- Country: United States
- Style: Atmospheric black metal
- Label: Relapse Records / Century Media Records
- Release date: 23 October 2026
Picture the Pacific Northwest a thousand years after us. The cities are rubble, the forests have taken everything back, and the river mouths have become holy ground where spirits, kind and cruel, walk among the survivors. That is the world Estuary lives in. Nathan Weaver has described the estuaries as places where magic has taken physical form. Kody Keyworth says part of the idea came from a dream about future tribes worshipping the rotting wind turbines their ancestors left behind.
It is a stranger and darker premise than the old-growth mysticism of the band’s earlier records, and Relapse is selling the album as their rawest and most volatile work. “Ghosts Among The Obelisks”, the first single, supports the claim: eight-plus minutes of pounding drums and grinding riffs that feel more like a march through ruins than a walk in the woods. The band produced the album themselves, mostly at their Owl Lodge studio in Olympia, with Nicholas Wilbur’s drums recorded in a converted church in Anacortes.
Six long songs, few concessions. “Knights Of Tiamat” and the closing “Wretched Spirits, Land Of Light” are where the concept seems to reach furthest. Whether this future is a warning or a strange kind of hope, the album leaves for the listener to decide.
Best tracks:
Ghosts Among The Obelisks
Knights Of Tiamat
Author’s rating: 8/10
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