The Holeum – Ensis Review: Post-Metal/Death Doom from Spain (2026)
Origin: Murcia/Alicante, Spain
Label: Lifeforce Records
Released: March 20, 2026
Genre: Post-Metal / Death Doom
Rating: 8.5/10
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Never heard The Holeum before this,came in completely blind, no expectations, just a name that sounded like it belonged in a physics textbook. Turns out that's kind of the point , these Alicante five-piece named themselves after an astrophysical theory about dark matter and black holes. Ensis is their third album, and whatever they've been doing in the years since their last record, it was worth the wait.
The first thing that hit me was the atmosphere. Not the riffs, not the vocals , just the mood. There's a doom weight to this record that settles over you almost immediately, the kind that's more about gravity than volume. The guitars are doing a lot of the heavy lifting , building that slow, suffocating blanket of dark sound that good doom lives and dies by. I'm a sucker for it, and The Holeum delivers it hard and without no apology.
What makes Ensis harder to pin down , in a good way is that it refuses to stay in one place. Death metal, post-metal, progressive structures, melodic passages. It's all over the place, and somehow that's exactly what works for me. The transitions shouldn't hold together as well as they do, but they do.
Spontaneous Synchronization is the track that hit me. I can't fully explain it is something in the mood that just clicked,it has this hypnotic pull that the other tracks don't have, a kind of melancholic beauty that sits with you after the album ends. Esoteric Futuristic Visions hits differently way darker, heavier, and Pablo Egido's vocals go full death metal here. That shift is welcome,the drums on that track deserve a mention too, they push the song forward for real.
The production is clean without being sterile. The mastering job gives the record room to breathe while keeping the low end where it needs to be for the doom sections to land properly.
If I had tochoose a weak spot, it's the closing track Geometric Congruence Vortex. There's a computerized vocal effect that pulled me out right at the finish line. After forty minutes of something this emotionally raw, that feels like the wrong call. For me endings matter.
Still ! Ensis left a mark. Melancholic, heavy, and genuinely hard to categorize. That's rare enough to be worth your time.
Rating: 8.5/10
I'll be spinning more albums — stay tuned!
Hauk
If you enjoyed this, check out:
Aedelgard – The Repentance Review
Ashbringer – Subglacial Review
Corridoré – Abandon Review
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