Lithuania’s modern-metal outsiders collide blast beats, progressive metal, electronics, trap and theatrical storytelling on a dark fairytale about the vices lurking inside us.
There are plenty of ways for a metal band to announce that it intends to do things differently. Black Spikes have apparently decided that the best approach is to throw the entire rulebook into the fire.
The Lithuanian quintet return on 28 August with Ydos, their second full-length album and their first release through Austrian heavy-music institution Napalm Records. If the early material is anything to go by, this is a band with absolutely no interest in staying obediently inside one particular corner of the metal spectrum.
And that is precisely what makes Ydos so intriguing.
Black Spikes have built their sound around collision rather than convention. Progressive metal, electronic textures, crushing riffs, blast beats, breakdowns, atmospheric passages and even trap and rap elements are all allowed into the same room. Metal Hammer's assessment of the record highlights that restless mixture, pointing to progressive passages and blasts on “MOTINA”, rap and trap beats on “MELAS”, and pulsing electronics and punishing low-end on “ZELVAR”.
The result isn't simply genre soup, either. There is a deliberate narrative holding the whole thing together.
Welcome to the world of Ydos
The Lithuanian word ydos refers to vices or flaws, and Black Spikes have turned that idea into a dark musical fairytale. Rather than simply writing a collection of heavy songs and attaching a concept afterwards, the band say the story came first and guided the songwriting process. Each track explores a different human vice, giving the album a structure that is closer to a nightmare fable than a conventional collection of singles.
Opening track “PASAKA” — meaning “fairy tale” — establishes that atmosphere with ticking sounds and orchestral textures before vocalist Agni enters with high vocals and screams. “MOTINA”, translated as “mother”, then begins the story of the birth of the vices, expanding into growls, blast beats and elaborate guitar work.
From there, the album gets considerably stranger.
“MELAS” explores lies while bringing trap and rap into the band's modern-metal framework. “MARA” tackles excessive curiosity through sharp contrasts between serenity and violence, while “ZELVAR” represents greed and is notable for containing the album's only English lyrics. “REVANA” turns its attention to revenge, before “APATIJA” explores apathy and “AUREA” examines pride.
It is an ambitious idea — and, crucially, one that seems to have been allowed to influence the music rather than merely decorate it.
Heavy enough to crush, strange enough to linger
At the centre of all this is Agni's remarkably flexible vocal performance. The band's music can move from atmospheric and almost hypnotic passages into shrieks, screams and deep guttural growls without seeming to lose its sense of identity. Metal Hammer likewise singled out her range, describing a voice that moves between whispers, screams and growls in her native Lithuanian.
That use of Lithuanian is another part of what makes Black Spikes stand apart. Rather than abandoning their native language in pursuit of an international metal audience, the band have made it an integral part of their identity. Even when you cannot understand the words, the theatrical delivery makes the songs feel less like straightforward verse-chorus compositions and more like scenes from some beautifully sinister film.
That cinematic quality has already been noticed by critics. MetalTalk praised the album's combination of orchestration, blast beats, progressive and djent-influenced rhythms, electronic textures and changes in tempo and dynamics, while other coverage has highlighted the way Black Spikes combine darkness with unexpectedly graceful or atmospheric passages.
A band suddenly stepping onto a bigger stage
Ydos also arrives at an important moment for Black Spikes.
The band have recently signed with Napalm Records — a significant step for a group emerging from Lithuania's metal scene — and the album follows increased attention at home, including a double nomination at Lithuania's M.A.M.A. Music Awards. They also spent 2026 on the road with Infected Rain and Butcher Babies, giving audiences outside Lithuania a chance to experience the band's theatrical approach in the flesh.
That live identity matters. Reports from the tour describe Black Spikes as a visually striking act as well as an intensely heavy one, with costumed musicians, atmospheric staging and contemporary dance adding another layer to the performance.
In other words, the band aren't simply making unusual records. They appear to be building an entire world around them.
The rulebook was never going to survive
There is something refreshingly fearless about Ydos. Black Spikes aren't attempting to reinvent every component of heavy music individually; instead, they are asking what happens when you stop worrying about which components are supposed to belong together.
The answer, judging from the material already released, is a record where blast beats can collide with electronic bass, progressive arrangements can give way to trap rhythms, ethereal vocals can suddenly become monstrous screams, and a song about an abstract human vice can still hit with the physical force expected from modern extreme metal.
That makes Ydos less a rejection of extreme metal than an expansion of its borders.
The rulebook, then, hasn't merely been bent.
Black Spikes have set fire to it — and are dancing in the flames.