ALBUM REVIEW: Ashen – Humanity’s Last Breath

As far as ‘soundtracks to the apocalypse’ go, we metalheads have quite the selection to choose from in the end times. Be it environmental, nuclear war, or whatever ELECTRIC CALLBOY are screaming about, we’ve amassed a comprehensive playlist for whichever soapbox-mounted maniac turns out to be right. One band, however, makes these rapturous records their prime directive. Despite hitting their breakout stride with 2021’s Välde, HUMANITY’S LAST BREATH (HLB) have been foretelling of our untimely destruction since 2014 to the ovation of thousands of loyal doomsayers. They now stand as trusted and admired wielders of thall, the most cavernous and colossal sounds imaginable, and in 2023 that sound’s limits are tested once again in Ashen.

It would be hard to envy HLB when trying to follow the likes of Välde. The album’s heft rippled through the metal hive, widely considered to be a point of perfect form for the band and a new standard for the genre. Despite such an immovable weight on their shoulders to perform, HLB prove that their passions are equal to the task. Ashen is a product of restless creation, ambition and great momentum. What Välde refined – the songwriting, the riff work, and the monstrous production – has been dialled in deeper and blown into orbit; chaos has become anarchy and anguish has become despair. This is old ground given new life and, for all Ashen’s greatness, it’s clear that even this mighty rapture isn’t the tether’s end of the band’s true wrath. 

The Swedes soundtrack a familiar ‘the end is nigh’ doomsday across Ashen’s 12 songs but make great use of some extra sprinkles of nuance thrown atop this cosmically-sized cake. No one will be shocked to hear riffs of Mariana Trench depth, buttressed with the drills and cracks of Buster Odeholm’s skins, and the almighty two-faced assault from the band’s voice, Filip Danielsson; four albums in and the formula still churns out sounds of pure sinister. Ashen’s creative liberties are minor but welcome additions to the fray. We find less traditional HLB breakdowns like the thumping march of Labyrinthian, a general toning down of repeated electronic elements as found on 2019’s Abyssal, and even a nod to something melodic in Linger’s throat-tearing chorus. 

These explorations never feel like a case of trial and error either. For all the unreasoned chaos of HLB’s soundscapes, the evolution of their songcraft has been one of the few things that has rhyme or reason. Välde was a perfect summation of what the band was but, with Ashen’s hindsight, was not one to take risks. Case and point, Instill. HLB songs are always blisteringly cold, ominous, and barren, but few songs could stand to the presence of Instill. Opening with the shrills of the damned, the track’s cacophony suddenly gives way to the perturbing chants that grant the song its signature. The arena opens further, as cries turn to disdainful bellows and wailing guitar leads return to reintroduce the track’s frostbitten backdrop. As a listener, it’s graceful torment. Frightful in its scale, beautiful in its disfigurement; perfectly misaligned. 

The standout moments go far beyond this. Opener Blood Spilled is an excellent welcoming handshake, even if its vice grip is enough to crack bone; Withering joins Linger in its triumphant hook; and Passage’s fine balance of light and dark make it one of the album’s most diverse offerings. By a long way, Ashen serves the most complete state of HLB possible. That fact alone is quite a relief. Homogeneity is a real worry for the world of thall, as the community generally grows weary of formulaic breakdowns and reliance on gimmickry – HLB’s commitment to progression is a bit of a lifeline.

Is this judgement day’s perfect soundtrack? It’s so close it almost may as well be. One of HLB’s most defining facets is their production. The feeling of filling an impossibly large canyon with the most catastrophic of echoes. It’s a sound that, historically, has been impressively pristine with every sour note legible amongst the warzone in which it’s played. Like hearing a pin drop as a volcano bubbles to eruption. Parts of Ashen, however, are smothered in untold layers of distortion. It never detracts from the songs but it doesn’t particularly move things forward, and neither is it used across the entire LP begging the question for its use at all. A bomb going off is going to be loud, regardless of whether it’s played through a pedalboard. 

The finished article, in all its prodigious glory and unfathomable size, is one to behold. Mankind has shared dire fables of humanity’s looming end for as long as we have set foot on this planet, but never has it sounded more real. Never have we been able to hear death and listen to him orchestrate our final moments of agony, not quite like this. Ashen puts our ears to the floor to listen to the hellfire below, and it sounds magnificent.  

Rating: 9/10

Ashen is set for release on August 4th via Unique Leader Records.

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