Tongues – Hreilia (Review)

Tongues are a black metal band from Denmark and this is their debut album.

The band’s 2014 EP Thelésis Ignis was an extremely strong first release, making it onto my best of 2104 end of year list. The EP showcased the band’s compelling mix of black, death, and doom metal, one which they have refined further for Hreilia.

Containing a healthy amount of atmosphere and melody alongside crushing, dissonant, blackened aggression, the band use their considerable creative skills to paint vivid nightmarescapes and dark visions of otherworldly vistas. The doom aspect of the band’s sound has been brought more into the foreground on Hreilia, with the album’s overall mood being one of bleak hopelessness and despair.

Within the band’s creative framework this is a varied and compelling listen. It’s obvious that a lot of thought, care, and attention has been lavished on this album, and it’s paid off too; this is a high-quality album of affecting, engaging extreme metal.

These songs flood over the listener like an unstoppable tidal wave of darkness and woe. Whether unleashing bursts of fiery speed, or wallowing in introspective reflection, the band craft material that is atypical and individual, while still being both emotive and crushing at the same time.

Showing influences from old and new black metal and doom, as well as certain moments and riffs that wouldn’t be out of place on a post-metal/post-hardcore record, Hreilia is exactly the kind of follow up to Thelésis Ignis that I was hoping for; expanded, developed, and refined, while still keeping the band’s essential personality intact.

Highly recommended.