ENTHRONED
‘Ashspawn’
Season Of Mist

Here we have another retro review for a release that came out last December and was definitely one of the best releases of 2026 with that of Belgium’s own ENTHRONED and their full-length release through SEASON OF MIST, ‘Ashspawn’. With 9 epic tracks and for nearly an hour with an album that encompasses their amazingly mammoth sound, successfully proving how well they’ve maintained their focus and infernal sound after 3 decades. ENTHRONED has survived through the fury and flames, despite the original founding members having left behind this legacy they founded. Bassist and Vocalist Lord Sabbathan departed after 2005’s ‘Xes Haereticum’, and the hardship in that with the suicide of founding member, Drummer Cernunnos after their debut record. Now, Vocalist and Guitarist Nornagest who first appeared on their second record ‘Towards The Skullthrone of Satan’ has kept his vision of what ENTHRONED is, true and in their words “transforming grief into fury”.
As their 12th album to date and 6 years since 2019’s ‘Cold Black Suns’, an excellent follow-up and showing consistency by releasing great album after great album since their debut in 1995 putting Belgium on the map with ‘Prophecies of Pagan Fire’.

The theme carried throughout ‘Ashspawn’ was in close collaboration with occult author Gilles de Lava whose work includes “The Explicit Name of Lucifer”, Black Magic Evocation of the Shem Ha Mephorash” and “Sefer Yeroch Ruachot – Being A Grimoire of Lunar Spirits Who Compromise The Explicit Name of Satan, Expounding the Mysteries of the Moon”. With cover art that gives off so many influences, all a shade of grey with a hint of red, done by Jose Gabriel Alegria Sabogal from Germany, listeners beware should you turn down the lights as you listen to the dark evocations of ‘Ashspawn’.

As with nearly every release, the intro track “Crawling Temples” sets the tone for another dark record. Recorded, mixed and mastered in between the UK and Italy, the production value is amazing here when blasting through those speakers. ‘Ashspawn’ is a hint more straight forward blitzkrieg than it is avant-garde and atmospheric like its predecessor, ‘Cold Black Suns’ (2019). The title track is a good example of this, sounding like a tank crushing the ground underneath it. As does “Raviasamin” for which they released quite a visually entrancing video for, with lots of spiritually dark imagery. One of my favorite tracks here is “Chysalis” showing off drummer Menthor’s amazing ferocity, not only on drums but as Producer as well (once again) and helps give ENTHRONED’s sound a deep and entrenching feel. Other favorites are ‘Stillborn Litany’, 1 of the longest songs on the album and ‘Sightless’ which is one of the shortest, straight-forward and pummeling at 3 and a half minutes. Their slow and atmospheric sound isn’t completely lost on ‘Ashspawn’, nearly closing out the album with “Ashen Advocacy”, the longest song on the album at nearly 8 minutes.

As difficult a task to follow their previous release that I feel is one of their best albums, All in all ‘Ashspawn’ in all its darkness continues the legacy that is ENTHRONED excellently towards the more atmospheric sound and away from that days of say the likes of ‘Carnage In Worlds Beyond’ and as BLACK METAL is, expanding on its roots demonstrating that it isn’t always about speed but also about using the space between beats, is where the darkness dwells.

4.0 Out Of 5.0