Style: Genres Melodic black metal, black metal, post-black metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Wolves in the Throne Room, Abigail Williams, Mgła, Emperor
Country: United States
Release date: 1 January 2026

---

Throughout my reviewing career, I have often thought about telling underwhelming solo black metal artists that they should probably make a friend. I may have put that line in a review or two—truthfully, I can’t recall¹—but I’ve largely stopped myself out of my wealth of kindness; after all, they’re already friendless, and you shouldn’t kick a person while they’re down. Woe began as a solo project of Chris Grigg, but he immediately prevented any possible future bullying by me when he made Woe a bona fide band in 2010 (most of the group is the same lineup as NYC death metal’s Glorious Depravity). Yet like most of the world during Covid, Grigg was left alone again, and he composed Legacies of Frailty, to be released in 2023. It’s a good melodic black metal album, don’t get me wrong, but it lacks a bit of oomph of prior full-band Woe albums like Hope Attrition. Had I reviewed Legacies of Frailty upon release, I certainly wouldn’t have bothered roasting Grigg given the circumstances and that it is, in fact, an enjoyable listen from a competent musician. But the album was a step backward for the USA black metal “group.”

In late 2025, Grigg and the rest of Woe decided to revamp the band’s Covid record, in a triumphant return as a group, and Legacies of Human Frailty arrived on New Year’s Day. Unfortunately for the other one-man black metal bands out there, Legacies of Human Frailty is solid evidence that having friends makes for better black metal—a clear improvement over the OG version of the album. Setting the new iteration of this album drastically apart from Grigg’s own is that Legacies of Human Frailty was performed live-in-studio with vocals dubbed in a single take. Now, the album exudes a primordial energy that a one-man act in the studio—no matter how competently performed and produced—cannot: energetic, chaotic, imperfect, and natural.

Woe’s music floats suspended in time. The riffs follow a strange harmonic language à la Yellow Eyes, but Woe are more content to sit with their deceivingly complicated riffs for several contemplative minutes at a time. While the guitars contort atmoblack, the brunt of the brooding tension is built from Grigg’s foreboding, Emperor-esque synthesizers. This slow buildup style is deceiving; moment-to-moment, the continuous stream of blast beats and fiery riffs only develops from the pitter-pattering cymbal work of Michael Kadnar in a Mgła-ish way, but over the course of minutes, the riffs have mutated to be more intense. “Fresh Chaos Greets the Dawn” is exemplary in this regard: the guitars are instantly active, yet it takes nearly eight minutes of small rhythmic variations and delicate synth playing to reach the track’s blazing climax. Other tracks operate in a haze of dreaminess in spite of the fairly violent instrumentation. The succulent lead guitar tone in “Shores of Extinction” and the sparkly riffs of “The Justice of Gnashing Teeth” both help the songs glide forward. Above the instrumentation, Grigg’s biting vocals are a standout performance, providing texture to the slow-progressing tracks. 

However, the inherently repetitive nature of Woe’s songwriting style hurts the band on occasion. In “The Justice of Gnashing Teeth,” for instance, a riff from near the midpoint redundantly comes back at the end, detracting from the song’s climax in which the synths open a gateway to the heavens. Several tracks lose their pointed focus at times, as if the band fell into a trance playing (damn good) riffs over and over. There’s a tension to the repetition, certainly, and Legacies of Human Frailty’s biggest highlights are born from it, but Woe too strongly flirt with the fine line every post- adjacent band walks when they opt for a hypnotic, slowly-morphing songwriting paradigm. Dwelling in the icy riffs isn’t an issue, per se, but the record would benefit from being a little tighter.

It’s a good thing Grigg kept his friends through Covid because they helped him realize that Legacies of Frailty had a standout black metal album within it. Of course, Grigg’s synthplaying and riff-writing—and especially his not-priorly-mentioned killer vocal performance—make the full band version what it is, but the added intensity and dynamics of recording together with other humans help the record stand out from hordes of other meloblack solo artists. The moral of the story: black metal artists should make friends.

---

Recommended tracks: Fresh Chaos Greets the Dawn, Shores of Extinction, Far Beyond the Fracture of the Sky
You may also like: Yellow Eyes, Wiegedood, Mare Cognitum, Amalekim
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: independent

Woe is:
– Chris Grigg – guitar, vocals, synth programming
– John McKinney – bass
– Matt Mewton – guitar
– Michael “Megaton” Kadnar – drums

1. My colleague Dave did some digging and found that I have done it here. ↩︎