Review: Nøkk - Heartless

Band: Nøkk
Album: Heartless
Genre: Black Metal
Country: United States
Label: Solistitium Records
Released: November 21, 2025

Introduction:

Riff driven American Black Metal forged in 2021 out of the ashes of a previous black/death band called Eternal Bloodshed. The Columbus, Ohio based group consists of J. Gallagher (Guitars/Songwriting), S. Pletcher (Drums), and R. Hames (Vocals).

The Album:

Nøkk’s Heartless marks a decisive evolution for the Ohio based black metal project, presenting a record that feels both sharpened by experience and broadened in emotional scope. Their 2023 EP Repel the Incursion hinted at the band’s ability to merge atmosphere with riff centric songwriting, and Heartless confirms that potential with confidence. Across 6 tracks and roughly 40 minutes, Nøkk has crafted an album that is unflinchingly bleak but also strikingly dynamic, offering a listening experience that is immersive without sacrificing intensity.

Track Listing:

1. The Blind Leading the Lost

2. Heartless

3. Nøkk the Soulless

4. All the Pretty Things

5. Dead

6. The Hanging Tree

From the outset, the band establishes a tonal identity that blends traditional black metal aggression with carefully sculpted layers of atmosphere. The guitars are the immediate anchor. Biting, cold, and often hypnotic, but arranged with a clear sense of curvature. Rather than relying on static repetition, riffs evolve and recombine, allowing songs to feel alive and narrative driven. One of the album’s greatest strengths is this sense of movement. Each track opens one emotional thread only to pull the listener deeper through unexpected shifts in pacing and texture.

The vocals are delivered with a tortured clarity, sitting high enough in the mix to feel urgent but never polished to sterility. There’s a palpable sincerity in the performance, lending weight to lyrics steeped in despair, self-reckoning, and internal conflict. Even when the lyrics themselves are abstract, the emotional cadence makes them feel grounded. This is an album less interested in theatrical darkness and more in the kind of lived, internal bleakness that black metal rarely addresses with nuance.

Instrumentally, Heartless benefits from the addition of several session musicians, whose contributions elevate the record’s sense of scale. The drumming is particularly notable, precise without feeling mechanical, shifting seamlessly between blasts, mid-tempo marches, and slower, doom tinged passages. Bass presence is stronger here than in the band’s earlier material, adding heft to the low end and rounding out the mix during the album’s more contemplative moments. Subtle synth textures are used sparingly but effectively, enhancing mood without overwhelming the albums core guitar driven identity.

Production wise, the album finds a balance that many modern black metal projects struggle to achieve. It is clean enough for each element to shine, but not so polished that the raw emotional grit is scrubbed away. There’s an organic, almost live energy to the recording. Every hit and chord feels immediate, physical, and unembellished.

Where Heartless truly excels, however, is in its cohesion. While each track stands on its own, the album’s structure feels purposeful, guiding the listener through cycles of tension, collapse, and cold reflection. Peaks of ferocity dissolve into bleaker atmospheres, only for the guitars to rise again with renewed severity. By the final track, the listener is left with a sense of emotional exhaustion that feels earned, not imposed.

Conclusion:

Ultimately, Heartless is a compelling statement from a band rapidly finding its voice. It expands upon Nøkk’s established foundations while signaling ambitions that reach far beyond underground familiarity. For listeners seeking black metal that is atmospheric but not passive, aggressive but not one-dimensional, Heartless stands as a debut release worth engaging with.

BMZ rating: 7 out of 10

Support Nøkk here: https://nokkthesoulless.bandcamp.com/album/heartless-2

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