Night Hag from Virginia, USA, release «Great Dismal Darkness» on October 16, 2026, their second full-length album, through Rotted Life. It is their first release as a four-piece band.
“`Country: USA
Style: Death / Doom Metal
For fans of: Autopsy, Coffins, Cryptic Brood
The band formed in 2010 around drummer and vocalist Jon Ransom, who slowly built a sound inspired by old death/doom through several line-up changes. A stable core took shape around 2017 and, after the EP «Insemination Rites of the Succubus» and the splits with Cryptic Brood and Burial, their first album «Phantasmal Scourge» in 2022 showed a dirtier, more primitive version of them.
«Great Dismal Darkness» follows the same line and drags it deeper. The seven compositions move at slow, heavy speeds, with crushing riffs, vocals from the depths and a production that sounds like a damp basement. It is their dirtiest and most suffocating record to date.
The opening «Drowned in Death» sets the tone: a chaos of riffs and a scream at the edges of death metal, with dramatic doom passages towards the end. «Effluvia Tendrils» follows and raises the intensity, and in the middle of the album «It Came Back the Next Night» and «Staring Into the Ancient Chasm» are the points where the doom element takes over completely.
«Strange Whispers from Beneath the Cypress» is the densest of them, while the closing «The Terrible Old Woman» shows the range of the vocals, from deep growls to hoarse murmurs. The four-piece line-up, with a second guitarist, brought more weight and more detail to the sound.
Our take
«Great Dismal Darkness» is not a bold turn, but it is a record that stands: slower, dirtier and denser than its predecessor, with the two middle tracks carrying its best moment. It will not win over anyone looking for speed or a clean production, but for the death/doom crowd it is one of the strongest releases of the year.
See also
See also: HEKATOXEN – Obsidian Majesty and Witchthroat Serpent – Demons Left to Roam.
