Review: The Black Monolith - Pleroma

Artist: The Black Monolith

Album: Pleroma

Label: Self-released

Release date: December 2025

I have had the pleasure of reviewing The Black Monolith's work twice already over the previous 18 months, and before I knew it, we were treated with yet another full-length release by this prolific Greek artist. Well, take the full-length part with a pinch of salt, considering that more than half of this album is composed of standalone tracks released on various compilations and other releases over the past two years, now remastered and joined by four brand new tracks to turn it into a bona-fide full-length in its own right. Many an artist has done that in the past, and I have to admit that these releases, while usually fine, rarely live up to the expectations of a proper album.

Luckily for us, that's not the case at all with Pleroma. In fact, had we not been told by the artist himself that this is a compilation of sorts, I never would have guessed it in the first place. That's probably the best part about this release in general: The Black Monolith's artistic vision of ritual dark ambient has become coherent enough both idea- and production-wise that the tracks blend in perfectly one with the other and present a monolithic (if you'll excuse the pun) vision despite having been recorded at various times and with various approaches. Speaking of approaches, the one thing that immediately stood out to me from the very first listen was how much The Black Monolith's sound has matured over a short period of time; the project still espouses the full sonic spectrum heard on the previous couple of releases, ranging from deep bass drones to harsh noise sections, but these elements are used much more intentionally, becoming more than the sum of their parts and weaving a genuine sonic tapestry, one that is less in-your-face scream from the abyss and more an existential sense of dread lurking from the shadows. The dynamics that worked so well on previous albums are still there, but built into the tracks themselves rather than playing them off against each other. This is The Black Monolith at its most distant and reserved, but in a way that makes it look bigger and more ominous rather than the opposite. Don't get me wrong, there are still pure black gems of concentrated darkness such as Where Thrones Burn Black, but the artist has finally dared to fully embrace and explore more abstract forms of darkness strongly inspired by other genres, as evident on the beautifully entitled The Tide Will Keep You. In fact, if there's any criticism I can level at Pleroma, it's the relative absence of Greek titles compared to former releases, which were always delectably mysterious to unravel.

I had closed my first review of The Black Monolith's work by saying that the project is full of promise, but that his aural expression needed more chiseling to reach its full potential. That promise has finally been fulfilled here, somewhat ironically for an album that started off as a compilation of standalone tracks. Ironic or not, planned or not, Pleroma might very well be the most rounded out release among all of the project's output so far, and it moves The Black Monolith from merely good to great tier.

Rating: 9/10