Blackened, disjointed, and unsettingly smelly items already graced our review pipe in the past, no doubt. Need an example? It was only last year, to be precise. Magnadur was the act’s name, and they hit rock bottom with us not once, but twice in 2025. An anal avalanche of Synthwave-imbued pseudo metal shards to crush yer opponents. Or something. You really need to let that one sink in for a while. Utter self-destruction, because of – well – an inability to harness one’s own psychedelic ideas and turn them into something coherent.
And that’s all the more frustrating because the RMR crew knows better. Using synth and – yes – elements of pop, together with the Power ov Metal can create something forceful.1 Using electronica and doing it right will largely expand any band’s toolbox.
So, welcome to the glitch in the fabric of your own reality. Enter Dusk and their newest concoction, Bunker. Already, the coldly effective album cover with this age-old – bunker, seemingly from the long-defunct Atlantic Wall, gives you an idea as to where this is headed. Yet another lost underground band from Denmark or Germany, the geezers at the review desk loosely crawed. But no, these guys – hold on to something – hail from Costa Rica of all places. And their choice of the art of metal is to rip the traditional Black Metal tropes apart and bend them to their will through the power of industrial atrocities, extended synths, dark messaging, and club-ready beatz. Yup, you heard that right. Some of that could well be used in a club somewhere in a dark basement in a vast city.
Are you afraid yet? You should be. Because a glut of cold fury awaits you. Dusk are a band with a concept, displaying a knack to yoke and mercilessly exploit the dystopian undercurrents living in their heads and distill disturbing audible regurgitations from them. And they do that with an almost endearing attention to detail and an often poignant melancholy. At first, you only get some sort of raspy croak and brutal synth beats with some industrial injections to break things up. Then, some dark interference arrives with subdued tremolos and odd guitar interludes where there should be none. Raspy semi-clear vocals and gruff growls make their appearance in some fiery soundstorm of warty electronica and violent blast beats.
And this distorted Vox ov Doom tells you that you shouldn’t be here and you should be overwritten. The realm of the matrix all over again.2 That is the point when the hypnotic beat, the messaging, and the swirling wall of sound start to affect you. All of that is carried by underworldly key work, (overly) rhythmic riffing, and artfully injected samples, industrial or not. This specific bunker really starts to wear on you after a while.
So, where did this Black Metal thing escape to? Never fear. As of Bunker 4, things will get a bit more melodic. And you will start to hear a shift towards the blackened arts used in an oppressive, almost despotic way and form. Bunker 6 will hit pretty harshly with some trve Black Metal exploration. Only to descend into Dunkelheit, late of Burzum3 and its creature Filosofem, but reinvented with taste and gusto. After all, this track is one of the guiding beacons of a fledgling Black Metal movement.
And finally, compared to the aforementioned Magnadur, Bunker delivered their experimental fare in great standing. A well-structured tour de force that turned metal and over-the-top electronica into a darkly pulsating, ominous, and melancholic firestorm. Dusk evokes a blurry, overheated vision of an ominous, angst-generating machine boring down on you. A merciless entity not from here that will beat the soul venturing into crevices of hard, cold concrete into a whimpering mess. Such dark and psychedelically challenged musings can be put to good use by employing modern tools. Such as synths and artful samples with harsh industrial connotations, blending them with down-to-earth blackened metal of the most austere kind. The outcome is a nightmarish atmosphere, drunk on almost Orwellian undercurrents, which will make you search for that exit. But Bunker will grant you none. Welcome to your very own beautiful nightmare that you cannot escape.
Cool record.
Record Rating: 8/10 | Label: Self-Released | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 20 February 2026