Crestfallen Dusk
United States · last active 2022
Crestfallen Dusk is a mostly one-man Tennessee project led by Ryan Clackner (also of Primeval Well, Vile Haint, and StumpTail) that reimagines black metal through the lens of Mississippi Hill Country blues, citing Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside as touchstones. The 2022 self-titled debut (Moonlight Cypress Archetypes) pairs blast beats and blackened shrieks with twangy, reverb-drenched blues guitar recorded on a vintage 1958 Fender Musicmaster. Sean Meyers (drums) and Zac Ormerod (lyrics/mixing) round out the record's credits.
SCORE PROFILE
Accent numbers counted towards the index. Hover an axis — or hold it on a phone — for what it means.
WHY THOSE SCORES
- Death 1 — Occasional death-adjacent heaviness in the riffing, though the record is squarely black metal.
- Black 7 — Blast beats, lo-fi blackened riffing and scathing wails run through the self-titled debut per the band's own 'avant-garde black metal' / USBM tagging on Bandcamp.
- Technical 2 — Rhythms shift with 'kaleidoscopic tonal, tempo, and emotional changes' but the guitar vocabulary stays rooted in blues/black-metal riffing rather than dense technicality.
- Theatrical 1 — Southern Gothic conceptual framing ('eerie manifestations of sorcery,' cover art tied to the atmosphere) but no stage show evidence found.
- Folk 6 — Defining trait: the album reimagines black metal through Mississippi Hill Country blues (Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside influence).
- Doom 2 — Bass 'rumbles like an avalanche' in slower passages, but the record is mid-tempo blues-black metal, not doom riffing proper.
- Drone 1 — Minimal sustained-tone material; mostly riff-driven.
- Ambient 3 — Lo-fi, atmospheric production creates 'gloomy moods under wet trees' and Southern Gothic dread.
MEMBERS
- Ryan Clacknerguitar, vocals, bass, keys· also in Spintria
- Sean Meyersdrums
- Zac Ormerodlyrics, mixing
CONNECTIONS
FURTHER LISTENING
Nearest score profiles in the atlas.
- UnaffiliatedEI 16KaátaìraBlackFolkAmbient
Kaátaìra (also rendered Kaatayra) is the one-man project of Caio Lemos from Brasília, Brazil, blending atmospheric black metal with acoustic, regional Brazilian folk music. Across albums such as 'Inpariquipê' (2021) and 'Caminhos de Água' (2026, on Avantgarde sublabel Flowing Downward), rasped black-metal fury is threaded through acoustic guitar, folk instrumentation and drawn-out ambient passages. 'Caminhos de Água' is a river-themed suite that even weaves in spoken word from the artist's grandmother.
- UnaffiliatedEI 11Noble DéchetBlackFolk
Noble Déchet is a Quebec City black metal project active since 2020, built around Le Mangeur de Feuilles Mortes (vocals, guitar, bass, double bass, organ) and Jean-Guilde (drums, vocals). RateYourMusic tags and user reviews mark them as avant-garde/folk black metal, layering 'weird folk and pagan esoterica' over raw, occult-themed black metal, with the project's own promotional voice leaning hard into absurdist, self-mythologizing humor.
- UnaffiliatedEI 16그슨대 (Gsndae)BlackFolkAmbient
그슨대 (Gsndae) is a South Korean avant-garde depressive black metal project from Pocheon-si, active since 2018, released via the black metal circle 'Black Poets.' Its sole full-length, 傳說 (Korean Tales) (2018), fuses DSBM/atmospheric black metal with Korean traditional instrumentation and pansori narrative-singing technique, framed as a journey through Korean dark folklore. The project is written, produced and mostly performed by a single artist under the alias 아체 (Arche), with session musicians on guitar and bass.
- UnaffiliatedEI 11Q'uq'umatzBlackFolk
Q'uq'umatz is an anonymous one-person avant-garde metal project based in the Reno, Nevada area, named for the Mayan feathered-serpent creator deity of the Popol Vuh. Since its 2016 debut Tepeu, the project has fused black metal and progressive rock with krautrock and Native American folk textures, layering acoustic instruments over heavier passages. The artist deliberately withholds their identity.
- Blackgaze / avant-blackEI 18Ulver (black metal era)BlackFolkAmbient
Ulver (Norwegian for "wolves") formed in Oslo in 1993 around vocalist Kristoffer "Garm" Rygg, and their first three albums — Bergtatt (1995), Kveldssanger (1995) and Nattens Madrigal (1997) — form the so-called "Black Metal Trilogie" that defines this era. The sound fused raw, buzzing Norwegian black metal and harsh vocals with quiet acoustic folk passages, classical guitars, cello and choral chamber chants, drawing on Scandinavian folktales and Baroque poetry. Kveldssanger dropped electric instruments entirely for a wholly acoustic record, while Nattens Madrigal swung back to deliberately underproduced, abrasive black metal. Together the trilogy made Ulver one of the most distinctive and literary voices of the 1990s Norwegian black metal scene.
- UnaffiliatedEI 20DornenreichBlackFolkAmbient
Dornenreich is an Austrian melodic black metal band formed in 1996 by Jochen 'Eviga' Stock, distinguished by its 'neofolk influenced' sound built around acoustic guitar, percussion, and Thomas 'Inve' Riesner's violin. Across nine studio albums on Prophecy Productions (1997-2021), German-language lyrics and an increasingly ambient, acoustic-leaning palette have accompanied a reputation for theatrical, tightly staged live shows, including a multi-camera concert film shot at Summer Breeze 2007.
- Blackgaze / avant-blackEI 12FuriaBlackFolkAmbient
Furia is a Polish black metal band formed in Katowice in 2003, fronted by Michał "Nihil" Kuźniak, considered one of the most influential and boundary-pushing acts in the Polish scene. The band's self-described "Nekrofolk" style fuses raw black metal with Polish folk, psychedelia and post-punk, drawing on the industrial/forested landscape of Silesia; Nihil and bassist Kamil "Sars" Staszałek also play together in MasseMord. Furia performed at Primavera Sound in 2014 and was nominated for Polityka's Passport award in 2023 for the album Huta Luna.
- Blackgaze / avant-blackEI 14KorovaBlackFolk
Korova is an Austrian avant-garde black metal band formed in Innsbruck in 1990 by Christof Niederwieser, Michael Kröll, Moritz Neuner and Georg Razesberger. Their 1995 Napalm Records debut A Kiss in the Charnel Fields fused black and death metal with dual vocals, unusual time signatures, and acoustic color from timpani, mandolin and violin, following it with Dead Like an Angel (1998). Niederwieser and Neuner later split off to form Korovakill, with Niederwieser also releasing solo material as Chryst.
- UnaffiliatedEI 11NebelkräheBlackFolkAmbient
Nebelkrähe were a black metal band from Munich, active 2007 to their split-up in January 2025. Built on a driving, melodic black-metal core, later records (Ephemer, 2023; a full 2024 re-recording of the 2009 debut Entfremdet) folded in cello, accordion, harmonica and hackbrett (hammered dulcimer) as recurring folk-instrumentation color, with Empyrium's Markus Stock guesting on the Ephemer track 'Kranichträume.' Reviewers describe the late-period sound as 'modern' and varied black metal that stays grounded in the genre while using its acoustic guests sparingly rather than as a wholesale folk-metal turn.
- UnaffiliatedEI 8AnfinnsaasFolkBlack
Anfinnsaas is a Norwegian duo of guitarist Knut Finsaas and drummer Geir Anfinn Halland Johansen, formed in 2013, whose self-titled debut (released September 18, 2015 on Autumnsongs Records) fuses traditional Nordic tunes with metal. Track titles like 'Svensk Revelje,' 'Hålandsdal,' and 'Slått Fra Røstad' point to source material drawn directly from regional folk melody, filtered through a stop-start dynamic that lurches from tuned-down, doom-laden passages into sudden black-metal eruptions. MetalSucks likened the record's post-metal skronk to Gorguts and Dysrhythmia while noting it registers as less overtly heavy and more experimental than either. The album was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Rhys Marsh at Autumnsongs Recording Studio in Trondheim.