Review by SzejkElRopa on February 25, 2026.

The anonymous man behind a Swedish mysterious project called Faidra caused a stir among black metal fans with an out-of-nowhere debut called "Six Voices Inside" back in 2019, which delivered a good portion of atmospheric black metal in a style that very much resembled Burzum's "Filosofem", especially when it comes to keyboards. In 2023, the second chapter was released, and it hasn't turned out to be as successful as the previous one yet.

Although there is slightly more complexity in the music compared to the previous album, it is kept in a minimalistic way. Songs are built over one riff, which is repeated all over until the end of the song. Despite song lengths, which range from seven to nine minutes, each riff is repeated tastefully without boring the listener. This is thanks to the keyboards, whose usage on this album is quite prominent. The sound, as it was with "Six Voices Inside", conjures up "Filosofem"; however, the influence is not as obvious as it was. The keyboards are one of the most important factors in crafting the atmosphere, which is dark, quite liturgical, and fantastic at the same time. Another one of them is small, subtle, yet important sound samples that are thrown all over the album. For instance, in "Mother Acherontia", a person saying the sign of the cross in Latin can be heard. This is quite unusual for black metal because when it comes to a record kept in the stylistics of the second wave, I would expect anything but that. Back to the music, the album is kept mostly mid-tempo with occasional speed-ups or atmospheric breaks when other instruments (such as piano in "Jaws of Neptune") kick in. On its own, this doesn’t seem to be extremely extraordinary or important; however, it makes "Militant: Penitent: Triumphant" more gripping and interesting. Lastly, according to the sole member of Faidra, this album deals with the Catholic Church and its problems, though without mentioning Satan or church burnings in a silly way.

As could be expected for a black metal record, the guitar plays fast-paced tremolo riffs almost all the time, except for the song "Punishment Nailed Deep", whose riff was by far the most interesting. My personal favorite was the one in "Mother Acherontia", which was by all means an earworm. There are some more unusual — for a heavily second-wave-inspired album — guitar tricks, such as a melodic riff in the middle section of "Jaws of Neptune" or a gloriously sounding riff in "Halo of Ashes", and an acoustic guitar (I hope so) at the beginning and end of "Parousia Delayed". Even though drums aren’t played in any extraordinary way, they work well with the guitars, dictate the tempo of the album very well, and are slightly more sophisticated than in the previous album. Two things can be praised: the double vocals, which didn’t fail to impress, and the audibility of the bass guitar, which made the album even darker. One of the problems for an inexperienced listener might be the production, which is undoubtedly inspired by older releases; however, it doesn’t ruin the fun of listening to this album.

Of course, this album isn’t perfect at all and has some minor flaws, such as the way the songs end. It was mentioned by others, but I need to include that problem in this review as well. Five of the six songs ended with a fade-out. Of course, this type of ending isn’t bad at all; however, the repetitiveness of this type of ending is. What is more, the song "Parousia Delayed" ended very well, making this song well thought out.

Overall, "Militant: Penitent: Triumphant" isn’t a groundbreaking record; however, it has a great atmosphere and is another good work by the anonymous man behind Faidra. It should definitely be checked out by a lot more people because it is of slightly better quality than "Six Voices Inside", and is, I guess, commonly overlooked. I give it 9.1, because it didn’t make a revolution in my music taste, but I had a great time listening to it.

Rating: 9.1 out of 10