Full Length Review: Wallfahrer "Knochenkabinett" (Independent) by Dave Wolff

Band: Wallfahrer

Country: Germany

Genre: Black metal

Full length: Knochenkabinett

Format: Digital, CD

Label: Independent

Release date: August 7, 2026

Wallfahrer is named after the German word for “pilgrim”, someone traveling to a holy site. The philosophical irony of this name isn’t lost on anonymous musicians making a different kind of pilgrimage: a symbolic turning away from religion and technology, and a return to the natural world. Rejecting modern civilization’s greed in favor of solitude is central to the band’s anti-commercial DIY ethic.

Founded in anonymity, Wallfahrer has kept the focus on its musical and lyrical direction rather than its commercial potential, aboveground or underground. That anonymity has persisted across all six full-length albums released since 2018. The band has declined to sign with indie labels, sell merch or perform live, remaining strictly a studio project. While Wallfahrer isn’t the only band to turn from modern urban society and use the studio as an isolation chamber for developing ideas, their anonymity is as strict and consistent as their commitment to promoting only their music.

That ethos has remained unchanged since the independent release of the debut album “Anthologie der Abkehr.” The resulting formula gives terms like “dense,” “atmospheric,” and “uncompromising” new, or at least profoundly personal, meaning for the sole musician behind Wallfahrer’s latest release, “Knochenkabinett.” The project began as a duo and has since narrowed to one member. That solitary recording process is an evolution in itself: the studio’s isolation amplifies the music’s cold misanthropy to terrifying proportions while preserving its appeal to listeners drawn to the complex, pristine sound of German black metal.

Steeped in existential dread, “Knochenkabinett” takes a firm, calculated lyrical approach rather than a chaotic one. It’s a labyrinthine journey from life’s complexity through disillusionment to collapse—a wearing away of the curated personas we create or inherit. The album challenges us to abandon the search for recognition, shed the masks we wear in daily life, and consider the identity we want for ourselves. Rather than settling for futility and nihilism, it reintroduces nature into the void left when surface identity is stripped away.

At first, the songwriting sounds like typical German black metal. But as the songs unfold, new movements emerge, growing more complex through their tension and release, and somehow colder and more remote than usual. Rigid guitars and sharp drums create a nuanced, discordant contrast between frenetic speed and overpowering breakdowns. The disciplined musicianship is claustrophobic and exacting, guiding the listener toward a catharsis in which external influence is hollowed out and human freedom arrives through accepting nature, not denying it. –Dave Wolff

Track list:

1. Wanderer In Den Schatten

2. Knochenkabinett

3. Festung Einsamkeit

4. Interludium Osseum

5. Gipfelthron

6. Wir Waren Das Volk

7. Die Leichtigkeit Des Scheins

Full Length Review: Entheos "Empty on the Inside" (Metal Blade) by Dave Wolff

Band: Entheos

Location: Nashville, Tennessee

Country: USA

Genre: Alternative metal

Full length: Empty on the Inside

Format: Digital, vinyl (see links for more information)

Label: Metal Blade

Release date: October 23, 2026

We’ve heard about bands who write about embracing your darkness without it defining you, or it being defined by others, Repeated listens reveal new nuances in the darkness Chaney Crabb embraces in her lyrics and varied vocal styles. Paired with Entheos’ layered songwriting, it makes “Empty on the Inside” that much more immersive and compelling.

Crabb has been a founding member of Entheos since the band’s inception in 2015, and in 2021 she joined the cast of the interactive horror video game series Dead by Daylight, alongside actors Brad Dourif, Bruce Campbell, and Doug Bradley, and vocalists Riley McShane (formerly of Allegaeon), Adrienne Cowan (Seven Spires, Avantasia), and Sébastien Croteau (Necrotic Mutation). The role challenged Crabb to use sudden, erratic vocal techniques, adjusting her larynx and placement in uncommon ways. This not only built her stamina but improved her performance as a frontwoman.

Alongside multi-instrumentalist Navene Koperweis (formerly of Animals as Leaders and Animosity), Scott Carstairs (Fallujah), and Michael Stancel (Allegaeon), the band would sign with Metal Blade soon after, showcasing their individual growth and progress as a band on ”Time Will Take Us All” (2023) and “Empty on the Inside” (2026).

The former album, written and composed by Crabb and Koperweis, was crafted to intertwine raw emotion, technical prowess and musicianship that shifts from section to section in an instant. Its blend of technical death metal, deathcore, synthwave, prog rock, and jazz fusion maintains fluid harmonic continuity and consistent underlying progressions (even the death metal and deathcore elements have an inherent progressive feel). The bass and drums move in tandem with the guitars, creating song structure that challenges Crabb to keep the pace. By breathing strategically, she enunciates clearly and matches her phrasing to the riffs and time changes with apparent ease, especially when she shifts between multiple vocal styles.

Expanding from a two-member collaboration into a full-band effort, “Empty on the Inside” strengthens the genre-crossing elements, with each contributing more to the whole. The guitars handle the transitions more smoothly. The integration of death metal with jazz fusion, and the integration of ambient and electronic sounds with deathcore, are channeled directly into the songs’ framework, not as embellishments but as a common starting point.

Moving beyond the usual deathcore formula, Crabb embraces an emotionally dynamic vocal approach, making an effort to increase its accessibility. Drawing on the “screaming” of nu-metal singers, she often employs a mid-phrase shift from singing to rasping to screaming while staying connected to the feeling her lyrics evoke. Crabb also knows where to transition from softness to encompassing tension, according to how a lyric needs to be conveyed.

In writing about embracing one’s own darkness, she invites the void further inward rather than resisting it, finding a certain strength in the surrender, turning it toward an unyielding resilience rather than pretending to be okay. The horrific soundscapes provided by the instruments, the dissolution of genre boundaries and the cinematic use of horror to convey realism is another step forward for metal as it transforms its subject matter into a horror-survival experience. –Dave Wolff

Lineup:

Chaney Crabb: Vocals, lyrics

Navene Koperweis: Drums, guitar, synth

Michael Stancel: Guitar, synth

Scott Carstairs: Guitar

Track list:

1. Hell Is a Part of Me

2. Empty on the Inside

3. Hollow

4. Call My Name

5. Golden Crown

6. Undone

7. Tomblight (feat. Michael Lessard)

8. Pale Faith

9. Never Let Me Go

10. The Earth Will Move