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Release date: August 21, 2025
Label: Hypnotic Dirge Records
Genre(s): Black metal
Dysthymia’s The Morning Darkness is a haunting, immersive dive into lived despair, a sophomore statement of depressive black metal that feels less like performance and more like an unfiltered personal reckoning.
Out today, August 21, 2026 via Hypnotic Dirge and Red Nebula, this follow-up to the Boston duo’s 2021 self-titled debut and 2024 split with Saeva expands their raw foundation into something more layered and dynamic. Grushenka Ødegård’s vocals, lyrics, and guitar intertwine with Ray King’s guitars, bass, and programming (plus contributions from Laniakea and Rosin Lludw), mixed by Jori Apedaile into a cold, heavy atmosphere that breathes rather than merely blasts.
Distant tremolo riffs and prominent basslines form the bedrock, pierced by mournful leads, sparse piano, acoustic passages, tortured screams, and ethereal clean vocals. Tracks unfold with deliberate flow: quiet, desolate stretches build into emotional crests without theatrical excess. The five songs—“I Live With What You Created,” “We Can Never Go Back,” “To Choose Life is to Choose Grief,” “Until I Was Nothing,” and the title track—clock in around 42 minutes of sustained isolation and hopelessness.
Lyrics confront grief, regret, the death of capacity to love or feel joy, and the bitter recognition that even dawn brings no light. Phrases like “to choose life is to choose grief” and the title’s central image of morning darkness cut with raw honesty drawn from years of late-night and early-morning writing. It never feels exploitative; the band’s own note frames the record as something potentially useful for navigating days without relief.
The Morning Darkness refines Dysthymia’s despondent vision into a more mature, atmospheric whole. For listeners of DSBM and atmospheric black metal who value genuine emotional weight over shock, this is a powerful, resonant release—somber company that understands the weight of continuing.
Dysthymia: Bandcamp | Instagram
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