Album Review: Chamber of Mirrors – Tales of Blood

Band: Chamber of Mirrors
Album: Tales of Blood
Label: Iron Bonehead Productions
Release date: June 06th, 2025
Country: USA
Format reviewed: High quality digital recording

Album Review: Chamber of Mirrors – Tales of Blood via Iron Bonehead Productions by Ioana

It seems like my tendency of picking the victim of my next review based on vibes alone is paying off, since it just happened to lead me to this record. Given that I was completely unfamiliar with Chamber of Mirrors up until stumbling across the promo material for Tales of Blood, I was fairly ready to be disappointed. That idea changed drastically the moment I saw the album cover. You know that there’s the general consensus that you shouldn’t judge a book (or album in this case) by its cover, but in this case you totally should, because the artist behind it truly put some unholy amount of effort into it. Not only that, but it’s also perfect for the album’s sinister mood. Speaking of that…

From my experience, reverb tends to kill the mood of the record rather than develop it, particularly when it is a main element of the mix. More specifically, reverb on the vocals is in almost all cases a death sentence, mainly due to the fact that it drowns them to the point where they just end up being useless. However, Chamber of Mirrors proves, with Tales of Blood that this can be done very well, and I am more than happy to have discovered that. Now, when I talk about reverb, don’t imagine anything resembling projects such as Xasthur, all the effects used serving the purpose of creating a sinister, evil atmosphere, and not necessarily a somber, depressing one. Everything on this album feels intentional, driving the harshness and dread into your bones, the music coming off as if it was partially recorded in a cave.

Leaving the vocals aside, the most important elements of this album are the drums and the guitar. When analyzing the drums, it’s good to keep in mind that this album doesn’t have that many rhythm shifts, the tempo and the technique being more or less constant throughout the record, without crossing into norsecore blasting territory (impressive feat for the content of 90% blast beats). All of this however only helps make the rare technical shifts punchier and much more memorable. Another aspect that nay not be that obvious at a first listen is that the drumming has an instrumental role in the crafting of the atmosphere, the constant pummeling serving as the perfect backdrop for the vocals and the synth (which I will get to later) to do their job. A song that, in my opinion, highlights this best is “Soul of Sorrow”.

Now, onto the guitars! To put it simply, Tales of Blood has it all: Aggressive tremolo picked riffs, carefully obscured melodies, chaos and everything inbetween. No matter what song from the album you listen to first, there’s a high chance that the first thing that will stand out are the guitars. It’s rare to find a band that offers such a fascinating melodious undertone to music of such intensity, and that aspect alone is enough for me to declare my respect towards Chamber of Mirrors. I find myself unable to accurately put into words the finer details of the guitar work, thus I encourage you to go listen to this album when it comes out and experience it for yourselves.

The last musical element that makes up this record is the synth, which, although not intentionally standing out, definitely left its mark on Tales of Blood. Besides its obvious role in the crafting of the album’s eerie mood, it also serves as a means of occasionally highlighting the melodies hidden in the guitar work, many of which would have otherwise remained lost. It’s always cool to see bands of such intensity use synths in a way that brings out all the harshness, rather than dilute it, and the result is something truly one of a kind.

Closing up, it’s easy to say that this album got me interested in checking out the rest of Chamber of Mirror’s discography. I recommend Tales of Blood wholeheartedly to any and every fan of black metal out there, as it truly deserves recognition and praise. 9.5/10

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