Review: Kamra – Unending Confluence

Style: Atmospheric Black Metal, Dissonant Black Metal (Mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Mayhem, Leviathan, Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord
Country: Slovenia
Release date: 19 September 2025

Dissonant black metal is a hard scene to stand out in. The space between the genre’s floor and ceiling is vast, and the quality (or lack thereof) of bands on each end of the spectrum is extreme, even more so than other genres. Such massive heights have already been achieved by groups like Deathspell Omega, Aosoth, Blut Aus Nord, Thantifaxath, and many others, and so much of what the genre has offered over the past decade has been derivative slop. Finding an exciting new dissoblack band has become akin to finding a diamond in a dump truck, yet still we search, because nothing quite compares to the high of that eventual discovery. 

Kamra’s 2022 debut full-length Cerebral Alchemy was one such discovery for me. Drawing inspiration from a wide breadth of genre titans, including all those mentioned above, Cerebral Alchemy was an interesting mix of dissonant-tinged tremolo riffing, lumbering death metal passages, and plenty of avant-garde weirdness in between. Put together with a memorable vocal performance and an unusually strong sense of pacing, Kamra was instantly on my radar. So, the announcement of Unending Confluence boded well for me, especially in a year that has been so inconsistent with the quality of new music. Kamra are anything but inconsistent, and here they continue down the same road as before, merging their influences more tightly together than ever, approaching even closer to novelty through familiarity.

Unending Confluence is more of a slow burn than Cerebral Alchemy was. Atmosphere has always been a primary focus of Kamra’s sound, though it’s given more attention than ever on Unending Confluence, which can leave the experience slightly unfocused. Thankfully, the performances are sharp enough to grab the listener’s ear: riffs are mainly composed of discordant tremolo assaults, breaking off into single-note intervallic structures, leading to climaxes punctuated by eerie synth stings. Low, lurching death metal shapes heave their way through each song’s structure, tilling the soil and providing a foundation from which the ghastly black metal palette blooms. Shades of major key tonality cleave through the muck, providing an unexpected lingering sense of euphoric triumph (“Weaver’s Bane”). Kamra strikes a fine balance: between the immense ringing chords and wide interval leaps lies a tangible space for the listener to nestle into, providing a perch that allows an intimate gaze at the violent physicality of each performance without overtaking the hazy ambiance. The result is a vast sonic landscape that is antagonistically familiar, leaving the listener with an uncanny feeling of subtle anxiety. 

Kamra’s above-mentioned influences have always been tightly blended together, and the reinforced focus on atmosphere blurs the lines between them even further. Such a close-knit mixture of sounds can leave Kamra sounding dangerously close to “generic dissoblack band #874”, and it’s easy for the listener’s attention to begin to wane by the last couple of songs. Thus, Unending Confluence uses an intelligent sense of pacing and dynamics, reconceptualizing them beyond their usual textural and stylistic applications and infusing them into the very structure of the songwriting itself. Searing solos and lead guitars inject a fanatical intensity, while softer sections are played on a clean guitar tone that, along with the keyboards, provides a sinister occult sensibility. The synths are used sparingly, mostly in a supportive textural role, only being brought to the forefront to further impact climactic moments and structural shifts (“Unlightment”). Doom-laden tempos allow Kamra to breathe between swelling black metal assaults, each punctuating the effectiveness of the other and providing an oscillating nexus of textures and moods for vocalist N.K. to work within.

N.K.’s vocal performance is easily the highlight of Unending Confluence for my tastes. Belonging to a long line of black metal vocalists inspired by the theatrics of Mayhem’s Attila Csihar, N.K. screams, shrieks, sings, sputters, talks, croons, moans, and much more over Unending Confluence’s forty-minute run time. The performance is dramatic and theatrical, instantly elevating any section N.K. is featured in, and is a distinguishing characteristic of Kamra’s sound that helps differentiate them from the rest of the dissonant black metal scene. 

With influences ranging from second wave black metal to Aosoth-styled dissoblack, and from the theatrics of groups like Blackdeath and Mayhem to the suffocating density of bands like Ulcerate, it’s easy to hear Kamra as a jack of all trades, master of none. Yet every influence and texture is absorbed and digested together, undergoing a tumultuous synthesization, a veritable crucible of ideas and ideologies, until they are spit back out as a melange of old and new, vulgarly melded together by Kamra’s malodorous bile. Unending Confluence is both comfortingly familiar and unnervingly strange, and Kamra have elevated their sound in such a way to conquer the mundanity of an overcrowded scene, allowing a brief reliving of the excitement of genre novelty. Unending Confluence may not be the next diamond in the dump truck, but it’s at least like finding that beloved PlayStation 2 game you forgot about while dumpster diving in the alley behind Gamestop¹. And sometimes that’s just as good.

Recommended tracks: Unlightment, Weavers’s Bane, Of Pillars, Walls and Mutilation
You may also like: Bolzer, Aosoth, Blackdeath, Ash Borer, Svartidaudi, Misþyrming
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Label: Avant-Garde Music – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Kamra is:
– D.K. (drums)
– J.B. (guitar)
– L.B. (bass)
– M.D. (guitar, keyboards)
– N.K. (vocals, lyrics, keyboards)

1. We’ve all been there… Right? ↩︎