The dudes from HEXJAKT remind me of Ireland's TRIGGERMAN or the US's MIDNIGHT GHOST TRAIN. I know there are more popular bands that might fit the profile, but I'm drawing from an underground extreme metal base. They just have this commanding presence that projects an intention to abuse your eardrums and ignite your soul with some down and dirty heavy ass metal. And HEXJAKT does exactly that with their debut full-length album, "Blessing of the Damned." It was released on December 1, 2025, so you're forgiven if you haven't bumped into it until now. At least that's what I tell myself. It's a hell of an album.

Here are the basics: Eight tracks, 62 minutes, Stoner/Doom leaning more to Doom, power trio, gravelly vocals. Monolithic is a good tag for them, in fact, it's the name of one of the tracks. Thematically, they're a bit occultish but not in a psych or fuzzy way, more in a lyrical sense. Tracks like "10,000 Crows," "Black Circle," "Wyrd" as well as the cover art scream bleak, gothic doom. Their name also translates to witch hunt. So yeah. But there is also a broader cosmic doom thing going on with "Void Throne" and the aforementioned "Monolith." And then there's a cover of DIO's "Don't Talk to Strangers." I guess what I'm saying is it's tempting to pigeonhole this band, but they're more diverse than you might think.  

My favorite tracks are the ones that surprised me in one way or another. These include "The Act of Dying" with its eerie opening which abruptly shifts into an unforgiving sonic beat down; "Monolith" with a riff that just swaggers in and gets funky as hell . . . also the bass break and the following rebuild is just nasty, nasty, nasty; and the unique interpretation of "Don't Talk to Strangers" which if not for the title would be hard to pin. All the other tracks are also very solid, but these three caught me off guard, delivering the unexpected in a really compelling way.

Just when I think I'm done with Doom, someone breaks the door down and refreshes the scene. Actually, who am I fooling? I'll never be done with Doom. It's too deeply engrained in my psyche, but I do stand by the idea that HEXJAKT has something new to offer. Before you write off 2025 and get too far gone with 2026, cast back and check out "Blessing of the Damned." Straight 8's for this one.