Black metal | Doom metal | Metal
85%
Alukta—Merok (2025)
Details
Recorded and mixed at Opus Magnum Studio, Brussels by Déhà. Released on Transcendance on 2 May 2025.
For fans of: Wolvennest, Cult of Luna, Darkher, Amenra
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Band
- Marie – vocals, guitar
- Déhà – multi-instrumentalist, producer, mixing
Tracks
- Matampu (4:45)
- Laissez entrer ceux qui pleurent (7:09)
- Des Teintes d’éternité (8:43)
- Kombengi (5:58)
- Aluk To Dolo (7:56)
- Exuvia (8:25)
Review
Alukta is a Franco-Belgian duo formed in 2023 by Marie (Brouillard, Vertige) and Déhà (Slow, Wolvennest). Their music blends doom’s weight with black metal’s ritual intensity, weaving grief, ancestry, and transcendence into a deeply atmospheric soundscape.
On Merok (2025), silence and texture are as vital as distortion – each track feels like part of a ceremonial passage through loss and renewal. It’s music to absorb rather than simply hear, demanding attention and rewarding it with moments of haunting beauty and emotional honesty.
Merok (2025) is less an album than an invocation. From its first pulsing heartbeat to its final detonation of silence, Alukta conjure something raw and ritualistic – a descent into grief and release that feels both ancient and strangely intimate.
“Matampu” (track 1) opens like a funeral march for forgotten gods: a slow, deliberate rhythm, voices echoing through the dark. The guitars shimmer like bowed strings, carrying a sense of foreboding. It’s hypnotic and unsettling, a steady pulse that never quite resolves – the sound of something vast approaching.
“Laissez entrer ceux qui pleurent” (track 2) – let in those who weep – feels like the grief itself has entered the room. The tremolo-picked guitars weep above a dirge-like rhythm while Marie’s voice alternates between lament and incantation. Midway through, tribal drums rise from the deep, summoning guttural howls that dissolve into delicate, intertwining chants. It’s grief rendered ceremonial.
“Des Teintes d’éternité” (track 3) – shades of eternity – crashes in with weighty purpose. The slow stomp of bass and drums anchors a melodic line that somehow glows amid the gloom. When the storm parts, a fragile acoustic guitar emerges – a snowdrop blooming in volcanic ash – before a final scream extinguishes it. It’s one of the record’s most breathtaking moments.
With “Kombengi” (track 4), the mood shifts slightly: a more rhythmic, trance-like pattern of drums and chants, almost danceable in its repetition. A throbbing bass riff pulls everything into focus; ghostly vocals hover above, equal parts sorrow and transcendence. It’s the sound of a ritual caught between trance and collapse.
“Aluk To Dolo” (track 5) begins as a funereal dirge and slowly ascends toward something redemptive. The raw, guttural male vocals are pure catharsis – you can feel the exhaustion in every breath. When the noise recedes, a plucked string melody appears, fragile as light through smoke, before the full band surges back with renewed fury. The sudden ending is shocking – like a candle snuffed out mid-ritual.
The closer “Exuvia” (track 6) – a word meaning the discarded shell left after metamorphosis – could not be better named. It’s the shedding of grief itself: crashing cymbals, distant voices, then a rising wall of sound that collapses into silence. After forty-odd minutes, there’s nothing left to give – and that’s precisely the point.
Alukta’s debut is not easy listening. It’s demanding, immersive, and profoundly human. The production by Déhà gives every texture room to breathe – you can almost feel the air between the drums and the ghosts. By the time the final note fades, you’ve been somewhere sacred and terrifying.
Conclusion
Merok (2025) is an experience to surrender to, not simply play. It drags you through the five stages of grief, then leaves you standing in the ashes, oddly at peace. I finished the album feeling hollowed out yet grounded – as though I’d glimpsed something ancient stirring beneath modern sound.
Review score: 85%
Video
Disclosure
Grand Sounds PR contacted me inviting me to preview Alukta’s then-forthcoming album Merok – thank you. I have no connections to either Grand Sounds PR or Alukta. I’m not being paid to review this, but I did get a free digital copy of the album to review, which is pretty cool. Many thanks to Grand Sounds PR, and to Alukta for continuing to create fresh, exciting doom-ritual black metal.