I don't know. I just love Ambient and Atmospheric Black Metal, the way it makes you feel—that mix of relaxed and scared shitless. Maybe I should be checked, but until then thank the gods for FAUNA who has returned from a 13-year absence to regal us with some bleak noise from the darkest recesses of their imaginations. On September 26, 2025, FAUNA released their fourth full-length album, Ochre & Ash, via Lupus Lounge of Prophecy Productions.

FAUNA specializes in Cascadian Black Metal, a US Pacific Northwest folk/nature take on the Black Metal craft. Regarding their latest release, the band explains: "Although Ochre & Ash looks like a regular album with six tracks at a superficial glance, it is in fact intended as one whole piece that is divided into three 'songs,' which are interspersed with ambient interludes." They also add that "Ochre & Ash is conceived as a shamanic underworld journey, a process of ritual death, harrowing passage through unknown realms, and rebirth into new form."

The basic pattern of the album is interlude followed by song, rinse and repeat x 3. The interludes are highly ambient and short versus the songs which are a mix of Atmospheric and more traditional Black Metal complete with banshee vocals and discordant riffage. The songs are also much longer, e.g. north of 14 minutes. The interludes serve to set the general tone for each pairing, while the songs layer in the more nuanced aspects. With this in mind, I found the final pairing of "Mockery" and "Eternal Return" to be the most compelling. Granted, all other four tracks are noteworthy, but I especially enjoyed the Gregorian chant thing near the end of "Eternal Return."

FAUNA states they want to "take their listeners on a shamanic journey back deep in time into an age of early hunters and gatherers with a black metal ritual that echoes ancient humans assembling at torchlight in dark caves to spray-paint hands, animals, and tools through hollow bone pipes with ochre and ash in an act of magic onto the bare bones of the earth." A lot of bands claim to be Shamanistic in nature. As I'm not a practicing mystic myself, I really have no way of weighing the credibility of those claims. What I can attest to, however, is how the music makes me feel and, yeah, if I think on that album cover which depicts an actual image from Cueva de las Manos ("Cave of the Hands") in Argentina and close my eyes and just let the music take me, I can smell the smoke rolling off the fire, feel the sting of the night frost, sense the ancients in the air.

FAUNA. Ochre & Ash. Cascadian Ambient Black Metal from the shadows of Great Northwest. Close to 70 minutes of dark nature, Black Metal distortion, and ambient disfigurement. Some intriguing stuff. Worth the listen; worth the wait.