One of the best parts and, also, one of the worst parts about this job is the Bandcamp trawl. Where I go to the place where seemingly every fucking band in existence has uploaded something, type in Black Metal, and then spend at least an hour a day going through every release I can find, hoping something will catch my attention for more than 30 seconds.

Normally, I spend more time jumping from band to band like a demented frog on speed, crossing a lot of annoying weak lily pads, but every so often, something catches my attention and holds me hostage.

Tragedy of Awakening by Gathering is one of those light bulb moments.

This EP is fucking brutal. But in a good way. Kind of like getting your ass seriously handed to you by Jackie Chan. Yes, you just got your ass kicked, but who cares? It was Jackie Fucking Chan doing the whupping.

What makes this record stand out from the endless ocean of bedroom solo projects and garage bands isn’t just raw aggression, it’s the fact that Gathering actually give their ideas space to breathe. Aside from a single track that barrels past in under four minutes, the rest of these songs comfortably stretch across the five- and six-minute marks. And they need every second of it.

This is proper black metal, make no mistake, but it’s black metal that isn’t terrified of melody or nuance. Rather than relying on non-stop, one-dimensional blast beats until your brain goes numb, Gathering weave slower, deeply atmospheric passages into the chaos. The tempo shifts give the record a fucking huge sense of scale; just when you think you’ve got a handle on the velocity, everything slows into a cold, crushing crawl that feels twice as heavy as the fast bits.

The melodic work here doesn’t sound soft or sanitised, either. It’s dark, melancholic, and used like a weapon to build real tension before pulling the trigger again. The guitars slice through with a razor-sharp edge, the drum performance carries a genuine, unhinged weight, and the vocals sound like someone losing their mind in real time.

Because Gathering let these longer tracks breathe instead of cramming them full of ideas every thirty seconds, they’ve crafted an EP that feels massive, unpredictable and genuinely hostile. It’s mean, intricate, and completely worth wading through a hundred weak releases to discover.

If you’ve got any sense, go give them your money.