Haimad | When Night Rode Across The North | Northern Silence Productions

Release Date: 7.11.2025

Format: Digital/CD/LP

Genre: Melodic/Symphonic Black Metal

Country: Sweden

Haimad comes from the Swedish wave that once packed tiny rehearsal rooms with grand ideas. The band’s roots reach back to 1994 in Sundsvall, a time when black metal was raw, secretive and completely unforgiving. Their early steps, from “A Dream Vision Vanished” to “The Horned Moon”, placed them inside the rising world of melodic and symphonic darkness. After tragedies and silence, only guitarist Azradan remained. He rebuilt the band with musicians who understood that era from the inside. Their return EP “The Return” revived an old flame and pulled long time listeners back into a familiar northern night. Three decades after the band’s creation, Haimad finally arrives with a full length album.

“When Night Rode Across The North” follows a path shaped by the Scandinavian school of the mid 1990s. Haimad draws strength from icy riffs, towering keyboards and dramatic pacing. The music has immediate energy, then stretches into grand passages that echo the atmosphere of the era they come from. The Tolkien imagery gives the album an otherworldly tone, not in a vague way, but as a clear setting that adds character to the storms of melody and the violent blasts.

The guitars run on that familiar frosty charge that defined many classic releases from Sweden and Norway. They slice forward with steady motion, while the keyboards paint wide scenes, sometimes bright, sometimes shadowy. Nothing drifts and nothing collapses under its own weight. The vocals bring an older black metal rasp, sharp and cold, placed in the mix so that the narrative presence stays strong without drowning the rest. Haimad works with confidence and long experience. The pacing keeps the album moving with purpose from track one to the final minute, always rising and falling with a natural arc.

The songwriting leans into drama, wide sweeps of melody and steady blast passages that bring the cold with them. Even when the tempo shifts, the atmosphere remains thick with frost and fantasy. The music builds pictures of northern mountains, ruined towers and ancient fire. The epic “Voice Of The Dread Abomination” stands as the album’s longest moment and gives the band room to stretch into darker corners. The closing track “The Key To The First And Final Day” wraps the journey with a strong final climb.

This album will land smoothly to listeners who grew up on 90s Scandinavian symphonic and melodic black metal, direct, and passionate. Haimad delivers a solid, atmospheric and proudly traditional set of songs that will satisfy those who crave the icy grandeur of that period.

Score: 7.5

Links:

https://haimad.bandcamp.com

https://haimad-northernsilence.bandcamp.com/album/when-night-rode-across-the-north

https://www.facebook.com/HaimadSweden