{"id":588705,"date":"2026-09-03T08:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T08:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/588705\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T08:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T08:04:10","slug":"fog-wall-gloomweaver-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/588705\/","title":{"rendered":"Fog Wall – Gloomweaver Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Drawing from metal\u2019s perennial fantasy touchstone\u2014Lord of the Rings\u2014with the genre\u2019s new favorite fantasy\u2014the Fromsoftware game catalog\u2014Fog Wall make their independent death metal debut with Gloomweaver. Formed by two lifelong friends and Sandvvitch bandmates, vocalist Zak Brady and vocalist\/bassist\/overall-sound-guy Alex Malmquist (ex-Warbringer) wove Gloomweaver out of \u201ctheir love of crushing evil riffs and heavy bass tones,\u201d a fondness I\u2019m sure is common among the greater AMG readership. Joined by guitarist Shagrat \u201cQuincy\u201d Gorbag and drummer Logan Griggs, Fog Wall aim to whip up heck with this passion project. But is this a passing thing, Gloomweaver, or does its soul have the strength to keep the fire lit?<\/p>\n

If you decide to step through the Fog Wall, you\u2019d best steel yourself; Gloomweaver hits hard and sticks deep. Striking with the old-school grit of Morbid Angel, muscle and immediacy of The Black Dahlia Murder, and the snarling ferocity of Necropanther, Fog Wall punch well above their weight. Many of Gloomweaver\u2019s riffs feel irresponsible. The neanderthalic, brown-noted bulldozer grooves of \u201cKnife, Sting, Tooth,\u201d \u201cMazarbul (Desolation),\u201d and \u201cManor of Ensnarement\u201d tap into a primal need for heavy things to hit other heavy things. When \u201cFleshpot Ritual\u201d hits its breakdown or \u201cFrantic Orb Wielder\u201d reaches its post-sample groove, heads will roll. Brady and Malmquist\u2019s vocals make for a slobbering two-headed beast, wetly belching screams, gurgles, and growls matched in savagery only by Malmquist\u2019s grotesque, capital-PH PHat bass wreaking havoc across Gloomweaver. Fog Wall is a band that just gets the minutiae of what makes death metal devastating, and are poised to use said minutiae to rip new ones with great urgency via Gloomweaver.<\/p>\n

\ufeffGloomweaver by FOG WALL<\/a><\/p>\n

Fog Wall are no mere conjurors of cheap brutality, but come armed with plentiful eccentricity. There\u2019s a blackened edge to Fog Wall\u2014see the twin tremolos of \u201cThe Accursed\u201d or the icy synths and blast-beated turn in \u201cStrangling Gloom\u201d\u2014lending a density and sinister bent that\u2019s supercharged by their superb death metal heft. But more surprisingly, the sleazy swing of Type O Negative manifests in musty doom riffing on \u201cManor of Ensnarement,\u201d muscular group vocal \u201choo\u201ds on \u201cFleshpot Ritual,\u201d and\u2014no duh\u2014the entirety of the Type O cover \u201cThe Profit of Doom (Medley).\u201d Gloomweaver can verge into tech-death on speedy, tweedily-dweedily cuts like \u201cMazarbul (Desolation)\u201d and \u201cFrantic Orb Wielder,\u201d and their Necropantheresque snarl lends a thrashy bite to everything. Finally, Fog Wall know how to sample. Clips from the LotR movie trilogy and Fromsoftware games briefly and succinctly establish setting and tone (\u201cManor of Ensnarement,\u201d \u201cTraverse\u201d) and cue mid-song shifts with serious aplomb [\u201cMazarbul (Desolation),\u201d \u201cFrantic Orb Wielder\u201d] bolstering Gloomweaver as an artful and thematically rich record as well as a delightfully heavy one.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Fog Wall\u2019s songwriting is tight and thoughtful, but it\u2019s not without its hiccups. Gloomweaver is a well-edited record, with every song focused and impactful and nothing running unbearably long. They even cut \u201cThe Profit of Doom (Medley)\u201d almost in half from its original runtime. More importantly, nothing\u2019s cut too short either, as even quick cuts like \u201cFrantic Orb Wielder\u201d and \u201cStrangling Gloom\u201d sound full and fully realized. But both \u201cThe Accursed\u201d and \u201cBelching Black Vapors\u201d start strong and somewhat lose steam by the end, with the former lacking as many twists as usual and the latter seemingly entering into its ending phase halfway through. Gloomweaver\u2019s weakest moment unfortunately comes with its finale in \u201cTraverse,\u201d where its slower pace loses much of the album\u2019s previous vitality, and a tastefully doomy bass line and name-dropping \u201cFOG WALL\u201d chorus can\u2019t bring the fire back as hot as on prior tracks. These few pacing issues are worth noting, though in no way do they detract from Fog Wall\u2019s electrifying presence and smartly-written tunes.<\/p>\n

Gloomweaver is fire. A gross display of joyously seething deathly goodness, Fog Wall killed it with their debut. Like the stories of their fantasy inspirations, the ordeal of any independent artistic process is long, tiresome, and uphill; this bunch of chums made it look effortless. If you like death metal, you probably like this album. Not all who wander are lost, but if Gloomweaver isn\u2019t where you\u2019re headed, then get it together, step through the Fog Wall, and let them take you to a cold, dark, and decidedly ungentle place today.<\/p>\n

Rating: Great!
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps MP3
Label: Self-Release
Website: fogwallnv.bandcamp.com<\/a> | facebook.com<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: September 4th, 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drawing from metal\u2019s perennial fantasy touchstone\u2014Lord of the Rings\u2014with the genre\u2019s new favorite fantasy\u2014the Fromsoftware game catalog\u2014Fog Wall…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2246,18328,18329,848,156,289704,289705,853,157,289706,111,139,69,762,763,289707,34572,289388,167385,137491,68510],"class_list":["post-588705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-2246","tag-4-0","tag-american-metal","tag-death-metal","tag-entertainment","tag-fog-wall","tag-gloomweaver","tag-morbid-angel","tag-music","tag-necropanther","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-sandvvitch","tag-self-release","tag-sep26","tag-the-black-dahlia-murder","tag-type-o-negative","tag-warbringer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}