THE RETURN OF FINLANDS MOST EPIC BAND !!!
Epic Finish Pagan Metal leaders WYRD return with their most expansive and exhilarating album to date “Death Of The Sun”! Seven years in the making, the bands 9th album continues their exploration into Doom, Folk and Rock territories without sacrificing their Metal origins. From Doom rock verses to melodic acoustic passages filled with pagan sorrow to monstrously catchy choruses the band achieves an excellence rarely heard in the metal scene. Further WYRD utilizes a myriad of vocal styles to accentuate their vast and diverse musical sound-scape. All of which culminates in 9 esoteric heathen hymns of the Wyrding way !
* Highly anticipated 9th album from the Epic Finish Heathen Metal band !
* Features a killer production courtesy of Cursed Studios, DT Audio and Patologian Laboratoria (Wyrd, Azaghal, Svartkraft, Hin Onde).
* Beautifully dreary cover photo by Milos Anic.
* Features members of cult Finish acts Azaghal, Kalmankantaja, Svartkraft, Lathspell, Rutonkantaja & Vultyr!
* Multiple headlining Festival appearances and regional touring through-out 2016!
* The Perfect mix of Doom, Folk, Black Metal, Rock and Pagan music!
* Mandatory for fans of Agalloch, Katatonia, Azaghal, Drudkh, Horna, October Falls and Falls of Rauros!
Death of the Sun.....or more appropriately would be the Death of Wyrd, as this is the feeling the album has evoked in me. This album sounds like a disjointed compilation of songs of their various styles over the years, along with a new style. That description felt validated after reading that the songs were written between 2007 and 2015, along with a different lineup.
The album starts out with a typical, solid, recognizably Wyrd song reminiscent of their style pre The Ghost Album (i.e faster paced pagan black metal with corresponding vocals, no clean singing). So far so good. The second track slows down and is typical of their style of the slower songs from Kammen and Kalivagi. This song sounds like it is the English version of “Hamaran soutajat” from Kalivagi. Again, reminding me of this album sounding more like a compilation. The slow guitar work, rhythm and overall melancholic feeling of this song is abruptly interrupted by random clean vocals that do not belong, nor sound good at all. This is the pattern for the rest of the album, except the clean vocals get much worse. “Inside” sounds like a 90's mainstream rock song with wannabe progressive metal vocals just not as high pitched, but more along the lines of bad hair metal vocals, and a repeating chorus that you can't get out of your head, but you need to because it causes a headache. Even reading the lyrics gets the song back in my head and I hate it. Nothing about this song has ever been Wyrd, until this album, as some more songs copy the same vocal range and style. That is their new style and hopefully it dies with this album.
I purchased this album for two reasons: because Wyrd has been one of my favorite bands, and after hearing the track “The Pale Departure”. That song is the best song on the album, their best song in over a decade, and now one of my favorite Wyrd songs of all. It is slow, powerful lyrics, melancholic, and unapologetically Wyrd by sound; what long times fans appreciate and want more of but ultimately do not get. It also unfortunately cannot save this album. Instead we are left with an incoherent album written over a span of nine years, that was originally to come out a couple years ago.
Sample:
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