Out April 10, 2026
Via Eisenwald Records
Words by: Courtney Stark
Haunted. A fitting translation of the Latin word “Uada,” and the feeling that is evoked when listening to the Portland-based quartet, whose presence looms large within the congregation of American black metal. Their sound lingers like palo santo smoke drifting through a crowded room — thick, atmospheric, and slow to dissipate, clinging to everything it touches long after the final note fades.
Haunted is more than a feeling — it’s a presence. A fitting embodiment of the name UADA and their music. If you have been to their shows, you will know this feeling. The performances are less of a concert and more of a ritual.
A decade after being summoned into existence, the Portland-based black metal quartet return with their latest offering, emerging among the flood of releases that have come to define 202666.
But this is not another full-frontal assault — not another descent into tremolo and blast beats. No wall of sound or demonic banshee screams. Instead, their latest opus Interwoven strips everything back, peeling away distortion to expose something far more fragile beneath. What was once cloaked in density is now laid bare through acoustic passages, subtle string arrangements, and a sense of space that feels almost intrusive.
The album unfolds more like a ritual than a reconstruction — rooted in something older, more ancestral, where whispers, chants, the hum of the cello and the unexpected moments of melody emerge without warning.
The six-track album features two covers — Der Brandtaucher by Rome and Something in the Way by Nirvana. Songs you never quite realised needed to exist in this form, yet here they feel almost inevitable. Even the Nirvana cover burrows deeper, dragging an already somber track further into shadow, amplifying its isolation and stretching its melancholy into something colder, more suffocating than before.
In the end, Interwoven is not an album that seeks to redefine UADA, but reveals a side of the band that feels less performed and more instinctive. What remains is something haunting in a quieter sense — not overwhelming, but persistent — an album that settles in slowly, and lingers long after it has faded, like smoke that never quite clears.
