By the mighty Gawds of Metal. The 2025 Veilburner piece unwieldily called Longing for Triumph, Reeking of Tragedy has been blinking its lifeforce away in the depths of our review pipe. And nobody picked it up yet. And that ain’t a stellar idea with the release of their 2026 piece All Glimmer is Gloam coming up fast.
The album’s untimely arrival, with a release date in November 2025, didn’t really help. With the listing season breathing down our necks and two iterations of Magnadur‘s1 unhinged bullshit under our belt, our patience was really wearing thin. And this new piece reeked of the sins that VLBRNR already committed in 2022, in addition to what the aforementioned band amplified with wanton abandon.
So, the record got ghosted by the RMR Review Desk. Silenced, because it was such a far cry from The Duality of Decapitation and Wisdom in quality and delivery. Disappointment on steroids. But time has passed, and opinions sometimes soften. So, a decision was reached to let ‘er roar and see what gives anyway. The RMR crew let weirdos such as Non Serviam2 roll their dice this year after all. So, why not Veilburner? Dissonant turbulences ahead.
The reference to Magnadur may have sounded like an insult to some. But, as it turned out, the RMR crew wasn’t all that wrong. Dissonance and full-tilt psychedelics writ large are on Longing for Triumph, Reeking of Tragedy menu yet again. And prominently so. But whilst the record’s predecessor artfully fused melodies from bedlam with gruesome dissection, this here piece seems to suffer from a totally bloated rhythm section. And in certain parts, only the rumbling drums and some rhythmic considerations seem to have survived the attempts at decent songsmithing. And this goes hand in hand with the vocalist’s painful screams, snarls, and weird monologues. Dissonance you get, but is it a good depiction of this art? I guess we could argue that one both ways.
Now, the grapevine tells me that Veilburner wrote this piece during Covid, which proved to be an overly trying time for many of us measly minions of the powers that be. Some of them truly grew unhinged, an affliction that a few still haven’t overcome. And in this light, the overly psychotic songwriting on Longing for Triumph, Reeking of Tragedy starts to make more sense. But it also means that our aforementioned and somewhat tongue-in-cheek reference to the folks over at Magnadur wasn’t all that far off the mark.
Now, what sets Veilburner apart from the latter is the songsmithing. Every part of those wild gyrations, the endless crescendios of the stick wielder, the staccato-like mini-riffs, actually form part of a whole. There is still no grace in it, but you get a follow-through. Some inkling of a storyline of sorts that might or might not speak to you. And, you see, at certain points of the tracklist, things started to make at least a bit of sense. The first track, Longing for Triumph…, truly is material for the oubliette. But yet again, there’s meaning and purpose in all that bedlam. The RMR crew grew a bit more encouraged once Pestilence Niche and Rigor & Wraith hit our earphones. Low chuckles and discreet nods were exchanged by those listening. Only that the following tracks brutally destroyed all hopes for improvement.
There are some rays of light, though. You get some instances where post-black seems to meet Black Metal. Others will show a smattering of melody and thrive in a sea of bleak rumbles, desperate rasps, and guitar licks on the road to damnation. But all of those are few and far between and won’t really signify. But – I repeat myself yet again – at no moment of the tracklist did this crew get the impression that anything we heard wasn’t intentional. This is next-level songsmithing in an emotional, dissonant environment of metallic psychedelic fury.
In the end, Longing for Triumph, Reeking of Tragedy behaved as we feared back in ’25. The crew found a well-written piece, afflicted with an overly crazed and disturbingly mental delivery of rage and despair. If that was Veilburner‘s intent, then mission accomplished. You truly made your point. The record just won’t garner any decent rating over here. For that, they would have needed to kick the musical part up a few notches. And for some reason, they didn’t.
So, now let’s wait and see what the 2026 piece will get us instead.
Record Rating: 3/10 | Label: Transcending Obscurity | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 14 November 2025