Well, II Bleak feels less like an album and more like a place you’re not supposed to stay in for long. Vast Pyre don’t dress this thing up or frame it as some grand doom journey – it just sits there, cold and heavy, grinding away at its own pace. The band clearly aren’t interested in drama or dynamics; they let the riffs hang, decay, repeat, and sink. There’s a stubborn refusal to move things forward in any comforting way, and that’s where the record gets its power.
The sound is slow and thick, but not in a warm, fuzzed-out stoner sense. This is dry, abrasive doom – closer to a long drag through concrete dust than any psychedelic haze. The minimalism isn’t clever or academic; it feels practical, almost lazy in the best sense, like Vast Pyre knows exactly how little they need to do to make the weight land. Nothing reaches out to grab you. The album doesn’t guide, explain, or resolve – it just keeps pressing down until you either give in or switch it off.
Compared to the debut, II Bleak feels more stripped and less concerned with making an impression. The band sounds comfortable letting things feel ugly and unresolved. Vocals sit low and hostile, not narrating so much as leaking out of the mix, while the riffs blur together into a single mass rather than a set of moments. There’s no sense of release anywhere, no “big” parts, no payoff, just sustained pressure.
This isn’t a record for playlists or casual spins. It’s for late nights, bad moods, and rooms that feel too small. Vast Pyre aren’t reinventing doom here, and they don’t seem to care. II Bleak exists in that stubborn underground space where heaviness is about endurance, not spectacle – and that’s exactly where it belongs.
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Released by Octopus Rising on November 28th, 2025
Music source for review – Grand Sounds PR
