Style: Black metal, atmoblack (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Wolves in the Throne Room, Agalloch
Country: Italy¹
Release date: 22 May 2026

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My parents have kept the same bottle of moderately expensive scotch in their cupboard for over a decade.² Whenever my sibling and I visit at the same time, somebody inevitably dares a newcomer, whether a friend or partner or other visitor, to smell the scotch. Most recoil immediately, but for those who cross the olfactory frontier, an even more daunting challenge ensues: taking a sip of the scotch. Even the faint whiffs drifting from the uncorked bottle are enough to make me retch. But every so often, some devoted whisky enthusiast emerges from the cast of my extended family and friends, some sicko who actually enjoys the scotch. These individuals have cultivated a taste for something that any normal person would be repulsed by, with repeated exposure leading them to insist that there’s a world of subtle flavours that the rest of us simply haven’t trained ourselves to appreciate.

Black metal works much the same way. In my early days as a metalhead, even harsh vocals alone were a tough sell, not to mention the low-fi production, hostile soundscapes, and ambling song structures that define the genre. It took years before I came to appreciate black metal, but now I sincerely believe everyone else is missing out.

Downfall of Nur, a one-man black metal project by Antonia Sanna, exemplifies many of the attributes that would have turned my former self off. And the Firmament Will Burn to Quench the Pain of This Earth,³ the first album from the project in over ten years, demands patience. Three of its seven tracks are over fourteen minutes long. The vocals principally consist of chilly screams that blur around the edges as if they’re reverberating from far away. Frigid guitars squat in inimical, defensive intervals, often accompanied by eruptions of claustrophobic blast beats like those that tear through “Beyond the Transcendent Darkness.” However, these hostile passages are perhaps outnumbered by lengthy expanses of uneasy atmosphere, where jagged textures and spectral melodies drift by formlessly. Firmament unfolds entirely on its own terms, seemingly indifferent to whether the listener finds their footing.

While some atmospheric black metal is like slow waves crashing against an inhospitable shore, Downfall of Nur rolls even slower, like the tide itself. Melodies and motifs emerge with such inevitability that they feel almost predetermined—take the guitar five minutes into “Beyond the Transcendent Darkness”, which bows downward like a supplicant in prayer. Once it arrives, it feels as though the melody never could have done anything else. This sense of sureness permeates the album, mirroring the thematic preoccupations with ancient cycles of memory, violence, and return.⁴

Occasional vocal variety is sprinkled into Firmament. “Underground Halls of the Oldest Goddess Stronghold” features spoken word that reminds me of Slice the Cake in its desperate intensity, albeit so distant in the mix that it feels less narrated than overheard. And in the album’s interstitials, an elderly woman’s voice emerges like an apparition, reinforcing Firmament’s fixation on the Mother Goddess archetype. These voices do not guide the listener through a story; rather, they haunt the album’s vast spaces, lending it a timeless gravitas.

The unhurried stateliness that defines Firmament is also one of its key issues. Even in a genre that often takes its time, there is simply no need for the album to be seventy-nine minutes long. By the time the twenty-minute fully atmospheric closing track arrives, the album has already communicated most of its ideas. This abundance of atmosphere gradually dulls the impact of the more powerful passages that came before, causing moments that should feel revelatory to be forgotten in the surrounding haze.  Patience is rewarded here, but the rewards arrive less frequently than the runtime might lead you to hope.

Firmament is not a record that sets out to seduce the listener. It does not crawl under the skin, chase hooks, or concern itself with accessibility. Instead, it simply exists, vast, stoic, and gracefully self-assured. Like that bottle of scotch in my parents’ cupboard, you can take it or leave it, and whether or not your experience justifies the taking will depend on your tolerance for black metal’s more austere offerings. For those whose palates are already sufficiently refined, Firmament just might quench your thirst.

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Recommended tracks: Beyond the Transcendent Darkness, And the Firmament Will Burn to Quench the Pain of This Earth
You may also like: Saor, Panopticon, Selvans
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Avantgarde Music

Downfall of Nur is:
– Antonio Sanna (everything)

1. While Metal Archives, my colleague Andy, and a friend from high school with whom I discussed Downfall of Nur at a local show the other night all claim the artist is from Argentina, the Bandcamp page indicates that he prefers to identify as Italian. ↩︎
2. Laphroaig Lore Islay Single Malt, for those who were wondering. ↩︎
3. Rest assured that I will not be writing this out in full every time, especially because you can’t quench pain. ↩︎
4. No lyrics are available on the Bandcamp page, but there is a lengthy description of the album’s narrative. ↩︎