North Carolina’s foremost purveyor of yearning, Mélancolie du Dhampir, has been quite busy since 2025’s excellent debut Amor, having also released two splits with Visonfethacsis and Cœur de Ronces. Rather than slowing down or taking a break to prioritize any of her other excellent projects being put out through her label Oakheart Productions, Countess Valentina Carmilla Iskariot has returned with her second full length, Noblesse.
This record is a whirlwind of triumphant riffing, chords stacked to the ceiling, punishing drums, agonized and ferocious vocals, and harmonies that could make even the most hardened of souls shed a tear. To give you an idea of what is being presented on Noblesse, the lone statement from Carmilla about the record on its Bandcamp page reads, “Lunatic Ecstasy. The disease of obsession is hard on any girl.”
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Noblesse begins with a woman crying on “She of my Blood” until the song bursts open with an insane howl accompanied by unrelenting blast beats and soaring guitar harmonies, then breaking into the riffing style that feels immediately recognizable as Carmilla. She piles chords sky high, taking cues from Finland’s finest black metal acts and contorting their styles into something far more heartwrenching, infused with guitar leads and harmonies that somehow wouldn’t be out of place on a Versailles or Blood Stain Child record. “She of my Blood” sets the tone for the rest of the album without giving away any of the highlights yet to come, and emphatically reflects Noblesse’s ethos, which reads “Mélancolie du Dhampir is here to stay, believe in it or fuck off.”
“Le Baiser du Sang” puts the exclamation point on what the opener already emphasized, starting with a rock-solid opening riff and never straying from the foundational “Riff first, ask questions later” approach that Carmilla employs on Noblesse. The post-verse section here feels like shifting into high gear in a Lamborghini, and the riff around the four minute mark is a highlight of the entire record, to the point that it almost sounds like it’s singing lyrics of its own that aren’t meant for mortal ears. Also present on “Le Baiser du Sang” is one of Noblesse’s greatest strengths: the guitar solos. Carmilla simultaneously rips through scales with the speed of a Shenyang J-15 while evoking palpable emotion in every bend and sustain. If anyone doubted that Noblesse was forged with precision and intent, the guitar solos that bless nearly every song should put that notion soundly to rest.
The best song on the record is, undoubtedly, “Noble Blood, Spirit Resonance.” It’s an unfuckwithable barn-burner, starting out with Carmilla’s trademark harmonies building the tension until she puts her foot on the floor and goes full Sonic Firestorm-era Dragonforce. After the verse and a brief return to Dhampirforce, the song then breaks into a section around the two minute mark that I can only describe as a post-hardcore or even midwest emo riff played through a melodic black metal lens. The thing is, it works perfectly and doesn’t remotely feel out of place. The song then blossoms into the most melodically powerful guitar solo across all of Noblesse, with a lead tone some players could only dream of. Then, after one final verse, the song ends as quickly as it arrived. It is an absolute masterclass and a fantastic showcase of Carmilla’s songwriting abilities.
Her cyclonic six-stringed spellcasting soars across Noblesse, including the Buckethead-flavored guitar leads over the verses in “Hollow Heart” and the ending section that feels like raising your sword in victory on a mountaintop at dawn just after the white-hot guitar solo, “Lunatic Euphoria”’s surprise key change and ‘90s In Flames harmonies following the call-and-response vocals that feel like communicating with the deceased, “Dog Woman” highlighting Carmilla’s killer harmonies and boasting one of the best guitar solos across Noblesse, and “Consanguinamorous Wretch” pulling out all the stops by showing off Carmilla’s serious J-Metal influence and her most frenzied vocal performance.
While Noblesse is sloppy in parts, such as the few missed strums and picks across the second half of “Le Baiser du Sang,” that sloppiness reads as authentic rather than lazy – Noblesse is anything but the latter. It’s a labor of love, delivered earnestly, and the lyrics on Noblesse reflect that seriousness as they delve into subjects of loss within love: romantic suicide, yearning, the devastation of unrequited love, a willingness and desire to die for your soulmate, and profound sadness and lamentation. This is all enveloped by a veil of vampirism and, yes, melancholy.
What Carmilla has brought to the table with Noblesse should be hailed as a revelation in the underground black metal space. By combinating widespread influences, both the album and Mélancolie du Dhampir become an entity all their own. Noblesse is simply phenomenal; a staggeringly aberrant record with soul-crushing undertones, carrying a sense of longing and desperation that in many ways actively rejects the hallmarks of hatred within the genre. Instead, it highlights desire and devastation intertwined with the ventricles of heartache.
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Noblesse is available now via Oakheart Productions.
