Published: January 9, 2025

Hailing from The Land Down Under, Claret Ash was completely unknown to me until Hypnotic Dirge Records sent me their newest EP to review. In short, this album rules and takes me to a very happy place.

“Worldtorn - Anempoia” has a lot going on, but I’ll do my best to explain it. First and foremost, it’s Black Metal. From straight up Black Metal to Technical Black Metal to more of an Agalloch sound, it’s all there. There may be some Post Black Metal in there as well and some kickass almost jazz bass noodling, and there’s a fucking ton of originality going on as well. Honestly, this album flawlessly changes styles and directions all the time and I love it! My favorite song on the album is the acoustic version of “The Wolves Have Fed Again” that is a folky acoustic song with amazing clean vocals.

The vocals are Blackened and very well done, but my favorite vocals are the group/gang vocals used quite often. The group vocals during the Black Metal moments seem proud, hateful and passionate and the group's clean vocals are simply beautiful. The lyrics seem to be about inner thoughts, dreams and loss.

The album’s production is great and that let’s everything going on in the music shine through perfectly.

The cover art is… I’m not sure. It’s done by Samuel Nelson at Stigma Art. It looks to me like an oil painting of a forest. I think I see trees and a sun shining above, but it’s all vague and out of focus. The color scheme is nice and pleasing to the eye. Inside the booklet of the digipak, you will find all of the lyrics, more paintings, a band photo and the band and album information.

Claret Ash has some other albums that I really want to get my hands on. It’s very rare that a Black Metal band injects this much originality to their music, and they have done so with amazing results. Great job to all involved!

No Yahoo Serious or Crocodile Dundee jokes were made creating this review.