Rivers Ablaze - Inexternal Dread

Rivers Ablaze – Inexternal Dread
Release Date: 27th March 2026
Label: Inertial Music
Bandcamp
Genre: Blackened Death Metal, Progressive Metal.
FFO: Black Blood of the Earth, Dzhatinga, Spectral Darkwave, Necrosimian.
Review By: Mark Young

Rivers Ablaze, having formed in 2019, have been, on paper at least, the definition of busy. Inexternal Dread is their 5^th album since their year of inception, and in their words, it sees them ‘embracing a progressive approach’ here, in an attempt to keep things fresh and evolve as a band. The genres that it lands in are varied, from black to death to post, sometimes in the same track. This kind of lane jumping can jar you whilst listening, but still, at least they are not content to stay and serve up the same music as before. This is not surprising in the least, especially when you look to the line-up and the associated bands with all of those different influences coming together.

Silent Orbit starts strongly, the blackened metal cutting in like a razor. It’s what you expect from them, and I guess from this music in general, but they pull the rug at a minute 40 or so by changing the dynamic. The black metal vocals go, and we are hit with cleans, delivered coldly. The rest stays the same, double bass/black metal riffola until it’s changed again. I’m not sure how I feel about it because it didn’t add to the song, one that was motoring along perfectly as it was. Reviews are all about opinions, and of course we aren’t always correct, but this didn’t sit right. Don’t let this put you off; keep going and let the madness of Enemy Within wash over you. It nails that black/death vocal switch with aplomb whilst bringing the necessary brutality. The progressive elements are there, used without diluting the power of the song.

Standing above these is A Mass Grave of Trauma, which goes down that black/progressive tunnel like a rat. Over the course of 9 minutes, they show how they mix those differing styles into a cohesive form. Intelligently constructed, it is everything that we love about metal in one spot. The opening pair are not bad songs; let me make that clear. It’s just that A Mass Grave is a colossus of a track and is followed by the fleet-fingered madness of Lunar Perception. Diving back into blackened motifs, this is a fireball that burns brightly and allows for a little ‘widdling’ of lead breaks, which is always welcome.

Born From Flame treads once more into that extended runtime, taking black metal constructs and burning through them. It’s slightly overlong in this instance, as I’m holding it up against A Mass Grave for how songs of this length should hit. It’s not a drop-off by any means; they could have been ruthless and trimmed 2 or 3 minutes from it without negatively impacting it. Carrion Throne pulls back on the length but again suffers as Born does. In an effort to get those progressive/non-death elements into this, it stops the track dead. It’s disappointing when you take in the final minute or so of this song, it plays out like its life depends on it. Entering the final two songs, Mirror Trap unleashes a technical attack that is frenzied and almost unhinged in its opening moments. Dropping back into traditional territory, that counterpoint works so that when they bring the tech back, it’s perfect. As a setup to the final act, it is a cracker. There are a couple of ways this can go, and Death On Impact chooses violence. And rightly so. After a drawn-out start that meanders, it changes gear and speed. Of course, if we have learnt anything about them over the course of this album, they just can’t stay in one spot, no matter how good that sounded. And so they go clean, reminiscent of Page Hamilton, and slow things down. It’s maddening because from a fan perspective, they had a cracker here and decided to kill its momentum dead. You also know how they are going to close this out by kickstarting its corpse and getting the blasts going. It’s fine to do so, but it feels like we don’t get the final song we should have done.

None of this should put you off from seeking this out. There is enough here to warrant your interest, and you might love those moments that frustrated the hell out of me. There is no ‘bad’ on here at all; I hope that has come through.