{"id":332312,"date":"2025-12-23T23:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T23:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/332312\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T23:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T23:03:10","slug":"amalekim-shir-hashirim-things-you-might-have-missed-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/332312\/","title":{"rendered":"Amalekim – Shir Hashirim [Things You Might Have Missed 2025]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"You may be wondering what on earth I am doing willingly touching a black metal album, let alone complimenting one. Well, you know what they say: never let them know your next move. Mysterious Polish-Italian collective Amalekim garnered praise in these hallowed halls with their 2023 release Avodah Zarah<\/a>, our own Thus Spoke calling it a highlight during a weaker year for the genre. Naturally, I disliked the album, which tends to be a good sign for the average black metal fan. I was nevertheless surprised to see Shir Hashirim released to little fanfare or label promotion after such a positive reception 18 months prior. One look at the \u2018melodic\u2019 prefix reactivated my optimist instincts; maybe Amalekim was worth another shot. Two years is a long time in music, let alone fleeting personal tastes.<\/p>\n

Not much has necessarily changed with Amalekim\u2019s vicious formula, but the refinements are significant. The core of the band\u2019s sound still lies in the realms of early Gaerea but is also distinctly its own thing altogether. And contrary to Gaerea\u2019s recent development, Amalekim isn\u2019t planning to go metalcore any time soon. No, Shir Hashirim further improves on the band\u2019s best qualities while retaining their identity, offering relentless speed and riffs for days (\u201cChant II: Shir Hashirim,\u201d \u201cChant IV: Sodot HaYekum\u201d). It\u2019s what I like to call \u2018violently melodic\u2019 for all the right reasons, both the intense drumming by Ktulak and the demonic vocals of Mr\u00f3z enhancing the spite present in the dueling guitars. Most importantly, Amalekim never lets their foot off the gas pedal on their mission to create hauntingly aggressive yet beautifully melodic music.<\/p>\n

Shir Hashirim by Amalekim<\/a><\/p>\n

Shir Hashirim\u2019s success comes from its subversion of common black metal tropes without abandoning them. Gone is the overreliance on standard tremolo and blast beat abuse that I previously took issue with. Those elements are both still key to the album, but in a much more appealing and bite-sized, fresh context (\u201cChant III: Mesharet HaShilton,\u201d \u201cChant VIII: Mishteh Malkhuti\u201d). Amalekim\u2019s songwriting has evolved into a much more varied beast with plenty of creative drum and riff patterns to show for it. It almost feels like there\u2019s a bunch of death metal DNA in the band\u2019s songwriting this time (\u201cChant VI: Tisha Daltot\u201d); in this way, I could see it being the blackened mirror image of Dormant Ordeal\u2019s newest<\/a>. Where Shir Hashirim improves over Dormant Ordeal\u2019s excellent release is the wonderfully warm and roomy production, a complete opposite of what many others in this scene go for. It once again shows that your album doesn\u2019t need to be crushed or lo-fi to sound brutal\u2014great production simply makes the performance all the more powerful and unyielding.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Shir Hashirim is the first black metal record in ages to catch my interest, and one of the best albums of the year at that. Violent, melodic, and extremely fast all at once, its 38-minute package of eight chants simply leaves me wanting to immediately replay the experience all over again. It\u2019s tight and consistent in a way few other records this year are, and its form of melodic fury makes the album unintentionally catchy. Amalekim\u2019s oppressive and angry atmosphere should satiate the usual suspects, but the breakneck pace and no-nonsense songwriting on Shir Hashirim are sure to appeal to a wider audience as well.<\/p>\n

Track to Check Out: \u201cChant II: Shir Hashirim,\u201d \u201cChant IV: Sodot HaYekum,\u201d and \u201cChant VII: Haka\u2019as HaNachash.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You may be wondering what on earth I am doing willingly touching a black metal album, let alone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2325,129460,129461,28214,108183,96,129462,86978,108185,128,99902,129463,114817,114818,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-332312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-2325","9":"tag-amalekim","10":"tag-avantgarde-music","11":"tag-black-metal","12":"tag-dormant-ordeal","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-gaerea","15":"tag-italian-metal","16":"tag-melodic-black-metal","17":"tag-music","18":"tag-polish-metal","19":"tag-shir-hashirim","20":"tag-things-you-might-have-missed-2025","21":"tag-tymhm","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}