"One of the best metal albums of 2025 so far - extreme or otherwise." Blackbraid's mash-up of black metal brilliance and Native American spirit gets even better on album three

If you've paid much attention to the US extreme metal scene over the past couple of years, chances are you've heard of Blackbraid.

The brainchild of New York inhabitant Jon Krieger, making music under the pseudonym of Sgah’gahsowáh, the one-man project bewitched the metal underground with its debut offering in 2022, Krieger's enthralling mash-up of second wave Norwegian black metal, Swedish melodeath and traditional Native American folk receiving rave reviews across the board.

A similarly lauded second album followed in 2023, firmly establishing Blackbraid as one of the most exciting faces in modern black metal, the hype training rolling straight into the project's beefed-up live shows. This writer witnessed Krieger and his amassed lieutenants blow away a packed-out Electric Ballroom early in the afternoon at this year's Incineration Festival for their debut London show.

Now comes album three and it seems Blackbraid have struck black gold once again, because this isn't just another knockout LP; it's the best thing Krieger has put his name to, and one of the best metal albums of 2025 so far - extreme or otherwise.

Blackbraid III isn't about changing the formula but building upon it. After Dusk (Eulogy)'s folky acoustic intro, we're slapped with the thunderous Wardrums At Dawn On The Day Of My Death - surely the most metal song title of 2025?

Shimmering walls of tremolo, battering drums and Krieger's rattling, scorched-earth screams give way to swaying, half-time riffage - less a respite and more a snarled intake of breath before another round of black metal thunder. It climaxes with a cyclone of riffs, blastbeats and a brief but fretboard-singeing guitar solo. Lovely stuff.

The Dying Breath Of A Sacred Stag paddles in similar waters, though with a slower, more restrained stomp lurching into another blast of ice-cold black metal, before earthy, acoustic instrumental The Earth Is Weeping brings a moment of pause, soundtracked with rainfall, wolf howls and bird calls.

It's richly atmospheric, centring Blackbraid not in the frostbitten tundras of Northern Europe, but the peak-riddled expanses of the Adirondack Mountains that he calls home.

The meditative pause is splintered by the vile, gargled scream that kicks off God Of Black Blood, the album's slowest, most methodical and most evil-sounding banger, before Traversing The Forest Of Eternal Dusk brings us back into acoustic realms with chirping crickets and bursts of squealing electric guitar.

This is all the kind of see-sawing dynamic that Krieger has made his own: the frantically heavy, the nefariously epic colliding with the wistful, the spiritual, lyrics dabbling in the Native American experience setting him aside from many of his US and European contemporaries.

When Blackbraid really puts the pedal down, however, this album is, at its core, simply a kickass, no-prisoners, blood-and-hellfire heavy fucking metal album.

Tears Of The Dawn and And He Became The Burning Stars... might both be nine-plus minute epics, but there isn't a second wasted - you'll almost certainly find yourself wanting to leap onto a horse and go charging into your nearest battle after a blast of each, axe waving away.

By the time a gung ho cover of Lord Belial's Fleshbound takes us home, it's clear Blackbraid has once again backed up the hype. This is a special artist making a special kind of racket.

Blackbraid III is out now