BLAK – Mont Solitud

“Mont Solitud reimagines isolation as not just being alone but exposes the different ways of perceiving loneliness. Each track explores a different emotional shade of being alone, from the ache of disconnection to the peace found in stillness. Through rich, ambient textures and heartbreaking melodies, BLAK allows you see solitude as a space for clarity and quiet resilience“

Music is such a powerful medium. When it hits, it hits hard. There are some albums out there that will forever be part of your musical journey and your sonic DNA. Music has this transcendental ability to mentally tattoo a moment in time into one’s psyche, almost like a memento or a keepsake. Whether it’s uplifting or heartbreaking, it becomes part of you. When I first heard BLAK’s Between darkness and light back in 2017, there were no words to describe how the album made me feel. It just connected and resonated far beyond genres. It was just perfect.

El Tall d’Escil·la followed in 2021, and that too left its mark, such were the stunningly beautiful and classically influenced compositions they crafted. So, here we are in 2025, and we are once more gifted with a new studio album from the guys from Roda De Ter, Catalonia. And let’s get one thing clear before I even attempt to review it. It is stunning.

Mont Solitud reimagines isolation as not just being alone but exposes the different ways of perceiving loneliness. Each track explores a different emotional shade of being alone, from the ache of disconnection to the peace found in stillness. Through rich, ambient textures and heartbreaking melodies, BLAK allows you see solitude as a space for clarity and quiet resilience. Mont Solitud reframes loneliness as a safe space to breathe.

The opening track, La Solitud Es Refuir (Loneliness is a refuge) glitches and crackles before a lonesome guitar strums through the opening scene, as dancing tremolo guitars lament and paint the backdrop to proceedings in true BLAK fashion. The music patiently grows and manifests itself into a cacophony of guitars and drums which curl and crash like a tidal wave of noise, wild, raw, and heartbreakingly melancholic. Each guitar layer lashes out with thunderous riffs, colliding and overlapping, creating a wall of sound so dense that it hangs heavy in the sea below.  It’s unapologetic, it’s melodic, and it epitomises everything that’s beautiful about BLAK’s compositions and orchestration.

La solitud és gàbia (Loneliness is a cage) brings the gentle strings of Chinese experimentalists An Corporation to the table and what a masterpiece both parties conjure up here. The patience and the soulfulness that drips off every note is mesmerizing……then four minutes in…. boom! Power personified, as every instrument comes together in a whirlwind of unbridled rapture and utter euphoria. The next track, I am you follows in a chorus of voices and is the centerpiece of the album for a reason. The band asked followers and fans to send in their recording of the harmony and what BLAK have created is something truly special and truly unique. Everybody is part of the journey.

Gernacio is twelve minutes of delicately textured tones and layers that drift between slow, ambient minimalism and vast cinematic instrumentation. It’s a towering, slow-burning piece that grips you with its sheer emotional weight. Tremolo guitars echo and drift across an expansive sonic field, setting a tone that’s both mournful and majestic. As the track unfolds, it swells and soars with seismic power, harnessed by the reverb drenched chords and the thunderous percussions that adorn it. The restraint in its pacing just seems to amplify the drama. It’s devastatingly beautiful, as each crescendo becomes a tidal surge of power, emotion and intensity, all expressed in its purest form.

Llarga Vida (Long life) is a three-minute interlude, almost like a moment of reflection and a pause for thought before the closing track, Hi Ha Algu (There’s someone) cradles you to your final destination, the last stop on that train of thought you embarked over 30 minutes earlier. Serene guitars with delicate percussions trickle and flow with grace and grandeur, all the time intensifying and reaching those sweet spots, those grand climatic crescendos…. Or maybe not! What BLAK have done here is something very different. The band have opted not to use those great momentous highs within the track to close the album. Instead, the tone and tempo changes to something far more soothing and restful.  Soft sullen drum rolls and sobering guitars subside and grow faint, finally disappearing onto the ether, the perfect swansong to a perfect album.

BLAK are a band who are proud of their roots and respectful of their musical heritage. You can hear it in everything they play, and you can’t help but become completely immersed in what they are creating and choreographing. Every thought-provoking melody and every aching harmony tugs at each and every heart string within your chest. Mont Solitud is an album that amplifies all the emotions we, as humans, experience in solitude and when we are within our own headspace. There’s a comfort to be found in being alone just like there is joy to be found being with people close to you.