Style: Death metal, melodic death metal, metalcore, progressive metal (mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Coroner, At the Gates, Warbringer
Country: United States
Release date: 6 February 2026

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Salem, Utah shares more than just a name with the location of the infamous seventeenth century witch trials; it also harbors its own brand of strange, fundamentalist religious traditions. The town’s connections to Mormon doctrinaires range from the odd but relatively innocuous Dream Mine—an unproductive site that a handful of faithful believe will bear some form of financial fruit shortly before the apocalypse—to the birthplace of the School of the Prophets. It was there that the Lafferty brothers, whose murderous crimes were chronicled by Jon Krakauer (and later Hulu) in Under the Banner of Heaven, began their fundamentalist radicalization. Salem, apparently, is also home to another brand of fundamentalism in a band that is deeply committed to metal’s established forms.

Reflections of the End, the sophomore effort¹ from Utah multi-metalers Among Wolves, take the listener on a tour through a bevy of metal sub-genres. Despite its title, the record has little if anything to do with latter days as many a Utahn would refer to them. Instead, these tracks delve into a broader landscape of heavy music, mining metalcore, djent, melodic death metal, and thrash (among others) from a death metal core. But unlike Salem’s infamous mine, this one yields results. The shifts and detours through various styles aren’t arbitrary, either. Rather than presenting neatly compartmentalized genre exercises—”here’s the melodeath song” or “this one’s the djent track”—Among Wolves cycle through these influences within individual songs: a metalcore chorus here, a thrash bridge there. And in nearly every case, each passage is a clinic in its stylistic origin given by some adept and dexterous musicians.

Take “Upon the Altar,” which lights a death metal bomb, detonating into a tremolo-picked, blastbeat-laden intro before pivoting slightly into a black metal verse—guitars shifting up several intervals and moving the guttural vocals to serrated snarls. Just as quickly, the track veers again, dissolving into a quasi-psychedelic bridge where guest vocalist Sarita Idalia introduces a surprisingly luminous calm. From there, it surges toward a triumphant outro, with rasped vocals riding atop melodious blackgaze shimmer until the whole thing gradually recedes into silence. The song demonstrates a compositional agility that many bands would fumble; Among Wolves make it seem effortless.

Reflections of the End’s genre-shifting restlessness is both its strength and its caveat. “Jötun” embodies the album’s stylistic ADHD. A thrashing intro burns through to a metalcore-adjacent chorus, its clean vocals reminiscent of the genre’s penchant for raised fists and festival anthems. A gleaming, shredtastic solo slices through the center of the track, only to give way to a weighty djent breakdown and bridge that hop skips to the song’s outro. “Kingdom Against Kingdom,” meanwhile, takes a flight to Gothenburg at its outset, but borrows some modern progressive metal flavor in its syncopated bridges and varied vocal styles. And so it goes across Reflections of the End. The album displays an impressive range, but sometimes that range feels like the point, underscoring how often the album’s identity comes second to its versatility.

Despite catchier moments and technical wizardry, Reflections of the End’s constant stylistic motion ultimately overshadows any singular throughline. When the best genre blenders do their thing, the result is often a synthesis—styles colliding and fusing into something newly alloyed. Here, the influences tend to sit beside one another rather than fully merge. The transitions are smooth and impressively executed, but come off as adjacency more than integration: that thrash moment here, that metalcore moment there, each convincing in isolation. The effect is less a lithe meld and more a carefully assembled patchwork, where the seams are skillfully stitched but still visible. The record has no shortage of hooks, riffs, or technical command, yet it rarely settles into a voice that is wholly its own. As a result, I found myself consistently engaged and headbanging while spinning it for this review, but seldom compelled to return once it stopped.

If Salem’s history is rooted in devotion to fundamentalist doctrine, Among Wolves display a similar reverence for metal’s traditions. There is value in that fidelity. Reflections of the End is polished, confident, and executed with undeniable skill—a well-crafted journey through modern metal’s terrain. The album may not be the singular revelation that some are mining for, but in a town known for unproductive digging, Among Wolves have struck a vein of polished gold.

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Recommended tracks: Upon the Altar, Artificial Human, Kingdom Against Kingdom, The Hand of War
You may also like: Thos Ælla, Cryptosis, Paranorm
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Website | Instagram

Label: Independent

Among Wolves is:
– Kaden Hunsaker (guitar, vocals)
– Alec Lowe (drums)
– Connor Martin (bass)
– Conner Thomas (guitar)
With guests:
– Sarita Idalia (vocals)

1. Their debut Ephemeral treads that line between EP and full-length depending on your definition. ↩︎