WINTERFYLLETH, are a black metal band from Manchester, UK .Formed back in 2007, with the intention of honoring England’s rich culture, folklore, heritage, landscapes and ancestral past, through their impassioned black metal. With their music, they conjure moods and emotions that range from vicious and violent to melodic and elegant.
Their fifth full-length album, entitled “The Dark Hereafter”, is able to maneuver a vast number of emotions, although it is a nearly forty minute album with five tracks. They alternate between blast beats and mid-paced double-bass-heavy sections, with powerful, throat-shredding vocals. Despite the immediacy of these tracks, they also possess a hypnotic quality as well.
Opening track “The Dark Hereafter” and follower “Pariah’s Path” both, showcase the band’s more immediate and brutal side, with throat-shredding vocals and riffs that are both melodic yet razor sharp and drenched in distortion, as the band has used us, through their discography. From here, the album ascends with each succeeding track. Third one “Ensigns of Victory”, is a pretty typical atmospheric, black-metal WINTERFYLLETH track, with heavy doses of emotion and spectacular guitar leads, that rise above the black-metal pile of junk.
“A journey that requires quiet, darkness, and complete isolation to appreciate.”
As the album progresses, a much more varied sound emerges. By the time the fourth track “The Green Cathedral” rolls around, the multi-faced approach of WINTERFYLLETH, is in full display. Peaking at the album’s magnum opus, the epic thirteen-minute track retains a mid-paced tempo, throughout, and achieves an atmospheric and hypnotic mood, but the vocals in particular, retain a violent edge consistent with the earlier tracks. “Led Astray in the Forest Dark” rounds the album out nicely, continuing the expansion of mood that began with “The Green Cathedral”.
Regardless of the album’s length, “The Dark Hereafter” is an atmospheric, black-metal journey. A journey that requires quiet, darkness, and complete isolation to appreciate. This goes for every WINTERFYLLETH release. Once met, total submersion into the album is achieved.
In the end, “The Dark Hereafter” is another solid release from WINTERFYLLETH. The album is a fairly band standard release, that joins the rest of their albums, in their discography, not adding any new flavor to it, though. I’m eager to hear what’s next from this amazing band and hope for the best!