Ever since leaving Judicator, Alicia Cordisco has remained intermittently active in the underground, with projects like Transgressive and Wraithstorm showing she's more than capable of working in more extreme sounds and doing more than just relying on past glories. Most recently, she has returned to her self-named project and appears to be treating it as a sort of dumping ground for any musical ideas she has that she can't exactly dedicate a whole new band to, this time using it to explore the often grim and hateful lands of black metal to bring an album that's far more emotionally vulnerable than the style often bothers with, and all the more beautiful and excellent for it.

The base of The Burden of I is undoubtedly '90s black metal, more so the melodic Scandinavian side of things rather than anything relating to the second wave, but that doesn't make this just another album riding the nostalgia wave. Rather, Alicia uses that base to build long, engaging songs with hints of thrash and trad in the melodies and more musicality than black metal is often associated with, capable of bouncing between rolling harmonies, atonal flailing, and absolutely stunning lead work that made my jaw drop more than once. This is all supported by well-programmed drums courtesy of Brett Windnagle of Soulmass and solid bass work from Aliciah herself, and they're all given urgency thanks to vocalist Vanessa Funke's powerful rasps that have more bite to them than the average croaker.

By itself, this album stands among the best black metal this year thanks to expert songwriting and powerful musicianship, but it's the purpose of this work that makes it special in the field. The album is an exploration of intense loneliness and despair that doesn't rely on shocking lyrics or imagery to get its point across, but rather just talks about these ideas in a simple and direct manner. I admittedly prefer a bit more poetry to my lyrics, and that mixed with the trend of low-fi bands vaguely gesturing at anguish and sorrow with piss poor lyrics and music might lead some to be dismissive of the emotional core at work here, but it's that very honesty and lack of flash that make it effective, because it is in service to an album that isn't about reveling in or impressing with how sad it can be, but meditating on these very things from a deeply personal perspective and sharing that with the world at large, which requires a bravery that many supposedly deep and emotional bands tend to lack.

Stirring, heartbreaking, and dazzling through it all, The Burden of I stands as a highlight in an already-storied career from a skilled hand that deserves more credit than she often gets, along with being one of the year's best.