Wormlight - Wrath Of The Wilds (EN)

Band: Wormlight (S)
Genre: Melodic Black Metal
Label: Black Lion Records
Albumtitle: Wrath Of The Wilds
Duration: 55:11
Releasedate: 25.04.2018

They made it after some cast changes, two EP’s and four years of band history. Wormlight from Umeå release their debut "Wrath Of The Wilds". The info sheets says that it is an epical atmospheric Melodic Black Metal album, therefore my expectations have been high.

One notes immediately after the first tones of the opener "Wrath Of The Wilds" the icy cold and sinister atmosphere that the Swedish create with extreme fast tremolo picking paired with violent blastbeats. Thus Wormlight masterly link elements of the classical 90th Black Metal with numerous characteristics of modern, atmospheric music. The band uses now and then also elements of Post-Rock like in the varied song "Vittramark". Especially calm accoustic guitars are here in the foreground at the beginning. The wall of sound is now an then interspersed by melodic solos and nearly continuously coated by Tiamat Invictuz’s sometimes high, nagging or deep, aggressive growls.

The songs sound quite varied but the individual passages seem frequently denominated. The transitions are between the very different themed individuals are rather abrupt which is why this sounds partly as this could not be right. Also the songs are still similar and that unfortunately makes the album quite boring after repeated listening.

The melodies in the songs come sadly bad off in somes places. So "The Ghost Light’s Dance" is quite boring for example (also several other songs). In contrast the recurrent melody of the opener and titletrack is nearly continuously available but it seems absolutely meaningless as it consists of empty fifths intervals.

The production has an positive effect on the contrary: The guitars are extremely skewed but not overmodulated, bass and drums are transparent and the vocals fit perfectly in the overall picture.

Conclusion:
Wormlight present a good Black Metal album with "Wrath Of The Wilds" that has a lot of great approaches being mainly realized quite good. Certainly there is a lack of musical highlights and that’s why the album vegetates. But I think that future releases could be highly interesting if the band has more routine in songwriting!


Rating: 5,5/10

Recommendations: Reptilian King, Vittramark, Cry Of The Nameless