Album Review: V/Haze Miasma – Praise Me! Erase Me! (Inertial Music)

German post-metal collective, V/Haze Miasma, release their new album titled “Praise Me! Erase Me!” on the 7th of November via Inertial Music.

V/Haze Miasma were founded as a studio project in southern Germany, led by guitarist and composer Johannes Lenk (Hjort). The band made their first mark with the debut album agenda:endure in 2020. It was a record highly praised, particularly for its depth and atmosphere and saw them sign with Supreme Chaos Records who rereleased it in 2023. The album’s follow up was the excellent EP Nebula and again showcased a band of immense talent, dealing in contrast as they mix between blackened aggression and atmospheric melody.

As a band, they cite the likes of Swallow the Sun, Enslaved, Sólstafir, Ihsahn, Cult of Luna, and Neurosis as influences but they do genuinely have a style and sound that is very much their own.

Now, in 2025, signed with Inertial Music, V/Haze Miasma look to release their most ambitious effort to date with Praise Me! Erase Me! An album that delves deep into topics around the fragility of human nature, social inequality, hypocrisy and personal struggle.

Praise Me! Erase Me! was produced, recorded, and mastered at Grotesque Studios in Bad Wörishofen and packs evocative artwork created by acclaimed Swedish artist Niklas Sundin (ex-Dark Tranquillity, Mitochondrial Sun).

V/Haze Miasma is Johannes Lenk on guitars , Sebastian Moser on bass and vocals, Andreas Fingas on vocals and Julian Osterried on drums. 

Praise Me! Erase Me! comes packing almost an hour of music on it spread over 8 tracks and kicking off with the, kind of, title track, Praise Me!

Now, V/Haze Miasma are nothing if not patient in this post-metal world, and this opener immediately proves it. The song slowly builds around you, surrounding you in their atmospheric style. Clean tones, violins, humming, and gentle drums layer up with care. When the guitars and drums drop in, the sound still leans on ambience with clean vocals — but the second drop flips everything on its head, exploding into vicious vocals and powerful guitars, bass, and drums. This push-and-pull between styles — shifts in voice, power, and ferocity — defines the track and the album. Lyrically, the yearning to be seen comes through clearly, and the emotion hits hard.

Look, I love this band — and that opener is pure genius.  A song that challenges a little in its style, but just has so much impact, so much atmosphere and feeling in it. I adore it — and things just get better and better from here.

Animos drops some of the interplay and patient style for a tighter and more to-the-point track that leans on the heavier side of the band. Strong vocals, menacing riffs, and punchy bass and drum rhythm offer a song that will force your head to nod and your neck to work. The music stays harsh as we hit the chorus that brings cleaner vocals and a touch of catchiness. Even in these more direct songs, there is still plenty of atmosphere captured, with moments like the extended bass line and harmonised verse where the band play with their creativity and style. You kind of have to when your songs are around 9 minutes long, to be fair.

Demi-Human is the first single from Praise Me! Erase Me! and is perhaps the most accessible and hook-oriented song here. The balance between light and dark, melody and heaviness comes in a more standard style, with clean and airy verses leading into stronger riffs and more emphasis on the vocals for choruses. Nothing V/Haze Miasma do is really standard, though, and with nearly 8 minutes of music to play with, they certainly still manage to chuck in a ton of atmosphere, weight, and depth.

Shadows then gives some respite and breathing room with a 9-minute-long cinematic post-track. Patience and a considered approach to each drawn-out note and echoing guitar line build the atmospherics around you softly and carefully. It is not without its hard-hitting moments, though. Tempo-wise, it never goes too hard, but the impactful riffs, bass, and drums add power when the vocals are being roared, and melody drives the glorious clean vocals on during choruses. It’s another stunning track, and the 9 minutes pass in seconds as it is so easy to just become lost in the masterful song writing.

Eden adds additional piano from Christian Reichinger and evokes a sense of paradise in a delicate track that brings calm and fragility to Praise Me! Erase Me!. If that was the goal, it was met in a track that starts with emphasis, growls, and gusto before settling nicely into glorious harmonised vocals, gentle melody, and the added piano layer. With the moments of traditional heaviness blanketed by the gentle moments, the whole track just feels a little dreamlike and ethereal. I really do love the vocals V/Haze Miasma deliver — whether in the cleans, the harmonising, or the growls — it always hits right for me and my taste.

Karzer continues on the V/Haze Miasma contrasts with a darker track. Subtlety and patience, especially in the build-up, are key factors, but it hits hard with deep, dark, and oppressive riffs. The whole mood seems to have shifted and the vocals are more pained. There is no more light, no more melody, and no flicking between the contrasting styles. This song is dark and dense. I love it.

Cannula, with more of that glorious piano from Christian Reichinger, lifts the darkness a touch with a more emotional song. The variety — song by song and within songs — that V/Haze Miasma deliver on Praise Me! Erase Me! is astonishing, really. Clean and gentle vocals lead us into a track that does a wonderful job of demonstrating that heaviness doesn’t always mean noise, and fragility doesn’t always mean quiet. There are so many layers, textures, and contrasts at work. From piano to ambient spaces to heavy strikes — it’s a journey of self-exploration and has a richness to it that makes it one of the most impressive songwriting feats on the whole of this remarkable album.

All good things must come to an end, and we do so with the second half of the album title, closing the circle with Erase Me!. It’s a bittersweet track — you sense closure coming, the ending and letting-go happening as you listen. Its very idea is sombre — having spent part of the album wanting to be seen, being reflective, desperate, and occasionally hopeful, we now reach the point of demanding to be erased — and musically this song visualises all of that perfectly. The repeating strike on the guitars starts to almost feel like a bell chiming a countdown. The touches of melody hold menace and introspection, leaving a lasting mark.

Praise Me! Erase Me! isn’t just a great follow-up from V/Haze Miasma — it’s a statement album. It’s proof that post-metal can still feel huge, human, and genuinely affecting without ever falling into an overly familiar formula. Across these eight expansive tracks, the band blend patience and power, fragility and fury, melody and menace with masterful confidence. It’s an album that challenges as much as it comforts. This is powerful, thoughtful, unpredictable, and beautiful — often all in the span of a single song. Praise Me! Erase Me! is a journey worth taking again and again.

Tracklist:

1-Praise Me!
2-Animos
3-Demi-Human
4-Shadows
5-Eden
6-Karzer
7-Cannula
8-Erase Me!

V/Haze Miasma Links

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