Review by Lumina on February 8, 2026.

No Point In Living is back after Yu just released an album under his other project "Retreat Neurosis". This came to me as quite the surprise, albeit a welcome one. The thing that stood out was the fact that Yu called this traditional black metal in the announcement. In retrospect, it is not surprising considering the wide variety of genres Yu has covered under No Point In Living by now, but it's a good decision in my book since I always loved when he went outside of dsbm.

As already mentioned, this album is very reminiscent of the older traditional thrash-y black metal style brought upon by the likes of Darkthrone and other black metal bands from that time. Its execution here is held fairly simple, albeit very decently. Standouts here, as always, are the vocals and guitars. It's been a while since Yu released anything (apart from the aforementioned Retreat Neurosis album), so I am quite glad his vocals haven't deteriorated at all. His guitar skill also hasn't gotten worse; there's plenty of dark riffs and tremolo sections here. Bass is noticeable enough, no complaints there. While the majority of the release follows this, there are some outliers, and one of those is the track 'Begin To Die'. Made quite obvious by the title, this one is more post-black metal focused, with the usual depressing atmosphere brought upon by Yu. The following tracks, 'Blood Flow', 'Crusher', and 'Rise Up' also dip into this. I found myself getting reminded of the band "Autumn, Leaves, Scars" while listening to those.

Overall, quite a nice change of pace, even if I personally would have preferred the style from one of his previous albums, "Beautiful Tragedy".

Favorite Tracks: 'Amaoto', 'Devil In The Mist', 'Begin To Die', 'Blood Flow', 'Crusher', 'Rise Up'

Rating: 9.3 out of 10