Sometimes I catch myself writing something as oblivious as “King Yosef has easily delivered us his best album to date” but to say anything about this was easy is likely an understatement. The amount of time and energy spent into crafting and memorizing every drop and note before mustering up the stamina to turn this whole epiphany into a live show – I highly doubt there’s anything easy about that. But all that time, energy, sweat, and metaphorical blood (at least I hope its metaphorical) put into King Yosef’s latest has not gone unnoticed as Spire of Fear is one of the heaviest industrial metal releases I’ve ever heard and gave me that it’s-so-good-I-have-a-stank-face-on vibe for the eleven-track run.
Spire of Fear gives us a little spice, a little dip into the molten cocktail on the opening track Feoil. Slamming cymbals and shouts straight from the deepest part of his gut and menacing industrial synths packed into a short but fruitful less-than-two-minute banger that ends on a quiet note before diving head first into the rolling, thunderous bass of Molting Fear. Extreme guitar riffs and industrial thrash at its finest; it’s something that makes you wanna run into a moshpit and just be violent.
Glimmer kicks in featuring Holy Fawn, a three-piece noisy-but-pretty rock project from Arizona. The result is a combination of King Yosef’s heavy recklessness meeting shoegaze textures that pairs beauty with the beast. And it works. After that we’re thrust back into King Yosef’s lone discography whereupon the next standout single is found, Doomtown. While you can expect Yosef’s usual destructive principles on full display there’s also time for some hip-hop inspired beats such as around the 00:57 mark. A quick break before getting kicked in the stomach and finished out with some Doom-soundtrack like demonic chants towards the end.
King Yosef is at home with softer beats as he is with his heavy ones as noted on songs such as Walter. An odd opening that sounds like something straight out of an old black-and-white film transforms into an atmospheric rock song featuring smooth but faded vox. Kick drums give the song a small rough edge but this is a breather after a massive beatdown. As the song moves closer and closer to the end we’re thrust into a noise wall before ending out on a sample.
And of course there’s so much more to the album including the title track and the bonus track on Bandcamp and everything else in between that I haven’t yet covered. But these were the absolute highlights of the album to me and the favorites amongst favorites. This is a start-to-finish album with no skips in between and it’s an absolute unit of an album and one of 2025’s best.
