Well, look at that, the February Record(s) o’ the Month are quite late. The institutional push to get these things out more promptly has failed miserably at 4 months into 2026. We will endeavor to do better, but in the meantime, 2026 waits for no man, and the months are flying by with alarming expedition. February had a collection of standout killers, and opinions were divided among the AMG staff. Fortunately, Steel does not care, and I made hard executive decisions that we all have to live with. Start living!
It’s not often Yours Steely reviews black metal these days, but a chance encounter with a promo video from Ireland’s Domhain had me intrigued enough to investigate, and I may have found one of my Albums o’ the Year in the process. In Perfect Stillness [out February 20th, 2026 from These Hands Melt (buy it on Bandcamp!)], is a near-perfect blend of post-black, melodoom, and Gothic styles, and over the album’s runtime, Domhain makes you feel many things, all of them depressive and dour as fook. Yes, the sadboi is real, and the writing is exceptionally good at wringing the pathos out of the listener. Icy tems play off forlorn cleans and skin-rending blackened screeces, but emotion is always primary as nods to Ghost Brigade, Darkest Era, and Agalloch float through the ether. as I summed up, “In Perfect Stillness is a short, sharp shock to the part of the brain that deals with feelings, and there’s a genuine, raw beauty to their music that sticks with you long after you step away. It’s the rare album I wish were longer, and I actually don’t want it to end when it does.” Get with the Stillness.
Runner(s) Up:
Cryptic Shift // Overspace & Supertime [February 27th, 2026 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — Progressive/technical death crew Cryptic Shift shove 500 lbs of ideas into a 50 lb sack on Overspace & Supertime. Coming off the massive Visitations from Enceladus, the band seemed to want to go bigger and bolder, and so they did! The result is techy, thrashy, ambitious, and progressive, with ideas stumbling over ideas in a mad rush. It works, though, and Overspace & Supertime is a strange beast of many colors. As a stunned Andy-War-Hall wrote, “Yes, this is an exhausting record. Trying to catch everything on it during your first listen could make you go blind. Maybe 80 minutes is too damn long. But Overspace & Supertime is a better record than my wildest expectations, six years in the making, ever dreamed up.” Clock in for your Cryptic Shift. Stick around to earn Supertime.
Worm // Necropalace [February 16th, 2026 | Century Media Records | Bandcamp] — The Worm has turned once more, bringing spooky, eerie, cavernous doom-death to the people on Necropalace. This time, the sense of existential dread is replaced by a more cinematic, campy vibe, but the goodness remains, and those goods are delivered. This is doom-death that’s actually FUN rather than soul-killing, and that sounds weird on paper, but it works in practice. As Thus Spoke wisely observed, “With its bombastic sense of fun and theatricality and a beauty that stays firmly entrenched in the dark and dirty, Necropalace shows Worm evolving in a way that magnifies rather than dilutes their personality.” Hail Worm.
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