Published: 8 May 2025 / Last Update: 8 May 2025
Post-black metal and blackgaze have grown from controversial experiments into full-blown movements, merging the raw ferocity of black metal with elements of shoegaze, post-rock, prog, and more. What began as a polarizing genre mash-up now stands as one of the most creative and emotionally resonant frontiers in heavy music.
This list is our personal take on essential albums that fans of this sound should experience. While it’s by no means exhaustive, it aims to highlight both key releases for newcomers and deep cuts for seasoned listeners.
For those eager to dive deeper, check out our continually updated Post-black Metal & Blackgaze playlist on Spotify, where we highlight both classic and new releases shaping the genre.
Without further ado, let’s begin!
1-20: Top Picks
(in no particular order)
Deafheaven – Lonely People With Power (2025)
Lonely People With Power feels like Deafheaven drawing from every part of their past, harsh, melodic, atmospheric, and everything in between. It’s probably one of their most complete and emotionally resonant albums yet.
Alcest – Les Voyages De L’Âme (2012)
While Écailles de Lune helped define blackgaze, Les Voyages De L’Âme refined it into something even more transcendent. Alcest dialed back the harshness to let shimmering guitars and rich melodies shine, with Neige’s ethereal vocals weaving through bursts of cathartic screams. The result is a dreamlike journey that captures blackgaze’s balance of beauty and brutality.
Lantlôs – .Neon (2010)
Lantlôs’ sophomore record balances the melodic and the raw, layering bleak riffs and distant vocals over shifting, almost hypnotic rhythms. Neige’s presence adds emotional texture, but the real strength lies in how naturally the album bridges black metal’s intensity with post-rock’s sense of space, letting both harshness and melody breathe within the same frame.
An Autumn for Crippled Children – Try Not to Destroy Everything You Love (2013)
Try Not to Destroy Everything You Love leans more into depressive post-black and darkwave without losing blackgaze’s core intensity. It’s lo-fi and emotionally heavy, putting atmosphere ahead of polish and giving it a particularly haunting feel.
Heretoir – The Circle (2017)
If a lot of blackgaze thrives on blur and atmosphere, The Circle takes a different route. It goes for scale, clarity, and catharsis, folding post-metal elements into something more deliberate and tightly shaped.
MØL – Diorama (2021)
The Danish band’s sophomore album is one of the most polished and explosive entries in blackgaze’s recent wave. More melodically uplifting than many of their peers, it shifts between radiant highs and crushing heaviness with sharp emotional clarity.
Trna – Istok (2021)
Like Olhava, Trna is known for pushing atmospheric post-metal into blackened territory with a purely instrumental approach. Istok is one of their most ambitious works, constantly shifting between heavier, melodic surges and extended ambient passages. A dense, immersive listen that rewards patience.
Les Discrets – Septembre Et Ses Dernières Pensées (2010)
Delicate, melancholic, and full of atmosphere, this debut from Les Discrets leans more toward post-rock and shoegaze than outright aggression. The softly distorted guitars and mournful vocals make it feel more like a fading memory than a metal record, giving it a quiet and poetic place in blackgaze.
White Ward – Love Exchange Failure (2019)
One of the genre’s more distinctive and boundary-pushing records, Love Exchange Failure blends black metal with noir jazz and a sense of urban decay. The saxophone cuts through the dense guitars and bleak atmosphere, adding a cinematic and suffocating tension to the album.
Sylvaine – Atoms Aligned, Coming Undone (2018)
Atoms Aligned, Coming Undone feels like a real step forward for Sylvaine, both in writing and production. Her ambient-leaning blackgaze sounds more grounded and dynamic here, with subtle builds, stronger contrasts, and harsh vocals used sparingly but effectively.
Avast – Mother Culture (2018)
Mother Culture balances blackened intensity with a real sense of scale. The sweeping guitars and post-metal dynamics make it feel expansive, while the album’s themes of environmental and social collapse give that heaviness a clear purpose.
So Hideous – Last Poem / First Light (2014)
Blending post-black metal with sweeping orchestral arrangements, Last Poem / First Light feels more like a film score than a traditional metal album. Strings, choirs, and blast beats collide in dramatic fashion, creating a sense of grandeur that few in the genre attempt, let alone pull off.
Harakiri For The Sky – Maere (2021)
Few bands in this space are as consistent or prolific as Harakiri for the Sky. Maere feels like a confident extension of everything they already do well: It doesn’t rewrite their formula, but it does refine it, with tighter compositions and a stronger sense of dynamics.
Evergarden – In Light (2024)
Built on four expansive tracks over ten minutes, In Light drifts between raw intensity and melodic clarity with a sense of purpose. While it draws from blackgaze’s moodiness, the sharper emotional edge and screamed vocal presence nod clearly to the band’s post-hardcore roots. A striking debut.
Olhava – Sacrifice (2024)
Sacrifice sees the Russian band deepen their ambient-infused take on blackgaze, using repetition and texture to give the music its emotional pull. This is not the kind of record that lives or dies on riffs or hooks. It is all about immersion, and it shows how far blackgaze can move into soundscape-driven composition.
Celeste – Assassine(s) (2022)
Controlled chaos, executed with purpose. Coming more from the sludgecore side than blackgaze proper, the French band builds its weight through crushing repetition, oppressive atmosphere, and sharp dynamics, with the clarity of the production making every impact feel even more precise.
Deafheaven – Sunbather (2013)
Sunbather changed the conversation around blackgaze in a way few albums ever do. With its lush melodies, harsh vocals, and striking contrasts, it redefined what heaviness could sound like. Though polarizing at first, it has since become a foundational album for much of what followed.
Deluge – Aego Templo (2020)
Like their fellow French band Celeste, Déluge lean toward a more punishing and direct sound. Still, they do more than just overwhelm on this album, leaving room for melody and tension to work side by side.
Svalbard – The Weight Of The Mask (2023)
Svalbard take a more personal turn on The Weight of the Mask, shifting the focus toward anxiety, depression, and emotional survival. The music is still hard to pin down, and pulls from different corners of heavy music without settling into one shape. But for all its intensity, the album never feels forced, landing instead as something raw, melodic, and deeply human.
Besna – Zverstvá (2022)
Probably one of the lesser-known entries on this list, Zverstvá by the Slovak band Besna is a compelling release that rewards close listening. Largely melodic but never predictable, it weaves harsh vocals and driving rhythms through moments of avant-garde experimentation and post-metal restraint.
21-50: Further Recommendations
(in no particular order)
Want more? Our companion playlist features highlights from these albums and beyond, and it’s regularly updated with new releases. Feel free to follow if you’d like to stay in the loop.
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