Release Date September 18th, 2026
Format Digital/2CD/2LP
Genre Death/Doom Metal
Origin Sweden
Runemagick began in Sweden in the early 1990s under Nicklas Rudolfsson, who has stayed at the center of the band through changing lineups, long silences and comebacks. Death metal and doom metal meet in its sound, shaped early by Bathory, Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Candlemass, Bolt Thrower, Morbid Angel, Mercyful Fate, King Diamond and Autopsy. Albums such as “Enter The Realm Of Death”, “Darkness Death Doom” and “Beyond The Cenotaph Of Mankind” mark the earlier eras. In 2024 Era VI started with Rudolfsson back on his own, and “Cycle Of The Dying Sun (Dawn Of Ashen Realms)” followed through Hammerheart Records in 2025, with guest contributions from Lussidotter, Louvrianne Roux and Dísa Draugurinn.
“After Chaos: Nocturnal Vigil” is a double album of eight tracks and close to an hour and a half, written, played and produced by Rudolfsson on vocals, guitars, bass, drums, percussion, synthesizers and jaw harp, with Andy La Rocque mixing and mastering at Sonic Train Studios. Filling that much time alone takes stamina, and the album has it. “After Chaos” opens at over thirteen minutes in a sunken, slow tempo, and the album stays down there until “Into The Endless Continuance” shuts the door, with level and tone so even that eight tracks play like one long night watch. The mix backs that plan, guitars and drums in front and the synthesizers working underneath.
“Formless Dawn” and “The Nocturnal Vigil” are pressed flatter than the rest, and with arrangements this slow there is no movement left to cover for it. “The Vast That Knows No Shape” answers that. It is the shortest track, the darkest in tone and the one with the widest swing between soft and big, with the shamanic trance voice of Dísa Draugurinn taking the lead just before the closer.
Each track is bound to a rune of the Elder Futhark, and the lyrics follow what remains after the fall of “Cycle Of The Dying Sun (Dawn Of Ashen Realms)”, with animist images treated as a presence already there, not a summoning. Jaw harp and trance voice give the album a pagan streak few death-doom bands go near. Rudolfsson writes music with nothing to prove, long tracks and no concession to trends, and the album pays back the time it takes far more often than it wastes it.
|8.3
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