I didn’t know Vreid until “Wild North West“. Okay, judge me! What can I say? I listened to Windir and followed the project through to its end. But the rest of the Windir guys? I left them there. My mistake. When a few months ago Vreid released “Wild North West” I heard the album on its release and what was my surprise to see that the guys were the other members of Windir. And that some things were present there and that it was fucking WINDIR in essence. I think Strom‘s unique riffs are the most iconic thing for me when listening to Vreid. His identity is diluted and behind riffs that fascinated me. I’m talking about Cor Scorpii. The guy has a sound print (fingerprint!) that he can nail his essence wherever he goes.
And the person who opened my eyes to this was the ethereal J.A Melech from B.M.T, such a great writer! So I didn’t feel comfortable reviewing Vreid’s new album until I came across everything I had lost from former Vreid members Windir until then. Vreid brought an album that has a very interesting formula. Unique riffs and each song seems to be within its own context, making it a very disjointed album, but it tells a story like plots in a movie. By the way, the band themselves released with “Wild North West” a movie about the tracks on the album. Sharp riffs, a very present and organic drums, a nervous bass that knows its place without leaving any vacant times in the songs. There is harmony, but not too much, this album is a sober album marked by a Melodic Black Metal in Norwegian standards, but with the soul of Windir. And there’s a lot of soul here on Vreid.
“Wild North West” opens with an organ harmony and then we flow into technical and well-crafted Black Metal. The rhythm is broken with “Wolves at Sea” which features a lilting intro and tremolo rhythm that sounds like a Viking ship song, and it doesn’t take long for Windir’s sonic thudding and frenetic riffs to “revive” here. The track “The Morning Red” is more lilting and drags in time. It is an interesting track that breaks well with the two previous tracks bringing a certain hangover to the album. The highlight here is the guitars once again breaking up amidst the slow pace of the track.
The bass brings the track “Shadows of Aurora” a track full of tempo variations, which surprises me every time I listen to it. I like this variation and changes between lilting and a brutal beat of melodic Black Metal. The drums open up the “Spikes Of God”, heavy track, dominant blast beats and once again we have an interesting combination between the instruments that create a very Windir aura. Here it remembers one of the tracks in the “Cor Scorpii” style and at this point in the review I feel proud, because I feel that I did my homework and could understand the release “Wild North West” well.
“Dazed and Reduced” is one of those dissonant tracks from what is expected of Vreid, we have a lilting beat, softer and more rhythmic with clean and clear voices, it feels like an 80s track. I enjoyed it a lot. I think the hardest track on the album for me was “Into the Mountains“, there’s an interesting variation, it’s an unconventional song, the clean interludes with the more Black Metal passage, kind of elliptical in its sound, I took a a certain amount of time to be able to absorb this track, but it’s amazing and each instrument seems to organically complement each other, as does the chorus of clean, spoken voices, the track is phenomenal!
In “Shadowland” keyboards guide the track, a long intro and guitars don’t take long to appear and we have Black Metal with an interesting rhythm and melodic guitars that guide the addictive cadence of the track with their tremolos. There are again many tempo changes here,, the cycle of life is portraited here. And we come to the end of almost 46 minutes of beautifully executed Black Metal with an extremely Windir heritage and if you don’t know know the steps of Valfar (RIP) in the Black Metal history, you are very late. Better late than sorry.
Rate: 666
