One of the driving intentions of this blog is to give honest assessments of music being released today that is free of media driven biases, that blurs the line these days between hype and outright propaganda. When this one man black metal project released it's first album, there was not one review that did not bring up the fact it was being created by a Native American. Why does this even matter? It matters even less on the second album, as there are less asides into the folk or traditional sounds that hearken back to the music of his heritage. Not to say there are zero, just not enough to make this sound much different from any other folk metal band trying to sound more like Immortal . Sound wise everything is dialed in to create a much bigger sound than the first album.
For the first actual song and not acoustic intro this is impressive, but then when he hits you with almost the exact same thing on the second song, I am less impressed. The first album we gave only a 7 , because it did nothing remarkable . Here the sound is better, but people are already calling it the black metal album of the year, which must mean they have not heard a great deal of black metal this year. As impressed as the hammering opening song is, this is typical for extreme versions of metal that hit you with a great deal of power before, then once your ears stop ringing and the display of sonic power fades, you can ask for dynamics, melody and songwriting. He gets back on the trail of tears by pulling out clean guitar tones and sad flute melodies for "Spells of Moon and Earth' which serves as little more than an interlude, if you are going to do this sort of thing it is more impressive if you can do something that blends the two like Agalloch has already done.
Also a key component that is missing from the more deliberate moments of the 13 minute "Moss Covered Bones on the Altar of the Moon" is this does not feel all that dark. The growl is more articulated on the verse going into the song, but the lyrics are just typical cryptic nature poetry that all the metal bands trying to be pagan employ, thus losing any sense of mysticism. Three minutes in and it is beginning to bore me. Great guitar sound, sure, but not much more than that going on, add to endure 13 minutes of it seems excessive. Every element of sound that might have been impressive when they were first introduced is just being recycled. The rambling of cosmic fire was already done better by Cloak , the folk whistles of flutes is not going to change this. At the 9 minute mark he goes off into some blasting, but double bass seems to be more of this thing. there was no reason for that song to be drug out like that.
Then a 11 minutes song follows with over indulgent guitar harmonies that could have been dialed back along with relentless blasting that is intense, but feels empty inside. Three and a half minutes a hooky guitar riff that is worth a shit come in to try to save things. But the rule here is cool riffs alone does not a good song make. There is a break down for acoustic guitar to pick the chords out , which feels like it is just following the folk metal tropes. It is built back up in the most predictable manner, which is the main problem with this album is the lack of originality for all the hype it feels like you have heard this all before. The second instrumental interlude, feels like the intro of a Metallica song with native flute where the guitar solo would be.
"Twilight Hymn of Ancient Blood" heads in more of a death metal direction. The growls go lower, and it's at a very deliberate pace, which sounds better than the rushed attempts at black metal. It drones heavily on the main riff. From a songwriting perspective "Sadness and the Passage of Time" is the best song on the album, it is darker and more melodic, with the vocals serving more purpose. The album closes with a cover of Bathory's "A Fine Day to Die" not sure if this is needed as not a great deal is being brought to the table to add to the original. Overall an improvement over the first album, I will give this an 8.5, so not the best black metal album of the year so far by a long shot. If you are wondering what is ...well I guess I will have to work on that.
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