For the Innermost

Artist: Sublimatio Mortis Album: Ghur Label: Cyclic Law / Dark Odyssey / Scarlet Kross Release date: October 2025 This sublime Canadian project (if you'll excuse the pun) should be a household name to all readers of this website by now, not least because of the fact that over the past year or so I have already reviewed both their stellar sophomore album and the follow-up EP , both of which positioned Sublimatio Mortis as one of the essential names to keep an eye out for in

Artist: Kaarlo Herden & IT904 Album: Travelogue Label: Self-released Release date: January 2026 2025 was a very fruitful year in terms of collaborations, so I was more than happy to stumble upon a curious new one (or rather, it stumbled upon me) at the very start of 2026. Kaarlo Herden & IT904 are pseudonyms of two Italian musicians with a background in various musical genres, although this is their first bona-fide dark ambient release. I admit that I was unaware of any of t

Artist: The Grey Lake Album: The Grey Lake Label: Winter-Light Release date: November 2025 In a year already packed with excellent collaborations, Winter-Light thought it worthwhile to add another one to the mix: a new, intercontinental project between Ben Powell from Llyn Y Cwn and Christopher Olson of Standard Grey fame under the simple, yet evocative moniker The Grey Lake. In the glut of dark ambient releases enabled by the ubiquitousness of broadband internet and digita

Artist: New Risen Throne Album: The Journey to Reach the Fathers Label: Cyclic Law Release date: December 2025 Whatever your favourite flavour of this genre, there's no denying that New Risen Throne releasing a new album ought to be one of the most important dark ambient events of the year in anyone's calendar. This relatively reclusive Italian artist, part of the Cyclic Law pantheon from the mid-2000s, is definitely not the most prolific out there, releasing merely four bona

Artist: Wolfskin Album: Ring of Spheres Label: Cyclic Law Release date: December 2025 For all the nicheness of dark ambient as a genre, I still to this day come across artists having been creating music for decades who I was blissfully unaware of (to my discredit). Such is the case with the Portuguese musician Johan Aernus, who has been releasing ritual ambient works under the name Wolfskin for no less than three decades now. It took Cyclic Law releasing his latest album Ring