Winterfylleth – The Imperious Horizon
Release Date: 13th September 2024
Label: Spinefarm / Candlelight
Bandcamp
Genre: Black Metal
FFO: Emperor, Drudkh, Primordial.
Review By: Jeff Finch
There is something to be said for discovering a band by pure happenstance, a musical act that has somehow alluded you for years and then, upon breaking into that sphere of listening, the instant urge to binge their entire discography takes control of your listening habits. For this listener, Winterfylleth, the focus of today’s review, is that musical act; somehow during my discovery and subsequent love of Black Metal, these gents from England never ended up on my radar. Having since bought four of their studio albums, I think I’ve atoned, and for those paying attention, that clearly means that first foray into the band must have been positive, right? Unequivocally yes, as The Imperious Horizon has cemented the band as one of the premiere Black Metal acts on the planet and one whose discography must be devoured.
Now, taking a Black Metal album and breaking it down into its various parts to review is a tall ask of someone that doesn’t have inherent knowledge about the intricacies of music, like what riff this is, what type of drum fill that is, what do these change in tones represent, and that’s where I found myself with this one. So this review is going to take a different path from the usual; what this album did is reaffirm my love of the genre, a reminder of why it broke through into the listening sphere to begin with. Having said all this, however, there are certainly aspects of this record that share traits with most Black Metal albums. The pacing on this thing is almost pure breakneck insanity; the nearly constant barrage of tremolo riffs and blast beats creates a sonic soundscape so suffocating, so enveloping, it’s like being buried by a musical avalanche. It’s so unrepentantly heavy, so unapologetically in your face, that it’s likely a Black Metal lover will crack a smile as the realization hits that the song still has 5 minutes left, the album still another hour plus. Because this one is long, and this one is epic: 9 tracks covering a whopping 63 minutes, with two of these tracks mere interludes totaling roughly four minutes. So, doing the math for everyone, the remaining tracks have an average length of roughly 8 minutes and 25 seconds. For the vast majority of this time, listeners are pummeled by ferocity, the band picking and choosing grand moments to alter the tempo, changing the scenery a bit. These shifts in guitar tone, as the band slows to a mid-pace, may not seem like much at first, except maybe a slight reprieve from the chaos. But the more the tone shifts, the longer the groove sticks around as almost an antithesis to the intense ferocity, moving away from the fever pitch of the constant tremolo riffs, the more impactful the changes are, the more a listener can feel the music instead of being blasted by the music. Moments arise to just sit there and take in the grand scope of the soundscapes, allowing your ears to adjust to the sometimes instantly perceptible, and sometimes barely perceptible, differences: the drums no longer blasting but thudding with power, contemplative in their approach, performing a tonal shift just as the guitars have, an emotional roller coaster of sounds that has peppered us with so much intensity that, when the drums come back to full speed, it’s as though the mind is so seasoned, so quick to perceive, that individual blast beats can be pulled out from the maelstrom.
At numerous points on the album, the rhythm and lead guitars seemingly take different routes, one hellbent on keeping the groove while the other has ascended into the epic realm of sweeping solo. One’s head can’t help but nod at the powerful groove underneath the solos, as those tonal shifts bring despondency to the forefront, those deeper rhythms such a drastic shift from the norm that it feels like a different, yet altogether similar, band has pierced the sonic vail.
That the band is able to perform such drastic shifts in pacing without losing any steam, the force of the music still so directly powerful that even switching to gently strummed acoustic chords isn’t enough to dampen the song’s progress, displays the brilliance of the compositions, the transitions from sinister to contemplative performed at the highest level. And make no mistake, the impact of these drastic shifts are in large part due to the menacing fever pitch that greets us almost effectively from the time we hit ‘play.’ The banshee howls from vocalist and rhythm guitarist, Chris Naughton, eviscerate everything in their path for the vast majority of the album, so when clean vocals are introduced, and an entirely separate brand of anguished screams present themselves on the grandiose In Silent Grace, it feels as though the band has reached the climax of their story, the peak of songwriting, they have scaled the mountain(s) and are looking out at the musical horizon they’ve wrought. Though deciding against the all out brutality of the preceding tracks, the eleven-minute runtime and the emotional outpouring from the speakers yields a track that can only be described using the most profound descriptors, the most notable of which is “epic.” By the time we’ve caught our breath from the sheer breadth of sounds and performances, the old school black metal sound comes roaring back on two of the final three songs, an acoustic interlude with beautiful orchestral elements thrown in for good measure.
It’s not terribly often that a release can render a listener unable to describe why they like it so much, but somehow Winterfylleth did that here. At its simplest, The Imperious Horizon rekindled that love of Black Metal and sent out a reminder that playing the old school doesn’t necessarily have to sound like the old school: the performances rendered on this record, replete with excellent production values, yields a modern Black Metal album worthy of numerous year-end lists. Winterfylleth took a sound they’ve known and performed for years, a sound that none of its listeners will be surprised by, and upped the ante, creating a grand spectacle of a soundscape, captivating and altogether enveloping its listeners and imploring them to enjoy the ride and the inevitable rides to follow, because this album does not merely deserve one pass through, it requires multiple.
(5 / 5)
