Glad it worked out that I got to review one of my all-time favorite Black Metal bands for Black Metal History Month. They might be my favorite tough call between these guys and Emperor. Now with their 7th full length Watain continues to show how they change and yet stay the same with each album. The first song is a color by numbers ripper from these guys, the production is crisp and big without losing what makes them sound like themselves. In fact, if you stripped away a lot of the symphonic tones from Dimmu Borgir's earlier work comparisons can be drawn sonically. "Howling" has some catchy riffing that makes this more apparent. There is some dark and tasty guitar work on "Serimosa".
'Black Cunt" is not what I thought it would be like. With that title I assumed it would be a blasty punk thing, but instead there are goth moments. The blasting fury does not occur until "Leper's Grace". This one I can see these guys playing live as they tend to focus more on the fast in your face ripping moments from their albums. They have a cool thrashing riff toward the end. "Not Sun Nor Man Nor God" is a melodic piano interlude. "Before the Cataclysm" is another fast blaster. Then about a minute and thirty seconds in is one of the coolest riffs I have heard these guys summon yet. They do not hang on it long and back thrashing before this song wanders off into a dark breakdown. This sense of dynamics is what puts the band above their peers when it comes to today's Swedish Black Metal. Their game has stepped way the fuck up with this album.
Farida of Devil's Blood lends her voice to the eerie "We Remain". In comparison the in-your-face speed driven rage of "Funeral Winter" is not as compelling, but that is because they already raised the bar for themselves pretty high here. The song does still have some melodic moments. While up-tempo the last song is more deliberate and the tremolo guitar that coasts over it does not seem like they are defaulting to the conventions of the genre as the tempo riffs under it. I will give this album a 10 it shows the band willing to grow while being true to who they are. Not sure how they hell a black metal band is going to put out a better album this year, and it's only February
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