ULTHA + TAKH + ARA

“A Light So Dim” is malevolent melancholia mood music and the fifth full-length studio album by German contemporary (black) metal band ULTHA in their 12th year of playing together. Again, to be released by their long-time collaborator VENDETTA RECORDS, it marks the next step in the evolution of the band’s trademark sound, moving even further away from rather stagnant tropes of a scene still very much enamored by ‘purity’ and ‘old values’.
After finishing their trilogy of albums (Converging Sins, 2016; The Inextricable Wandering, 2018; All That Has Never Been True, 2022), focusing on the journey that is the downfall of a soul, the band took four years to craft this next chapter in their artistic journey. Musically the goal for this new album was to write the most cinematic and adventurous in the band’s catalogue. By stepping away even further from classical black metal elements, whilst deeper exploring the other sonic realms the band always had drawn influence from, they redefined what black metal can be for them: a living and breathing ecosystem of feeling, spirit and absolute creative freedom. There was barely any (traditional black) metal music that influenced the writing of this album. Instead, the band’s love for movie soundtracks, trip hop, post punk, dark “pop” or country, as well as proggy and weirdo outsider music, sparked what ended up becoming their most ambitious work to date.