Review: ‘We Love Hating Each Other’ by Asthildr/There is No Light Here (Split, 2026) | Black metal

Band info

Bands: Asthildr & There Is No Light Here
Album: ‘We Love Hating Each Other‘
Genres: DSBM, black metal, atmospheric black metal
Released: January 30th, 2026
Location: US

Review

Welcome listeners, for today we ride yet again.

We are bringing one of the specials from the ever growing US scene, a split between one of our favorite projects in the depressive black metal line, THERE IS NO LIGHT HERE, and the freshly started project ASTHILDR, a queer post-raw-black effort by Rune Klem with just one demo on their shoulders prior to this release: ‘We Love Hating Each Other’.

The split encompasses a total of 5 titles, first two ones are the starting point with ASTHILDR and TINLH takes turn with the next three anthems, which the artists depicted behind a faded view through the trees straight to the moon. We are promised for a deeply personal and intimate trip, a cry for a more compassionate and solidary world.

We start off with the gloomy feel of bells and catchy synths for this view, as the opener song “At the Fringes of an Arkane Bog” drag us to a foggy bogland kind of picture, and after a Machiavellian laughter we ride with which will be the main striking riffs of this song and pounding drums. A broken voice shifting between harmonious high notes to damning growls lead the ceremony, in the continuous company of the synth keys and an sense of dire epicness that would only shut at the end of the song, immediately followed by “As if a Catapult from Above”, changing part of the atmosphere we are left in the previous song to a more sinister one, spearheaded by the drumming, note change and frantic riffs, with a more prominent bass line.

TINLH continues with no stop and no mercy to keep blowing our senses and emotions away with what’s his signature dissonant sound. Like a lingering nightmare, through sonic aggression with constant higher and lower tones, bumpy drumming, a dim piano line in the harsh vocal resting bridges, Z keeps his branch of depressive “anti-suicide” black metal to be gut-wrenching as experiencing this maelstrom of emotions from the inside with “Ellis Bells”. More experimenting between aggression happens onwards in “By a Lady”, the shortest song in the album, and the paranoid flow of tones keep its pace and hypnotic embrace to the last song and to the end of the split through “Addison”, periodically relying more in ambiance as contrast to the scathing grip of the main wall of sound by the hand of the faster (yet proportionately repetitive) side of black metal.

We’d like to see more conceptual projects like TINLH, not just biased for personal appreciation here, but because the depressive black metal is a tool for catharsis with endless potential in our present day as seen in this piece of work, and we need less Niklas Kvarforths and more Zs. Less bullies and more supportive folks.

Keep an eye on these projects and don’t miss this impressive and well put split!

Band info

Review

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