Wuldorgast – Cold Light Review

By Alekhines Gun

As the tendrils of winter usher in good bourbon1, unwanted family visits, and moon-bitten frost, the trvest of the black metallers come out to peddle their wares. Releasing anything so late in the year is a bold move, as list-mania seizes the hearts of authors across the blogosphere, making an uphill battle for bands from the first note. Here to try their luck today is two-man USBM outfit Wuldorgast, a band so young that at the time of this writing, they don’t even have a page on the Archives. Such youthful vigor is brimming with promise, and debut Cold Light arrives with admittedly dope artwork, seeking to leave its mark on my top ten(ish) and trigger a holly jolly shakeup. Does it stand a chance?

Cold Light sports some of the most engaging production I’ve heard in a black metal album by a country mile, filtering the razor wire of Spectral Wound into a Blasted Heath echoing assault. This extra touch of the cavernous (rather than the merely lo-fi) helps the drums to thunder and riffs to ring out with space and clarity, aiding chug-heavy sections in “Natural Life is Eternal Battle” and the more blast-heavy sections of “Cold Light of Reason” in assaulting the listener from the onset. Leads are caustic and catchy, weaving blackened infectiousness from the first listen, with trusty double base incisions disguising simplistic riffing under howling, reverb-drenched trimming. Vocals yowl and shriek with organic bile, sounding like they’re emerging from the bottom of a well. All in all, Cold Light lashes out as engaging and pleasing to the ear.

However, repeated listens slowly degrade infectiousness into replete repetition and overt simplicity. The first half of Cold Light sports riffs that sound like Judas Iscariot with improved production, but Wuldorgast forgot to include the proper stream-of-consciousness flow that comes with the style. Instead, the listener is treated with moments and melodies that are enjoyable at first blush, only for the band to insist that you don’t yet enjoy them as much as you ought. First song ” Obscured in Shadows” features exactly four riffs, run through twice. Other songs feature more riffs in quantity, but each sound like a minor tonal variant of the one that came before it until all the moments begin to blur together in a haze. The drumming is serviceable in such sections and leads are ear-worm bait, but are placed predictably and are played exhaustively, as if the band got too stoked on their own ideas and forgot how to self-edit.

This is made more confounding by the matter of track sequencing. Wuldorgast manages to cram almost all their good ideas into the back half of the album. Cold Light ends with songs featuring actual time signature changes, riffs that consist of more than two to five notes2 and vocal style alterations. “Cipher to Eternity” is the easy highlight, with absolutely monster chug sections, punky riffs, nifty effects over the instruments, and leads that scream “mosh-fodder” after the first measure. Such a bizarre raise in quality (instead of the typical front-loading) does make Cold Light a unique listen, but the good songs don’t outweigh the front half’s collection of tediousness.

Ultimately, this peculiar bisection of quality is Wuldorgast’s greatest stumbling block. Black metal this cavernous is a rare treat, and when Cold Light hits, it hits hard and with savagery. In tone, I enjoy it very much. It is unfortunate that it hits far too infrequently, with no tone able to disguise its weakness. An improved track sequencing and greater use of imagination across an album’s worth of songs will go far in helping them cultivate their sound. Otherwise, this is a curious end-of-year footnote. If you haven’t had your fill of winter black metal yet, harvest the b sides for a playlist, but otherwise, it seems year-end lists are destined to remain undisturbed.

Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Iron Bonehead Productions
Website: wuldorgast.bandcamp.com/album/cold-light
Releases Worldwide: December 13th, 2024

#20 #2024 #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #BlastedHeath #ColdLight #Dec24 #IronBonehead #JudasIscariot #Review #Reviews #SpectralWound #Wuldorgast

Rope Sect – Estrangement Review

By GardensTale

The road of metal is wide and its shoulders are nebulous. Whenever we stray the AMG vehicle off this road for a gander at the related and adjacent, it’s always with good reason, be it previous tenures of band members, genres closely tied to metal, or a suspected appeal to the same market. The stats page shows that non-metal things score quite consistently above average, so you can be assured that when we tred on our own rulebook, you won’t be disappointed. Which brings us to Rope Sect, an anonymous band that plays despondent goth rock in the vein of Bauhaus, yet got itself signed to a label known primarily for death and black metal. Though only existing next door to our chosen obsession, The Great Flood won a lot of hearts back in 2020, including mine. How will Estrangement hold up?

On a scale of ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ to ‘standing still is going backwards,’ Rope Sect skews in favor of the former. The evolution from The Great Flood to Estrangement is a study in details; songwriting slightly more consistent, guitars dropping the amount of jangle from 8 to 6, a beat per minute that get lost along the way. Most of the remainder is a direct continuation of the predecessor. The somber vocals intone with such dead-eyed despondency they almost approach sprechsgesang, the guitars draw a perfect balance between memorable hooks and ominous atmosphere, and the compositions are uniformly clean and concise. Rope Sect knows its trade inside out, and there is something to be said for sticking to what you’re best at when the results are this good.

All the small things do add up to a different experience, though. Estrangement smooths out the rougher edges of The Great Flood, scooching from metallic post-punk into less abrasive rock territory. If radio hadn’t turned into a cesspool of mumble rap and TikTok soundbites, some of these tracks would not be out of place there. And it’s hard not to feel like something got lost in the transition. A sense of danger, perhaps. The feeling that no one is entirely in control of the ship, and the foreboding dark sea harbors sharp rocks under the surface. That dark pull is not completely gone on Estrangement, but it has lessened and decreased the distinctive character of the band with it. Only closer “Rope of the Mundane Love” resurrects this feeling, thanks to an aggressively ominous bass-forward riffing style and Peter Steele-type vocals in the verses.

Though the frame is less enticing, the picture within remains very well drawn. From the lilting vocal lines of opener “Revel in Disguise” to the way “Nefelibatas” builds into its melancholy, and from the high energy hypnotism of “L’Appel Du Vide” to the infectious hopelessness of “Massenmensch,” Rope Sect has crafted a sleek tribute to disconnection with nary a minute of fat across its entire runtime. There’s not a weak song among the bunch, and the final portion is the strongest, with the aforementioned dark closer ending on a high after its perfectly depressing predecessor “Hindsight Bias” brings you to your lowest. If not the most engaging or unique album of the year, Estrangement is surely one of the most listenable ones, gliding down as smooth as the silk that lines the coffin.

It took me some time to make up my mind about Estrangement. Its low-friction nature and memorable, hook-filled songwriting make it easy to absorb, and Rope Sect’s jaded nature is largely intact. Yet I find myself wanting a bit more friction at times, something that sets the album apart from the background. The production exemplifies this as well; it’s warm, and rich, with a balanced mix and smooth tones on the strings, but it is overpolished as well, which cost the album character and impact. I still like Estrangement quite a bit, and I will return to it when I need my sadness quote filled without taking a belt sander to the brain. I just won’t reach for it when I truly want to engage with an album; for that, Rope Sect’s prior material remains a better option.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Label: Iron Bonehead
Websites: ropesect.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/theropesect
Releases Worldwide: May 17th, 2024

#2024 #30 #Bauhaus #Estrangement #GermanMetal #GothicRock #IronBonehead #May24 #Review #Reviews #RopeSect #TypeONegative

Estrangement by Rope Sect has finally been released. Cesspool of Vice may be the most beautiful song I've listened to in 2024. There were days when I only listened to this song to which I had early access legally. The album has so much hopelessness, sadness, and depth of the good kind, the one enthralling our souls and never letting go. Ah, I love this. It was released by #IronBonehead from #Germany #darkwave #metal #Gothic #rock #music
https://ropesect.bandcamp.com/album/estrangement

Another proof that the best #blackmetal isn't coming from the usual places. #Kerasfóra from #Chile made quite a unique album called Six Nights Beyond the Serpents Threshold to be released June 14th by #IronBonehead a label with trained ear at finding the most unique gems for jaded ears like my own. #music #metal
https://on.soundcloud.com/7uuVSt2RLFQ2yqNu6

Moon Incarnate give the world saturating doom on their debut album Hymns To The Moon. Review at FFMB, https://flyingfiddlesticks.com/2024/03/22/moon-incarnate-hymns-to-the-moon-iron-bonehead-2024/ #metal #heavymetal #rock #hardrock #deathmetal #Germany #gothic #deathmetal #doom #doommetal #MoonIncarnate #IronBonehead #folkmetal #horror #gothichorror

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