I’ve been waiting for this Lamp of Murmuur album the way a cursed romantic waits for a letter that will never arrive. Not patiently—no one in metal is patient—but with the neurotic anticipation of someone who’s certain the universe is withholding something from them personally. It started back in September, when they played San Diego with Black Braid and Dödsrit. I left that show thinking the same thought I always think after seeing genuinely committed black-metal bands: Right. This is the branch of metal that actually seduces you. Not “seduces” in the heavy-breathing, latex-fetish sense, but seduces like a myth does—pulling you toward a feeling that isn’t real and yet feels more real than whatever you had before.

The Lamp of Murmuur origin myth is already calcifying into something canonical. It’s 2019, Los Angeles, and a figure known only as “M” emerges from the psychic smog of the city—an urban phantom who somehow threads the needle between raw lo-fi grime and a strangely operatic melancholy. This is a dichotomy black-metal claims to excel at, but usually doesn’t. Yet Lamp did it from the jump. Those early releases—Heir of Ecliptical Romanticism especially—felt like someone figured out how to turn tremolo riffs into Victorian silhouettes. Not “gothic“ in the Hot Topic sense, but gothic in the sense of “someone is definitely dying young in a ruined castle.”

What fascinates me is how rare this particular alchemy is. Most black-metal bands act like you must choose between frostbitten orthodoxy and emotional flourish. But Lamp seems to say: “Why not frostbite and velvet? Why not winter moons and melodrama?“ It feels less like a contradiction and more like a mental condition they’re daring you to develop.

Saturnian Bloodstorm dropped in 2023; the project had already shapeshifted from cult whisper to something you could talk openly about with your grandparents. Tracks like “Hymns of Death, Rays of Might“ and “Conqueror Beyond the Frenzied Fog“ made me feel like I needed to buy a sword—not to use, but to understand. I memorized riffs, pre-chorus transitions, imagined setlists, and did all the obsessive fan behavior you’re theoretically not supposed to admit to once you’re older than 25. I started believing that Lamp wasn’t just another cool one-man project to brag about knowing before everyone else. It felt like one of the rare ones built to leave the basement and enter the conversation.

Then August and September 2025 rolled in like a pressure front, with rumors about a new record: The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy, November 14, coming off Wolves of Hades. The single “Forest of Hallucinations“ landed like a nine-minute séance—cavernous riffs, lyrical ferocity, melodies that felt stolen from a dream you didn’t want to wake up from. And then two days ago, Black Metal Productions dropped the full album with absolutely no ceremony, which somehow made the experience feel more ceremonial.

Now I’m in the phase of fandom where devotion has become a kind of self-inflicted emotional sport. I’m ranking tracks. I’m sketching mental diagrams of how the themes connect. I’m hunting down the vinyl because I’ve convinced myself it will sound different in a metaphysical way, even though I know it won’t.

Top three tracks, the ones that make this my number-one, hold-it-in-your-hands record:

01) “Reincarnation of a Witch“ – the most spellbinding Lamp track since “Conqueror…”
02) “Angel Vortex“ – a spiral staircase in sound form.
03) “A Brute Angel’s Sorrow“ – the closest thing black-metal gets to tragic theater.

You can order their new album (on vinyl!!) here.

Jordeana Bell

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