Review: Fellwarden – Wreathed in Mourncloud

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Project Renegade – Order of the Minus
Eisenwald Tonschmiede

Almost in an intrinsic way, Fellwarden drops some of the heaviest atmospheric black/folk metal one could ask for in 2020. With their second album, Wreathed in Mourncloud, Fellwarden has stepped up to the plate and released an incredibly powerful and moving album.

There’s a simplistic beauty within Fellwarden’s scope: it all feels natural. Wreathed in Mourncloud is not overwhelmingly produced, however it does not skimp out. The opening track, Pathmaker, establishes the tone for the rest of the album. The vocals sit in the background with the wall of sound wrapping around your ears. The choruses are melodic and both rise and fall with grace. If anything, there’s a familiarity with how the songs are structured; it’s as if I’ve heard catches and hooks before and they’re surrounded with something I’ve previously experienced. Some moments are almost stereotypical where one can predict how the song is going to go, yet it does so with such grace that it doesn’t really matter.

The songs on the album feels to be a mix between Panopticon and Borknagar but such comparisons really do not give them justice.

Moments such as the moody bass tones near the end of Scafell’s Blight stand out as interesting breathing moments to an intense soundscape. The chorus of the title track is another stand out moment where waves of feelings are brought to an already pulse-pounding track.

The natural sounds from the recordings certainly shine through the entire album and feels like they come to a worthy climax in the final track, Upon Stone. It was as if the whole album built for it. Upon Stone’s final few minutes feels like an old friend saying goodbye for the last time.

Some of the more interesting decisions on the album were how some of the vocal harmonies were recorded. As mentioned, the vocals at times felt tucked away in behind the music. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it – however there’s a small handful of moments I felt the drums could have taken a step back to let the harmonies shine. Yet, for black metal, the bass guitar chimes in when necessary and falls back when appropriate. It’s still a wonderful and smart mix.

Passionate, intense, brutal, and with a ton of heart, Fellwarden’s Wreathed in Mourncloud is an outstanding album that delivers on every level.

Fellwarden on Bandcamp

Review: Project Renegade – Order of the Minus

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Project Renegade – Order of the Minus
Self-release

Out of Athens, Greece comes Project Renegade – a four-piece metal band which borrows from various genres and blends them into a cohesive sound. Released in the latter part of 2019, their first album, Order of the Minus, brings a mix of electronic, industrial, symphonic, and ambient elements to cement a pretty solid debut.

Order of the Minus opens with the electronic and ambient elements in The Big Boss then envelops the listener with one of their singles off of the album, Liber8. Vocalist, Maria Ioanna Florou, flourishes with a welcomed level of harmonies. The back and forth between samples in the song and Marianna’s singing balances well and feels natural. The feat in the first song continues throughout the rest of the album which surprisingly doesn’t begin to feel repetitive. There’s something going on there.

The album features some incredibly uplifting choruses which could almost confuse the band with power metal. Yet Project Renegade is anything but that. Both rock and heavy metal powers through each song and rarely gives the listener any down time. While songs like Sylar may showcase more restrictive guitar riffing from guitarist Nick K., it’s moments in songs like it which let both the guitar and electronic tones shine through – reminiscent of something off newer Evergrey albums.

Songs like The New Joker or the bridge in the song The Strain, offer some great variation within the album, showcasing drummer Odey and bassist Jay away from the vocals and guitar tones. That’s not to say there’s too much vocals and guitar. In fact, the mix of the album, given how electronic-like it began, does blend extremely well.

Nothing on Order of the Minus feels overproduced or exhaustive. The levels and balancing act in the mix are darn-near perfect. After a few spins, I still struggled to come across any faults with their sound.

If there was anything that came as a surprise to me was the flow of intensity from transitional songs: The Big Boss and A Demon Has Escaped the Triangle. Both transitions featured builds that I felt ended with a whimper. I had expected them to blow right into the next song with full force, but I felt they ended up taking the wind out of the sails. They’re not bad transitional songs – I just felt they didn’t transition well which is surprising given how well every song transitioned into the next, like The Strain into Respirator, or The New Joker into In Another Life.

That being said, the final and longest song, Black Mountain, features some of the coolest effects and transitions in the album. The slow, symphonic and harmonic build, “in search of a harmony,” finds itself as one of the strongest songs, ending the album on a high note.

With an extremely solid debut, Project Renegade’s Order of the Minus brings together a lot of varying musical styles together which can appeal to various listeners across multiple genres. Order of the Minus is a welcome surprise.

Project Renegade on Bandcamp

Review: Black Sun Omega – The Sum of All Fears

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Black Sun Ωmega – The Sum of All Fears
Self-release

Released in December of 2019, Black Sun Ωmega’s debut album, The Sum of All Fears, is old-school thrash metal in a new age.

Mixing both thrash and death elements, Black Sun Ωmega crushes the listener with speedy riffs, pounding percussion, and dirty, raspy vocals.

Songs like Flowing Hate keep your head pounding for a near-six minutes. Hefty riffing and pull offs from both guitar and bass make for an incredible, pulse-pounding good time. Down My Sight is devastating right from the get-go. Like it, most songs evoke the listener to chant along, raise their fists, and run around. If an album can make the listener want to get moving like this one does – mission accomplished.

As for the mix, while I’m never expecting newer Overkill or Testament levels of production with a band’s debut album, The Sum of All Fears feels like a cross between Venom’s vocal styling and early-Voivod recordings, leaving a bit to be desired. As a baseline, the album does feel underground, but not as polished as thrash albums from underground bands like Power Trip, for whatever that’s worth.

However, Black Sun Ωmega’s songs rip. Hard. Ground of God, Arena of Souls, and World’s Demise stand out as what I feel to be the most powerful tracks – especially with World’s Demise guitar solo absolutely slaying. The musicianship is incredible and it certainly shines with each song – there was clear thought and care put into the written songs.

An incredible debut from this Greek band, Black Sun Ωmega’s debut The Sum of All Fears is something worth waking up in the morning to as it will kick your ass into high gear.

With a bit more polish in the back end, I can see these guys making waves.

Black Sun Ωmega on Bandcamp

Honest Review: Green Carnation – Leaves of Yesteryear

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Green Carnation – Leaves of Yesteryear
Season of Mist

Forget Tool’s length between albums. From the ashes rise Green Carnation and their newest album in fourteen years, Leaves of Yesteryear. The modest progressive metal pioneers, well-established because of their 2001 opus, Light of Day, Day of Darkness, come forward with another album with their unique twist on the genre.

Mixing elements from black, doom, and progressive metal, Leaves of Yesteryear is yet another gem from these Norwegian musicians featuring four new songs and a re-recording of a song off of their debut album, My Dark Reflections of Life and Death.

The real beauty within the album derives from the subtle intricacies sprawled throughout. The chorus of title track, for example features a plain sounding trumpet effect from the keyboard. Mixed with the instruments, it becomes epic. As the chorus replays throughout the song, the trumpeting builds with orchestral brilliance.

On Sentinels, the transition from bridge to the final chorus features two measures in 4/4 timing. Traditional songs would use one measure to transition – but Green Carnation’s brilliance extends it to two: the first featuring the music ringing out from the bridge and the second coming in with sustained vocals and a beautifully simplistic drum fill – resetting the tempo of the song. These little bits in the songs seem minor but absolutely add much needed vigor and strength into what some may feel as an overtly virtuoso and stale genre.

The rerecording of My Reflections breathes new life into the song. Despite its twenty year age, it fits well within the album and still feels new. Not many bands can say they’ve accomplished such a feat.

While progressive metal seems to showcase flashy solos and technical unisons, Hounds shows how progressive metal can have both groove and heart. The chorus demands the listener to sing along. The thumping bass keeps a steady groove and features refreshing R&B variations that are not often referenced in the genre.

The album concludes with Solitude – a cover off of Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality. Arguably the weakest song on the album due to its solemn nature, Solitude is haunting, beautiful, and sad – a different kind of feel from most of the album. While the track sorting of the album lets Solitude work best as the last song, it feels strange the album wasn’t bookended with another bolder song as a pick-me-up.

After a long hiatus, Green Carnation returns to form with Leaves of Yesteryear. It’s something familiar of fans who have stuck with the band over the years, while still presenting something different. It’s a complicated album masking itself as simplicity. The Leaves of Yesteryear has depth, courage, and teeth to it. It is definitely one of the best progressive metal albums I’ve heard in the past decade.

Welcome back, Green Carnation. You were sorely missed.

Uncanny Metal Score: 9/10

Green Carnation on Season of Mist