On 11 July 2025, Horror Pain Gore Death Productions will release the first full-length by Northern Maryland solo project Embers of Ouroboros. Founded in 2023, the band blends first- and second-wave black-metal textures into what its creator calls “grim, atmospheric melancholic Black Metal” that “holds a mirror to the twisted faces of fallacy, cognitive dissonance and pathological nihilism.”
The label points listeners toward WARLOGHE, SAPTHURAN, EMPEROR, DARKTHRONE and CLANDESTINE BLAZE for rough stylistic bearings, but the record’s guiding impulse comes from a personal history rooted far from Maryland’s catacombs.
“I spent a large amount of my childhood in Mississippi,” the musician explains. “Mississippi is super hot… stupid hot. If you go onto your driveway at 2 a.m., the cement is still very warm under your feet. And it stays hot for 70 % of the year… just miserable.”
Those sweltering days made the first hint of autumn feel almost metaphysical. He remembers mid-October relief, the start of school, Halloween, fading daylight and “the transitioning into the dark, cold months… for me there’s a power, an energy, that that time of year is so special. So nostalgic.”
The new album’s title grew directly from that atmosphere. “The Autumnal Decline and Hermetic Maturation is the trunk of the tree that grew out of those childhood experiences. The universal experience of dying, being reborn, and becoming something more than what you previously were… it’s a theme that can be found everywhere.”
Early musical triggers were equally vivid. In 1987 a seventh-grade acquaintance handed over MISFITS’ Earth A.D. cassette, an encounter that felt “like something I had never heard before. The screeching feedback, the horror vibe, Glenn Danzig roaring at you without breaking eye contact.”
That same winter he saw DANZIG’s “Twist of Cain” on Headbanger’s Ball: “They all looked like they had just been released from prison; they played their instruments with such ferocity.” Next came the hunt for SAMHAIN’s November Coming Fire, and with it a deeper fascination with “All Hallow’s Eve, and the onset of the coming autumn.”
The record’s nine song titles read like philosophical prompts—“Innate and Gnarled,” “A Comforting Darkness,” “Systemic Metamorphosis,” “The Incarnation of Hypocrisy.” Each phrase carries layers the lyricist expects listeners to excavate themselves:
“Lyrically I usually write free verse, where I weave words and phrases into concepts which should always be taken with a grain of salt. They are allegorical in nature, because I want my fans to work for the meanings… Life and death are filled with such tremendous complexity, and to gloss over our experience with superficial, shallow lyrics is something for which I have no time or patience.”
Visuals extend the same argument. The CD art shows a lone figure burning away in self-isolation: “To know yourself is to suffer alone, see what you’ve got within you when no one is around to help… The light of the flames? It fades to darkness in the upper right corner. Because every solution creates more problems, more struggle, more heartache.”
Although drums, guitars, bass and vocals are all handled by one person, he resists the “studio hermit” cliché. Lack of local interest, rather than ideology, keeps Embers of Ouroboros a solo operation: “I have tried to find interested musicians to play live… Maybe one day someone will find the music interesting enough for us to go live. Put the music to the test and tear it up.” Until then he channels surplus energy into a second outfit, Moonchapel—“more primal, more stripped down, less melody, more focus on hierarchy, to create and build tension”—whose debut is currently being mixed.
The relationship with label head Mike Juliano (HPGD) is described in plain terms: “Working with Mike… has been a dream come true. He has selflessly decided to take a financial risk and allow me to use his label… He patiently helped me get everything right.” That gratitude sits beside a pragmatic outlook on the future: “One day at a time. I can’t see myself ever not making music… I have close to over a hundred songs written and composed for Embers of Ouroboros. I want to release all of it.”
As for The Autumnal Decline and Hermetic Maturation itself, the artist prefers the work to stand on its own, but he offers one final frame of reference:
“I think many fans of metal, whether extreme or not, crave something more than what they see every day. They crave meaning, for something that’s bigger than the individual parts… Music is for the musician’s soul, but it’s also our opportunity to create catharsis for the listeners.”
The album arrives on CD and digital formats this Friday, inviting anyone drawn to black metal’s reflective edges to test that claim.
