuummite Cosmos, an experimental, ritual dark ambient album. Nuummite – also called the “Sorcerer’s Stone” – is a rare rock from Greenland, associated with Earth and Fire. It is believed to embody the primordial energies of creation and destruction, birth and renewal, making it a perfect symbol for the music here.
Sewn Into The Infinite Sky by Talst features six menacing tracks sitting right on the edge of deep ambient and horror-infused sci-fi.
Another cold one: Poena Sensus released A Cold Furnace on January 9. Listening feels like a long trip through the frozen North, past decaying metal structures and through vast underground halls where rusting machines still work toward forgotten goals. It’s one of my favorites among the new releases.
By coincidence, we have another album from a Hungarian artist. Premex Solus: Approximation was released by Zenapolae. Slowly moving drones and found sounds comprise these six long, beautiful tracks. The album is available for download at Zenapolae.
Mixtapes
A new mix is up on the Winter Light Mixcloud channel by Nicolas Van Meirhaeghe (the artist behind Empusae and Penumbral Aethyr), featuring tracks by Ajna & Onasander, Atomine Elektrine, Talst, and others.
Ethereal Ambient and more from The Kult of O, featuring Dirk Serries, Aarktica, Substak & LR Friberg, Vessel Spells, Dead Counterpoint Initiative and others.
Another great one from Oneirich: Dark Ritual Ambient mixtape:
Finally, don't miss the latest Nacht Radio Show from Mark O’Shea. Featured artists include Trepaneringsritualen, Dead Melodies, Urschaum, Joel Gilardini, and Atrium Carceri & Kammarheit.
Unearthed #13 (part 2)
Okay, so this took much longer than expected. Sorry for the delay – exam period, job searching, and other stuff left me with very little time and energy to write posts. I’ll pick up the rhythm in February…
So the first post of 2026 is actually the last one of 2025. You can read part 1 here if you missed it.
Releases
Let’s start with Compendium from Hiemis. It’s a compilation of previously released tracks (plus a new one), but it’s definitely worth listening to as a complete album. Deep, slow, and contemplative dark ambient with subtle ritual elements. Favourite track: Atraxas.
Transcendental Frequency by Torus Dome is a short album – or a very long track, depending on how you look at it. A half-hour journey into the depths, featuring “haunting drones, illusionary ambience and suggestive industrial soundscapes.” Deep, dark, and immersive throughout.
Aurora’s Breath Volume 2 is a long, experimental, atmospheric release (a single track running over an hour) by Scott Lawlor and Ingrid Narval Faolán. Ingrid is a gong player, so a sound bath is very much part of the experience – though definitely not the usual happy, vibey new age kind.
Pleroma is a consolidated body of work by The Black Monolith, spanning the last two years. It brings together tracks from various compilations along with some previously unreleased pieces, all remastered and assembled into a strong album well worth a listen.
Mixes
Another excellent dark ambient mix from Winter-Light label owner Mark O'Shea. This time it’s available on Bandcamp, with the option to pay any price and download it.
You should also absolutely check out the Frozen in Time playlist for December over on This Is Darkness.
And finally, The Kult of O’s favourite dark & ritual ambient tracks of 2025:
Unearthed #13 (part 1)
Due to the high number of releases (and skipping last week’s Unearthed), my recommendations for the end of the year will be split into two parts. Here is part 1.
New releases
Argyre Planitia’s third album, Ediacara, was released by Winter-Light. It is a journey to an alien world that will one day be called Earth. Ten tracks guide us through these strange landscapes with slowly evolving soundscapes and deep drones.
The Fire in Us Now from Bang of Hearts consists of five long improvisations created by Ashtoreth, Forestaal, and Dominique Van Cappellen-Waldock. It is a ritual constructed from voices, guitars, drums, and electronic instruments.
Electronic Death Black Dogs’ debut album, Cthonia, has been released on Dark Odyssey Records and is a very promising start. Across eight beautiful, atmospheric tracks, slow drones and cavernous soundscapes invoke Hecate, goddess of night, witchcraft, and the Moon. Highly recommended.
Drones by the Sea by Insectarium is a half-hour session recorded for the Drones by the Sea 2025 event in Italy. I have linked both the Bandcamp and YouTube pages so you can listen to it twice. You should.
Ithaqua is “a 2 hour dark soundscape album recorded by 19 ambient artists to pay tribute to H.P. Lovecraft's Mythos.” Released by Cryo Chamber, it features Ruptured World, ProtoU, Gydja, and many other great artists.
If you are looking for music that sits somewhere between industrial and dark ambient, you might enjoy Alpha, the debut album from Hibernant. It is part cold and technological, part dreamlike and atmospheric.
Noctilucant’s Amongst the Snow and the Shadows was re-released on CD a couple of days ago. It is a very limited edition of only 15 copies – last I checked, the final copy was still available on Bandcamp.
The final release for part one of this Unearthed comes from New Risen Throne. The Journey to Reach the Fathers is one of the best releases of 2025. As the Bandcamp page describes, it is “a monumental work of sonic transcendence, a meditation on death, ancestry, and the dissolution of the self.” With over an hour and a half of masterful dark ambient compositions, it offers an immersive experience of resonant soundscapes and deep drones. My personal favorite and highly recommended.
“Stepping out of the fortress of randomness” – Entrópia Architektúra interview
Ez az interjú magyarul is olvasható.
I’d like to expand Hypogeum with more categories in the future, moving away from the blog concept toward a webzine format. The first step on this path is doing interviews. I’m happy to announce that the first one is complete, featuring the band Entrópia Architektúra whose new album ‘Kapu’ was recently released. Csaba (vocals, shakuhachi, sampler), Tamás (guitar, persian sitar, shamisen), Dani (bass, synthesizers) and Marci (vocals, iron, percussion, noise) answered my questions from among the members.
(The photos were taken on November 15th, during the pre-release listening session for the new album.)
Read moreUnearthed #12
New releases
It’s a great week for fans of dark underground music: a lot of new records have just dropped. I haven’t had time to listen to everything from start to finish yet, but I’ll do my best to pull together our usual weekly list of recommendations.
First up is Subsystem Decay from Kristof Bathory & Blakmoth. If you’re into dark sci-fi atmospheres, rich analog drones, and deep cinematic pads, this one won’t let you down. Easily one of my favourites this week.
Ritual ambient releases are relatively rare, so they’re always welcome here. The latest is Oastar by O Saala Sakraal. Built on drones, choirs, and drums, it “weaves six aural ceremonies designed to open liminal sonic spaces where the residual wounds of Christian dominion may begin to heal,” as the Bandcamp page describes it.
Slow, melancholic themes blended with distorted feedback and noise form the backbone of Birds Drink My Blood from Born Erased. It’s punctuated by aggressive percussion, creating a record that ticks all the boxes for ambient, drone, industrial, and noise.
It’s an especially good week for ritual ambient fans, as there’s another release on the list. Ring of Spheres by Wolfskin runs for over an hour, and with very little time on my hands I couldn’t make it through the full record — so I’ll quote the Bandcamp page instead: “The album unfolds as an extended act of meditation and initiation. The gongs act as both instrument and symbol: circular, radiant, resonant, their sound waves describing the eternal cycles of creation and dissolution. Electronic textures weave through them like invisible currents, mapping a vast stellar architecture of sound.”
Beyond the Mountains of Sorrow from Rojinski moves from a beautiful, melancholic opening into a more sombre ending, holding onto the atmospheric sound you’d expect from him all the way through. The album is free to download on Bandcamp.
Above the Polar Vortex is a new release from Dronny Darko — should I say more? Even if I should, I unfortunately can’t yet; at around 90 minutes, it’s another album I haven’t managed to finish. But you should (and I will too, once exams are out of the way).
Let’s move on to a more aggressive record. F1RST°DEGREE by FABRIKER [101] is heavy, industrial, harsh, and unnerving. Just what you need if you’ve been missing the industrial reviews in Unearthed.
My review of Relics of Ancient Voices by Torus Dome is a bit late — it came out on November 29 — but I still wanted to include it in this week’s list because it’s a beautiful work. It’s a spiritual, transcendental kind of dark ambient, built on slow-moving soundscapes, subdued drones, and melancholic, choir-like pads. I loved every minute of it.
The last one arrived just as I was wrapping up the reviews: Live at Planetarium Erkrath by Martin Stürtzer is a dark/space ambient release recorded live at the planetarium on November 8th, 2025.
Mixtapes
Nacht Radio Show, featuring Ashtoreth & Stratosphere, Desiderii Marginis, Gdanian, ProtoU and others.
Unearthed #11
With the exam period approaching, I unfortunately have less time to cover new releases. Still, you can expect a few short reviews, and I’m also working on some bigger things — the first interviews are coming to Hypogeum! The debut one will be with Entrópia Architektúra, a Hungarian band whose genre-defying rock I can’t help but think of as ritual. If for no other reason, just so I can include them here…
But now, let’s get back to our usual dark ambient releases.
New releases
Nihil Impvlse crafts bleak, isolationist soundscapes from industrial noise and deep drones on his new album The Great Filter. The resulting post-apocalyptic atmosphere offers a powerful reinterpretation of both industrial and dark ambient music.
Substak’s EP Natura Non Constristatur is filled with low, distorted drones and eerie crackles — a slow-burning soundtrack for long winter nights.
Another Parts of the Comet is a new EP from Hungarian artist Star Shaped Chimney. It’s a strange and original mixture of dark ambient atmospheres, space ambient soundscapes, spoken world samples and pulsating drones.
Mixtapes & Playlists
The latest 'Nacht' Radio Show featuring Aindulmedir, Coil, Dahlia's Tear, Argyre Planitia and many others.
The carefully curated Frozen In Time playlist for November is now out on This is Darkness.
Unearthed #10
New Releases
“More than a decade after the seminal release of Lacrimae Mundi, Croatian ritual ambient pioneer TeHÔM returns with Lacrimae Mundi Remixed, a transcendent new offering that gathers together the crème de la crème of the dark ambient, ritual, and post-industrial realms.”
With artists like Inade, Raison d’Être, Atrium Carceri, and others reinterpreting the original tracks, this is absolutely a release not to be missed.
Ben Powell (Llyn Y Cwn) has joined forces with Christopher Olson (Standard Grey) under the name The Grey Lake, releasing their self-titled album on 21 November. Rich, dark soundscapes and slowly evolving, dense textures await anyone ready to submerge into the grey waters.
Amdusias by 72PILLARS is a unique experiment born from the collaboration of nine artists. Each was given a different noise sample and tasked with crafting their own interpretation of Amdusias. The original noise album is free to download.
Primal Era Worship has recently released his second album, quickly becoming one of my favourites among the new offerings. Boldly digital and futuristic, it showcases another facet of the dark atmospheric genre we all love. Glitching cybernetic soundscapes and thumping machinery playing tribal rhythms can all be found on this record.
The Bull of Phalaris from Insectarium & The Black Monolith has been re-released. A very limited CD edition is now available, and bonus tracks can be accessed for free if you know where to look… (don’t worry, it’s perfectly legal).
Another collaboration arrives from Apocryphos and Penumbral Aethyr. Their new album, The Erosion of Innocence, offers a calm, sometimes soothing atmospheric journey. Highly recommended.
And finally for this week: Acéphale by VORTEX, a superb ritual ambient release. The album takes its title from a secret society founded by Georges Bataille in the 1930s. VORTEX founder Marcus Stiglegger is a scholar, filmmaker, soundtrack composer, and specialist in Bataille’s philosophy. Musically, the album weaves eerie field recordings with haunting bass or violin melodies, rhythmic noise, and ritualistic percussion, guiding listeners on a deep sonic journey.
Mixtapes
The usual 'Nacht' broadcast from Mark O’Shea, featuring The Grey Lake, Ajna & Onasander, Kammarheit, Kristof Bathory, Svartsinn and others.
Dark Ambient Soundscapes from The Kult of O:
Hypogeum mixtape #4
Here’s the latest Mixcloud set for the long autumn nights, and the cold days, too. If you’re in the southern hemisphere, enjoy the warmth and sunshine, but don’t miss the great music from Peter Bjärgö, Svartsinn, Aindulmedir, TROUM, and more.
Unearthed #9
New Releases
Let’s start this week’s column with a bang: the re-release of And The World Will Perish In Flames by DAYOFWRATH is an uncompromising black industrial album. According to the label, it “is a descent into pure Black Industrial, raw, hostile, and apocalyptic” – and I have nothing more to add.
I’m a bit late introducing Trepaneringsritualen’s new album, but it’s not to be missed. A Diadem of Fire doesn’t disappoint – the unmistakable mix of metallic percussion, distorted growls, and screeches never fails to impress me. Hopefully, it will do the same for you.
Ghur is a new album from Sublimatio Mortis, a Canadian duo consisting of Chris of Undirheimar & Mo Masaya de Kemet. Recommended for fans of slow, subterranean soundscapes, drones, and throat singing.
For those looking for something more melodic and melancholic, check out An Expression Of A Poetry That Was Lost by MOLJEBKA PVLSE. This record has it all: warm drones, fading melodies, and an aura of mystery. My personal favorite of the week.
Continuing with another melodic release, Memory of Light from Starterra is a new album by Chris Bryant (S1gns Of L1fe), taking you on a galactic journey with cinematic space ambient tracks.
Cryo Chamber recently released another compilation, Tomb of Iconoclasts. Featuring both well-known artists and new names, it’s well worth a listen.
Another recent release is Ashes by Lambwool. Inspired by the artist’s experiences in Ukraine following the outbreak of war, it uses field recordings from news reports to create a deeply personal and unsettling album.
Finally, another entry from my ever-growing list of albums to explore: Lost Within Loss by God Body Disconnect. Thirteen melancholic soundscapes, sometimes half-buried under dense textures and huge reverberations. Perfect for a rainy November evening.
Mixtapes
The Halloween special from Mark O’Shea, featuring Dahlia’s Tear, Grey Frequency, Raison D'être, and more.
This Is Darkness is back with a playlist for October.