Monograf – Occultation
Release Date: 14th November 2025
Label: Overhead Productions
Bandcamp
Genre: Post-Metal, Scandinavian Folk.
FFO: Saor, In The Woods, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Windir.
Review By: Magnus Rotås
Just calling Norwegian music collective Monograf a post-metal band would not do them justice. With a wide variety of musical roots in Scandinavian folk music, film scoring and even black metal – the band is now releasing their second studio album Occultation. Attempting to blend metal music with traditional folk music is nothing new, but not since I heard the albums of Windir have I felt a band has managed to blend the two sides of music more seamlessly than on Occultation! The album manages to blend in folk elements without it ever feeling cliché. It’s not just decoration or juxtaposition, but rather seamlessly woven into the very fabric of the riffs and the music itself, in a rare breadth of vision that straddles heaviness, melancholy, and cinematic drama.
The sound of this album is so rich with layers and textures, and it provokes so many different feelings when you listen to it. It feels very unsettling, like if you were transported into a deep dark forest in medieval Norway and witnessed an occult ritual where you were shown a vision of the darkness of our modern times.
The album opener The Prophet made me fall in love with this album immediately. It’s so incredibly dynamic, with pounding drums, cutting metal riffs and melodic folk lines that carry so much emotional weight to them. It’s so clear how the band has always made sure that each element of the music works together to achieve one cohesive sound. Every instrument gets room to breathe and shine, yet never steals the show.
Cripplegate is a song that maybe isn’t as unpredictable as The Prophet, but instead feels like a song that is constantly building, before it explodes with full intensity near the end. The relatively short Ashes is a nice breather, before Carrion Seller turns the intensity back up again.
But it is the title track Occultation that really seals the deal for me. What a masterful track! Epic in length, at over 12 minutes, and very expansive in scope. I don’t know how they managed to make this track as catchy as it is, but the main riff is so infectious. And man, the vocals on here are from a different world, they add so much intensity to the music. It’s astonishing to me how every layer of distortion, melody, and despair echoes with such stark clarity and gravity. This is music that could easily have felt like it was way too much happening at once if the mixing and mastering wasn’t as exquisite as it is.
If I were to come with one critique it’s that the middle of the album from Cripplegate to Carrion Seller, while really great songs are sandwiched between two masterpieces in songwriting, so when they are a bit more simplistic in nature they pale a bit in comparison. But my critique is undoubtedly quite unreasonable, since on any other album these songs could have been my favorite.
While I was aware of Monograf and really liked their debut, Occultation has really opened my eyes to how unique and interesting this band really is – and made me a big fan. Monograf has forged a sound that is unmistakably their own, and I know I will be coming back to this album a lot, as no other album this year has managed to scratch that folk-metal itch quite like Monograf.
(4.5 / 5)
