Style: Folk Black Metal, Post-Black Metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Wolves in the Throne Room, Agalloch, Saor
Country: United States
Release date: 8 May 2026

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Over the last few decades, as it propagated globally from its Scandinavian roots, each new place has embedded its own local characteristics—musical and philosophical—into black metal, turning the entire genre into a syncretic endeavor. Exemplary of this phenomenon, Panopticon, Austin Lunn’s black metal band,¹ is American black metal at its finest, as well as a timeline of Lunn’s experiences as a person.² Moving across the United States since the band’s inception, from Kentucky to Ely, Minnesota, Lunn has left each region’s fingerprint in the sound of Panopticon albums;³ and since Lunn has lived in several culturally disparate parts of the country, Panopticon embodies America’s “great melting pot” ethos. Over the past five years, Lunn has delved into his relationship with northern Minnesota across the now-complete Laurentian Trilogy. …And Again into the Light thematically explores catharsis; The Rime of Memory deals with the world’s ecological catastrophe; and now Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet⁴ wrestles with the philosophy that we are all the sum of our lived experiences. Altogether, the Laurentian Trilogy is primed to be the pinnacle of American black metal, Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet its crowning jewel, an amalgamation of wintry tremolos, American folk elements, and deep introspection on what it means to be a contiguous soul. 

The striking difference between Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet and previous albums in the Trilogy is the amount of emphasis placed on string arrangements; warm cellos, violins, and violas swim through the sonic ether, playing the majority of melodies on the record with their rich tones. Additionally, the addition of lap and pedal steel bestow an Americana tonality, and only occasionally are the distorted guitars permitted to take over; when not relegated to non-background tremolo usage they become heavy metal harmonizers to the voluptuous orchestral presence. “Woodland Caribou” opens the album with several minutes of isolated string orchestration and powerful harsh vocals until a storm of metal finally rips the track in twain. Once Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet gets going, the record evokes a violent blizzard, its tracks choked by a constant hail of tremolo picks and blast beats—the swollen string sections laying like a fresh blanket of snow atop the metallic base. Tracks like “The Great Silence, Extinct” and “A Culture of Wilderness” are, for the majority of the time, ripping black metal tracks, although the lead riffs, atypically, are performed entirely by string ensemble. Rarely does Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet silence the orchestra, resulting in Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet being an extremely dense record—I found myself buried in its atmosphere for hours on end, ensnared by the lushness of the omnipresent strings.

Although culturally distinct, Cascadia and northern Minnesota share key similarities: Scandinavian heritage and a spiritual connection to nature. I’m unsurprised to hear a strong Cascadian black metal influence in Lunn’s songwriting and production. The winding songs utilize post-rock crescendoing, metal elements that are so atmospherically focused as to be nearly a background texture, and a desolate folkiness inspired by the virgin forests and wild mountains—Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet shares a lot in common with Agalloch or Wolves in the Throne Room. Centerpiece highlight “The White Cedars” melds relentless blast beats, cello solos, and quietly mixed harsh vocals with ease—the choral vocals and lamenting clean vocal chants complete the sound. The songwriting on the record is repetitious, particularly on a micro scale, Lunn playing the same riff or idea for minutes at a time, unvarying but for addition  or removal of instrumental layers. This songwriting style allows for some extraordinarily massive payoffs—like the guitar solo at the end of “The Great Silence, Extinct” or the emotional release the clean vocals at the end “The White Cedars” provides. Unfortunately, as each song plays with crescendos and extended repetition in similar ways, the resulting climaxes become predictable—even if they’re individually sublime. 

Stereo production allows the various string parts to interact across channels, often harmonizing one guitar with another across the sonic space or having a cello drift between the two sides. The production is warm with soft edges, and yet the music has that air of detachment I feel when listening to Cascadian black metal—like a log fire in a remote cabin while the world outside is painted white. I feel the final major theme of Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet and the Trilogy as a whole in this dichotomy: This record is a warning about isolation, the modern world is losing its sense of community, its warmth. 

Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet is wrought with emotion: existentialism, anguish, and a yearning for solidarity. These feelings bleed through the instrumentation by virtue of the songwriting, appearing in the swelling crescendos and explosions of black metal. The cleans, used sparsely, are unwaveringly touching, the morose singing with a distinctive twang that opens “Ghost Eyes in the Fire Light” claiming my favorite instance. Vocals become a community endeavor on Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet, as Lunn enlists the help of seven friends to provide clean and harsh vocals throughout the album. However, the emotional overload is at once the album’s strongest aspect and its weakest. When so much of the record is drowned in constant layers of beautiful, enveloping strings or heaven-sending blast beats, the emotional impact is lessened; listening to Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet is taxing. More breathing room, like that on “Lyset,” would moderate Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet. This excess of strong emotion contrasts with previous entries in the Trilogy: “Winter’s Ghost” opened The Rime of Memory with eight minutes of sparse folk before reaching its first sublime peaks, whereas “Woodland Caribou” immediately lays on the thick layers of strings and pained harshes—the new record borders on indulgent.

From the hushed strings and crackling campfire that open Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet to the bird calls and haunting strings that close it, Panopticon have written one of the most impressive series of black metal albums America—nay, the world—has ever seen. The album undoubtedly reaches the peaks of the Laurentian mountains and then continues upwards as the blast beats burst heavenward. Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet is both bone-chilling and cozy, destructively violent and restorative. In a career full of outstanding albums, Lunn has continued to grow, and from that maturation Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet is a beautiful ode to black metal, to all of the parts that constitute Lunn as a person, and to the natural beauty of Ely. What a fitting end to the Laurentian Trilogy.

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Recommended tracks: Woodland Caribou, Blood and Fur upon the Melting Snow, The White Cedars, Ghost Eyes in the Fire Light
You may also like: Skagos, Falls of Rauros, Wayfarer, Kaatayra, Musk Ox
Final verdict: 8.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Instagram

Label: Bindrune Recordings

Panopticon is:
– Austin Lunn: vocals, guitar, bass, drums, keys, pedal steel, lap steel, wood flute, samples and sound collage
With guests:
– Charlie Anderson: violin, viola, cello, additional choir vocals
– Alex CF: harsh vocals on “Woodland Caribou”
– Aaron Charles: harsh vocals on “The Great Silence, Extinct”
– Andy Klockow: clean vocals on “Blood and Fur Upon The Melting Snow”
– Jan Even Åsli: clean vocals on “The White Cedars”
– Jan Van Berlekom: clean and harsh vocals on “A Culture Of Wilderness”
– Jordan Day: clean vocals on “Ghost Eyes In The Fire Light”

1. He has released non-metal albums under the name. ↩︎
2. Of course, I don’t know Lunn personally, but from what I can tell, many of his records are deeply personal. ↩︎
3. Lunn has crystallized several distinct parts of American culture into black metal over the previous fifteen years, most famously bluegrass and labor songs on 2012’s Kentucky. ↩︎
4. Norwegian for The Haunted Heart. The record is so named partly as an ode to Lunn’s Norwegian heritage and as a testament to the Scandinavian immigration that makes up his region of Minnesota, and partly because the album title has been used several times in English. ↩︎