Darker Ages Ahead by Trébuchet SDG | Review

Two weeks after Days ov Yore laid Vlad Țepeș to rest, Josam has rolled the siege engine back to the walls with his next release from Trébuchet SDG. Darker Ages Ahead is the second full-length from Trébuchet SDG, the Finnish medieval unblack project Josam launched in 2023 with Through the Dark Ages. Like the first album, brace yourself for majestic, mighty melodic medieval black metal. 

"Overture" opens in Latin, "I see the signs of the end of times," and offers a two-word prayer, "Jesu juva." Then it states the thesis plainly: "I see nothing but darker ages ahead."

"Lost at Sea" greets the listener with clanging medieval metal and swelling synth. From there the rapturous, melodic black metal dips into hurdy-gurdy-inspired lows before erupting into a majestic, overwhelming finale of epic proportions. The narrator is a sailor surrounded by pirates and black waves, swearing that neither "the devil nor Davy Jones" can claim his soul. Then the song turns to Matthew 14 and Peter sinking on the water: "Me of little faith, why was I afraid?"

"Veil of Plague" is thunderous and captivating, with gothic choirs haunting the backdrop and tremolos glittering between sharp, pounding drums. The composition grows more symphonic as it goes, grappling with grounded grit and eternal highs alike. Flagellants roam the streets and the danse macabre claims kings and queens, yet "still our faith soars on wings unfurled." "Vir Dolorum" keeps the choirs and that hurdy-gurdy color, crafting an eerie atmosphere without losing the album's steady march. Midway through, the song slows into rumbles that crash like waves of symphonic power.

The title track makes sense as the centerpiece. A medieval procession of synths, black metal blasts, choirs, and clanging steel swells with steady power as Josam tells the story of the Waldensians, driven out of Lyon and hunted through the valleys of Piedmont. The refrain is their ancient motto, drawn from John 1:5: "lux lucet in tenebris." The light shines in the darkness. "Salmo XCI" peels everything back. More howling and more blistering, the track bares the frost-ridden black metal roots beneath all the pageantry. The words are Psalm 91 in Spanish, and they answer the plague song directly: "Ni pestilencia que ande en oscuridad." Nor the pestilence that walks in darkness.

"Defensores" goes wide. Syncopated guitars swirl beneath gothic choirs, and the battling solos lean subtly power metal, almost DragonForce-esque, while the tone stays medieval enough to evoke a grittier Obsequiae. The lyrics deliver a roll call of Christendom's defenders from Charles Martel to Jan III Sobieski, with a certain Wallachian voivode slipping in for the Days ov Yore faithful. Toward the end, the Middle-Eastern sounds Josam has been tinkering with arrive too, giving the song the full scope of what a truly "medieval" sound has to offer.

"Wycliffe's Legacy" shows the Trébuchet sound at its broadest. Black metal supplies the stone walls and the blast-beat momentum, while synths and choirs work like stained glass, throwing color across every riff. The whole thing feels liturgical and martial at once. The song moves through England's age of martyrs, from William Tyndale, killed for translating the Word, to John Rogers, who carried Tyndale's work to completion and sang psalms on his way to the stake in 1555. The key line: the Bible "belongs to all the nations / in the language they can understand." An album sung in Latin, Spanish, and English takes that line seriously.

"Argenti et Auri" turns Jeremiah 10 into a war song against idols, which the prophet compares to a scarecrow in a field that cannot walk or speak. Then everything pulls back to an atmospheric piano solo and some eerie yet calming vocalizing, the album's quietest and most surprising moment. Gold plating fades. The Lord remains.

"The Great Deception" opens with dramatic strings and horns, like a movie trailer, before building into rousing gothic choirs. Serious Two Steps from Hell energy. Matthew 24 supplies the warning: "For many shall come in my name... and shall deceive many."

"Knight's Quest" pulls on every component of the album for a ten-minute epic, fluctuating between melodic black metal and groovy gothic bridges. The knight rides out with Ephesians 6 and Psalm 27 for armor, and the final verse may be the best on the record: "Much mightier than Excalibur / is Your Word, it never breaks."

Fans of Obsequiae and Véhémence will find the medieval craft they crave, and Dawnbreaker listeners will recognize the same theology with teeth. Next to Days ov Yore's historical portraiture, Trébuchet SDG is the more devotional project, closer to a hymnal than a chronicle.

J.S. Bach wrote "J.J.," Jesu juva, at the top of his scores and "S.D.G.," Soli Deo gloria, at the end. Trébuchet opens with the first prayer and carries the second in its name. The darker ages on this record are real, from plague-ridden streets to the stakes of Piedmont and Smithfield. Josam names them honestly, then sets the light against them every time. Medieval black metal fans need this one in their arsenal.

You can check out Trébuchet SDG on Bandcamp, Spotify, YouTube, and Instagram.