IX of Blades – Way of The Midnight Wave. "one of the year's most complete underground statements" by Mark J.

 IX of Blades – Way of The Midnight Wave

This is the one to sit with. Way of The Midnight Wave is a ten-track concept record chasing something genuinely ambitious — a Miltonian hero named Ri Elotha moving through enlightenment, conflict with tyrants, and eventual death, filtered through a sound that pulls from classic heavy metal, black metal, crust/punk, deathrock, and creeping alt-rock atmosphere without ever feeling like a mood board. It shouldn't hold together as well as it does.

Honestly, it is so epic, I am not even going to be bold enough to dive into each cerebral beast of a track; this works as a full story, an innovative season of your fave show...a snippet serves no purpose.

The lyrics carry real weight, and the vocals — harsh, unique, genuinely engrossing — pull you through angular riffs and tempo shifts that keep revealing something new on repeat listens: a hook here, an atmospheric turn there, a tension that keeps building even when you think the track's already peaked. Whoever's steering the songwriting (Curtis, take a bow) has pulled off something difficult — merging this many genres into one original sound while keeping a cinematic through-line intact, all while still making you bang your head. Killer release, and one of the year's most complete underground statements.

Grab this release and let it sink in deep-it's a colossal release.

https://ixofblades.bandcamp.com/album/way-of-the-midnight-wave