Year: 2025
Label: self-released

Whilst listening to MetaForm, Bulgarian Dimholt’s new album, I returned to my review of their previous album Epistēmē (here). I find that most all I wrote in the review still applies to the band, and describes quite accurately the new album, though the two are divided by a gap of six years. I shall resist the temptation to copy stuff ad verbatim from the older review.

An easy accusation to make would be, considering the above, that Dimholt are stuck in place, in a rut, unable to progress. I shall also refrain from making that accusation lightly.

MetaForm is an album of modern but traditional black metal. Built essentially entirely out of some rather familiar building blocks, which testify an indebtedness to black metal from the last 35 or so years, MetaForm manages to avoid sounding like pastiche. Here and there, you can pick out elements that bring to mind this or that act, but overall, Dimholt sound if not exactly original, then at least like themselves more than anything else.

Essentially, I suppose one could say MetaForm is something along the lines of a bit of vintage Mayhem, a healthy dollop of Mgła, a bit of mid-era Behemoth, and laced with some of the depressively melancholic raw melodies of Abyssic Hate. Or replace those names with something entirely else. The point is this: MetaForm’s building blocks will be familiar to you if you’ve been listening to black metal for a while – but the music won’t be, at least not disturbingly so.

It’s in the way they mix things. Melancholic, tragedic melodies familiar from atmospheric, melancholic and perhaps even depressive variants of black metal mesh with the furious pounding drums and sawing guitars of mid-90’s black metal. Discordant guitarwork melds into surprisingly strong melodies. Soft interludes balance aggression with atmosphere.

The end result manages to balance on that thin razor of familiarity and originality in quite an admirable fashion. And whilst being stylistically quite similar to its predecessor, MetaForm doesn’t feel like yesterday’s stew re-heated. In that sense, Dimholt tick off some very good boxes with the album.

And what about the quality? We’ve established MetaForm is sufficiently original, at least in the context of today’s black metal, and also more than a rehash of the band’s previous works. But is it otherwise worth a spin?

The answer is, absolutely yes. Admittedly, with a running time of over 50 minutes, MetaForm could have perhaps been trimmed down with one track, but it still doesn’t overstay its welcome. The tracks are varied enough to keep up interest, and both the songwriting and musicianship are up to snuff.

Take two standout tracks as examples. To Embrace The Profound Stillness mixes classic blasting with almost dark metal like melancholic sensibilities in a dynamic track that blends together beautiful sadness with aggression, accentuated well by vocalist Woundheir’s hoarse vocals. The title track mixes a slightly discordant guitar melody with powerfully rolling, mid-tempo drums into a track that starts the album well – especially when things speed up and a dense wall of sawing guitars kick in about halfway into the track.

MetaForm is a solid outing by the Bulgarian act. It might not quite make the cut for the shortlist of album of the year, but it doesn’t fall far from it. Most of the things done here are done well; all I’m missing is that one gobsmacking track. And maybe a tad briefer running time. But other than these remarks, MetaForm is a fine piece of classic yet timeless black metal.

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