he classic second album of Darkwoods My Betrothed is finally getting a release on tape format!
The band’s sophomore album showcased a more versatile approach compared to their debut “Heirs of the Northstar”, opening with the grandiose over 11 minutes long title track and clean “drunken moose” vocals. The album includes both, grandiose and epic hymns as well as pure raw Heathen Black Metal tracks.
Do not miss this piece of Finnish Black Metal history!
Like always our releases, this too is limited to 50 copies, 4/4 covers and printed labels on black tapes.
Darkwoods My Betrothed's debut wasn't the kind of discography opener to really knock potential listeners for a loop, but as a whole it was a competent and slightly above average black/Viking metal noise-making. It was clear that the band was starting to formulate ideas on where they wanted to go on a musical level, even if the final output was rather uneven, a path that could only result in proper evolution as time progressed. And despite a lack of legit exposure and distribution from a label just starting to wet their feet in the extreme metal pond (as the packaging for "Heirs..." shows, it was Hammerheart's first pressing), a year or so later saw the band's sophomore creation come forth...
"Autumn Roars Thunder", much like :"Heirs...", doesn't go out of its way to shove past other black metal bands and albums in order to be noticed, nor does it make enough of a scene to be naturally gazed upon, but compared to "Heirs...", it's quite a ways more focused and inspired. Things start off, interestingly, with the album's longest and most dynamic track, with plenty of melody and moody ambience more In the Woods... than anything else that, strangely enough, isn't touched upon all that much as "Autumn..." continues on, for a single song later we're treated to a complete tonal shift to a more straight-up black metal barbarity. This ends up being the main cynosure for the entirety of the album, deviated every once and again for something slower and more grounded on a track-by-track basis ("When Ancient Spirits Battled" and "Hymn of the Darkwoods" shoot for the Viking technique/sound but in a more straightforward way, and acoustic guitars come and go to stir things up rather decently), but for the most part this is a far more blackened recording taking a couple more strides in the direction of their demo era versus the forest-dwelling feel of "Heirs...".
The production is powerful yet clear, with plenty of bite to the guitar tone and an interesting amount of oomph behind the bass lines (you can actually
hear the bass!), and as before, the guitars and bass take center stage and craft far more insidiously evil riffs and progressions than the lyrical themes could possibly allow (the band was still maintaining their Odinist stance here despite the more seriously Satanic vibe the music contains) while the keyboard sections simply add their own level of depth and atmosphere, both dark and majestic. Drumming is a bit more jagged than before, with a few moments where raging blast beats are interrupted by a noticeable lull in tempo coming to pass, again showcasing a roughness and slight sloppiness in the overall product not being fixed up in the mixing process. Pasi's vocals are, for the most part, a more confident-sounding throaty demonic black rasp than the previously heard irritating wail (though it still pops up here and there, only with more body and spirit behind them) and that still silly-sounding drunken singing that doesn't fit the material as well as I'm sure he'd hoped for. But I guess them's the breaks?
In the end, this proved to be a better overall product than "Heirs of the Northstar" and a better Darkwoods... album overall, but it still couldn't do much to push the band's name any further from the black metal mid-card roster. One more album down the line would prove to be their undoing, unfortunately for them, before the forest was lost to the trees. It happens...
Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEmqNe5oBOM
