ColdWorld – Isolation
Updated: 5 days ago
I Opened a Photobook. And Got Lost.
Alright, so this is another one of those blogs I didn’t plan.
Because I didn’t see it coming.
It’s honestly beautiful how I no longer have to go looking for music. It just keeps finding me.
On today’s episode of "OMG, I haven’t listened to anything else for seven days straight"—ColdWorld’s latest full-length album, Isolation.
Released in 2022, the title is no coincidence. Conceived during the lockdowns and, well—isolation, it is a deeply personal record, capturing the thoughts, moods and feelings that come visiting when you are forced to spend a little too much time alone with yourself.
The album found me whilst I was working. A very large parcel had arrived from Eisenwald, filled with all kinds of merchandise and releases, and I spent three days photographing and editing everything. Trying to find the perfect angles. Trying to show you how beautiful it all looked. Trying to fit everything into a 1:1 frame whilst making sure the bloody background stayed white and cat-hair-free.
And then, quite literally, the last thing I unpacked was Isolation.
I reached for the photobook first.
Sat down. Leafed through it.
When I’m writing music, I see images before my inner eye. During my photography, I hear melodies in my head.
Right.
Well.
That was me sold.
I dug out the vinyl, put it on, and promptly got lost.
Somewhere Between Hope and Desolation
Leere is all eerie sounds and droning, drawing you in with a sense of unease. Slow organ chords. Solemn. The clanking of metal. The sound of waves. It's the soundscape of an abandoned shipwreck.
There is a real break between this opener and the next track, and I wish it wasn't there. Part of me wants those two pieces to blend together seamlessly. Then again, I've spent far too much time listening to forty-minute compositions lately, so I may no longer be qualified to comment on what constitutes a normal song.
Soundtrack to Isolation is the obvious centrepiece of the album. It is the track that stayed with me long after the record had stopped spinning. The one I kept coming back to.
At just over eight minutes, it takes its time. Nothing is rushed. It begins with picked guitar notes quietly wandering through the silence, a melody slowly unspooling and filling the emptiness left behind by Leere. Then, almost before you notice it happening, everything else joins in. Strings. The faintest choirs. Cold black metal riffing. Measured drumming.
And suddenly the song opens up. It creates this incredible sense of width, of standing somewhere vast and empty.
That bittersweet place somewhere between hope and desolation called melancholy, and Soundtrack to Isolation settles there without ever feeling sorry for itself.
Halfway through, the melody steps back and gives way to something more chaotic, more natural, like a whirlwind of sound. The strings swell. Cymbals crash. Everything builds until, just as naturally, it falls away again.
Only strings. Only picked guitar. Humming chords.
Children's laughter drifts through the background, creating this odd sense of disconnection from the world that keeps turning, whether you feel part of it or not.
For a bit the song rests before returning with the full weight of catharsis and drama. The cold riffing stands in perfect contrast to the longing string melody that has by now already worked its way into your head through sheer repetition, and hearing it again feels like coming home.
The orchestration is used beautifully in the final stretch. The music swells, and it's the kind of moment that makes you inhale and square your shoulders. It's epic in a remarkably restrained way. Dramatic without ever becoming showy. Just—incredibly well crafted.
Whales, Wheezing & Wind Chimes
From there, Isolation quietly shifts its mood without ever breaking the spell it has created.
Walz leaves behind the beauty of Soundtrack to Isolation almost immediately. The riffing grows darker, the vocals no longer harmonise—they summon. There is more force behind everything, yet moments of introspection and stillness continue to surface, giving the track an almost post-metal quality before it quietly fades into We Are Doomed.
Here, ColdWorld leans much further into doom. Warbling drones, dramatic strings and slow, heavy drums sit beneath cold tremolo riffs while the lyrics are recited in a ceremonial chant, adding another layer of gloom to the album's already oppressive atmosphere.
The instrumental pieces, Five and Isolation Stagnation, never feel like filler. They're breathing spaces. Moments where the album seems to drift off into its own subconscious. Rippling water, wind chimes, metallic clanging and all manner of strange, distorted sounds create an atmosphere that is equal parts beautiful and unsettling. I still can't decide whether some of those noises are whales, wheezing, something human—or something else entirely.
With Wounds we're back in slightly safer waters. The tempo remains slow and sluggish, the melody carried by strings and guitars while gnarly rasping vocals sit beneath ghostly synths that give everything an almost underwater quality. Wind chimes return, and by the end clean vocals harmonise with the flickering guitar melody, giving me strong Alcest vibes. Just—more depressive. It's dreamy. It just lets you drift.
By the time Hymnus arrives, it no longer feels like another track. It feels like the natural destination the album has been heading towards all along. Ambient soundscapes, patient guitar melodies, black metal rasping, ethereal vocalising—it gathers together everything Isolation has quietly introduced over the previous forty minutes without ever feeling like a grand finale. It simply completes the journey.
A Room to Disappear
Full disclosure—while listening, I kept trying to fit Isolation into a neatly labelled box in my head. Black metal. Atmospheric black metal. Post-black metal. Depressive black metal. But Isolation isn't particularly interested in genre.
It's interested in space. Space between melodies. Space between thoughts.
It borrows what it needs from different corners of black metal and explores. The result is something remarkably fluid.
Melodies drift. Textures shift. Orchestration opens doors.
To rooms you can wander into.
Sit on the floor in. Lie down in if that's what the day requires. Face down, if necessary. Nobody's judging.
This isn't an album to experience one track at a time. It only really works as a whole. It's three quarters of an hour away from the world. Away from reality. Away from the noise. Music to find your way back to yourself. To simply be with yourself for a while.
Because sometimes…isolation is just deeply necessary.