Faidra – Dies Irae [EP]

‘Militant : Penitent : Triumphant’ was a rather impressive record, released by the Swedish one-man act Faidra in late 2023. Basing its atmospheric Black Metal on a straightforward but oh so effective midtempo mixture of captivating tremolo riffs and accentuating keys, the album managed to impress with its subtle simplicity and glorious atmosphere. That album is now followed up in early 2025 by the EP ‘Dies Irae’, the band’s latest output on Northern Silence Productions.

‘Dies Irae’ contains three tracks, and combines songs from several phases of the band. Starting off is ‘Dies Irae’, a new song recorded for the purpose of this EP. With clean folk based choirs introducing and ending the song, the Folky slant of Faidra is prominently present. However, it won’t take long until we arrive at the trademark atmospheric Black Metal riffs and delightful keyboard notes that made the previous record so enjoyable. Compared to that album, the drum work seems a little bit more urgent, adding a tad more tempo to the track. Perhaps the song is a little bit more dynamic than some of the earlier material, but overall the song fits seamlessly with the rest of the Faidra discography. Essentially, if you loved their earlier work, you will not be disappointed by ‘Dies Irae’. Much as I mentioned in my review of ‘Militant : Penitent : Triumphant’, it’s more of the same good thing essentially.

The EP further consists of two tracks that were previously published on the band’s bandcamp page. ‘Ixion’ was released shortly after the release of the debut album, and is somewhat slower than ‘Dies Irae’ with slightly more prominent keyboard notes and a stronger epic, Folky undertone. ‘Phantasmagoria’ was released 2 years later, and about a year before ‘Militant : Penitent : Triumphant’. It balances a somewhat bleaker undertone, fitting with the song title, with warmer and more worshipping passages. Both of these songs could have easily made it to the previous full-length in terms of quality and aesthetics. As a whole, hearing the three songs of the EP that span about 5 years of the band’s history together once again highlights the consistent vision by which Faidra creates music. Stretching the power of a few riffs to its limits, the atmosphere is simply captivating and highly noteworthy to those that love the idea of riff-based atmospheric Black Metal with cosmic keyboard accents.