Pegah
“Yes, the day the world ended and nobody was innocent again. God, how swiftly it all fell down!” ― Arthur Miller, After the Fall.
Lightless is a German Blackened Doom/Sludge Metal trio from Dresden, formed in late 2021. The band consists of Dr. Christian Engelmann (guitars, vocals, lyrics, production), Marc Odin Kade (bass, backing vocals), and Martin Heidler (drums). This is its debut album, A Foreseen Loss, a four-track opus. As for the cover art, the colorless design portrays a world drained of life. A broken tree trunk, dry, lifeless branches, and a distant fire together evoke a strong sense of destruction, mirroring the central theme of the album. This visual desolation aligns with the album’s title, A Foreseen Loss, suggesting an inevitable decline. The few remaining leaves hint at the last, fragile efforts of survival in a world ravaged by humankind’s relentless devastation of nature.
To my mind, “Social Pestilence” offers the most distinctive opening of all the tracks on the album. The dark and creepy sound of the violin, combined with a subtle Eastern rhythm, creates an unsettling atmosphere right from the start. The track’s rises and falls evoke the wavy lines on the album’s cover art. The main section of the song adopts a rebellious rhythm, driven by vocals that shout and scream in frustration—a raw response to the pressures and impositions of society. In the second phase, the soundscape shifts into a doomier atmosphere, marked by deep, growling vocals that amplify the sense of despair.
This mood carries seamlessly into the next track, “Alternating Preeminence,” which grows even more intense and oppressive, pushing the emotional weight of the album further. “Malicious Hopes Turned to Dust,” featuring Val Atra Niteris, begins with a lengthy and immersive opening, setting the stage for a narrative of nature’s resurgence and reclamation of power. As the track progresses toward its conclusion, the soundscape gradually shifts—moving away from its initial Doom-laden atmosphere into a fully Blackened realm.
The closing track, “Humanity’s Closing Chapter,” serves as a fitting and powerful conclusion to the album—a requiem for dreams that never came true. It radiates a profound sense of hopelessness, conveyed through every anguished scream, every crushing riff, and every pounding beat. The message is unflinching: humanity is doomed, and there is no escape.
Each of the four tracks stands as a monolith in its own right, yet together they maintain a cohesive identity that defines the album as a unified whole. Lightless channels its bleak sonic landscapes into a form of protest against societal decay, environmental collapse, and the inevitable downfall of humanity. Its lyrics are not merely introspective or existential; they are a deliberate confrontation with the destructive trajectory of modern civilization.
Label: Independent?
Release date: 30 April, 2025
Website: https://lightlessdoom.bandcamp.com/album/a-foreseen-loss
Country: Germany
Score: 4.0/5.0
Metal Eclipse Reviews 