Let’s deal with the elephant in the room. Metal has always hated posers. And with Blackbraid’s prominence, accusations appeared that Sgah’gahsowáh may have been overstating his Native American roots. While he undoubtedly has Indigenous ties, those seem to be weaker than initially presented by the artist. Depending on your perspective, his adoption of a Mohawk name, without clear tribal or reservation affiliation, is either an act of reconnecting with his history or disrespectful appropriation; his embracing of his Native identity is a sincere way of reckoning with his culture, or cynical LARPing. This stuff may not matter to you at all, or it may matter deeply. But it’s worth being aware that Krieger/Sgah’gahsowáh’s relationship with his identity and his past is, like his native land, complex and messy.
Which leads us to Blackbraid III. To my ears, this is Blackbraid’s finest album yet. Like a long ride through a majestic landscape with your best friend, Blackbraid III manages the incredibly difficult task of being both wildly epic and deeply intimate at the same time. It marries the disparate elements of its predecessors into a compelling whole. The basic building blocks are still there: scorching black metal mingled with gentler interludes highlighting nature or Indigenous instruments. But Blackbraid III is no noodly atmoblack with more fuzz than riffs; this thing absolutely rips with memorable earworms. From the opening ferocity of “Wardrums at Dawn on the Day of My Death,” there is a relentless energy and verve to the music, which is indelibly infused with its creator’s vision, without resorting to cringy gimmickry. Other tracks, like “The Dying Death of a Sacred Stag,” are far more intimate, with moments of real emotion and vulnerability folded into the blast beats and rasping yelps. The strong songwriting is evident throughout the album, but “Tears of the Dawn” and “And He Became the Burning Stars” are Blackbraid III’s core and the jewels in its crown. They are epic and melodic in a way that brings to mind the best of Moonsorrow or Agalloch.
Complaints are few, but Blackbraid III’s interludes err on the longer side, which will irritate some. I found them a welcome break from the intensity of the heavier stuff, but there’s no question that they are not as interesting as the main tracks. By my 10th listen, however, I found myself occasionally skipping through them. I also found the sludgy, dense “God of Black Blood” to be weaker, both musically and tonally, than the epic songs that surround it. Finally, the album really should have ended with the giant, majestic, “And He Became the Burning Stars.” The closer, “Fleshbound,” feels tacked on and closes things on a slightly anticlimactic note.
Nevertheless, Blackbraid III makes it three in a row for Sgah’gahsowáh. It is, frankly, everything a fan of either the band or this style of music could possibly want. Like the land that inspires it, it is infused with violence and beauty and complexity. But it’s the ability to combine these disparate concepts with epic scope and intense vulnerability that sets it apart. Blackbraid continues to grow as an artist, and his albums reflect this growth. If you’re able to look past the controversy of his identity, you’ll see that one of metal’s shining stars has, miraculously, again delivered one of the year’s best.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Independent Release
Websites: blackbraid.bandcamp.com | blackbraid.us
Releases Worldwide: August 8th, 2025
