Doodswens just dropped the best black metal record of the year and it’s not even fucking close to being sideswapped. This wild creature of raw Dutch black metal bleeds at extreme volumes throughout all 7 tracks.
The self-titled release from Doodswens, which is primarily the duo of Inge and J.J, crawls out of its nightmarish grave soaked in freezing rain and old blood, no clean edges anywhere, no artsy “post-black” bullshit trying to soften the damage. This is why I love metal from the Netherlands. There’s no light left in the mix.
Every riff sounds like it was nailed together in a condemned basement with frostbitten hands while the drums just keep beating your skull into wet concrete. The vocals are pure psychic ruin — not theatrical, not polished, just real human ugliness tearing itself apart at full volume. This album doesn’t posture. It doesn’t need to. It walks in reeking of smoke and death and everybody else clears the room.
What makes it hit harder than most modern black metal is how fucking alive it feels. Too many bands are out here making sterile atmospheric wallpaper for people who wear battle jackets twice a year. Doodswens sounds dangerous. The guitars rot and howl like collapsing buildings, the melodies surface for half a second like drowned bodies before getting dragged back under, and the whole thing moves with this hateful momentum that never lets up.
There are moments on this record where it feels less like listening to music and more like surviving some cursed weather event. The rawness isn’t an aesthetic choice — it feels necessary, like these songs would die if they were cleaned up even a little.
By the last track you feel scraped hollow. Not “immersed.” Not “haunted.” Fuck that. You feel like you got dragged face-first through frozen dirt behind a funeral procession while somebody screamed scripture through blown-out amps. That’s what black metal is supposed to do. No cosplay occultism, no cinematic filler, no fake evil. Just cold-blooded misery and violent catharsis hammered into riffs sharp enough to open arteries.
Doodswens didn’t make an album to impress people. They made a damn weapon to bring about the end of the world.
Listen to it here or wherever the heaviest of black metal can be unearthed.
