How long have you been waiting for Graveland‘s new album? “Dawn Of Iron Blades” had already attested to how much Rob Darken was changing the band compared to the early years of Temple Of Fullmoon. Many speculations arose, a lot of silence and finally the doubt if there would be a return to the beginnings of Graveland or if Rob Darken would really tread the paths of Pagan Black Metal and consolidate Graveland as the great exponent of the style today.
I have a friend who’s been waiting for clean vocals on Graveland since Rob Darken said he would test it out on Lord Wind and then take the same idea to Graveland… now the time has come. We have clean vocals, we have symphony and we are aggressive. There is a mix of Bathory, Graveland and Conan, The Barbarian. The epic start and the growl of Rob Darken opening the album is chilling. The track is “The Wolf of Twilight ” and it is a Graveland track. We have the Pagan Black Metal that they are doing since “Memory and Destiny” and some epic elements that are being introduced to us along the other albums.
The title track “Hour of Ragnarok” is epic and brings a lot of harmony and the highlights here are the keyboards and drums that seem to hold everything together. Work by the magnificent Ahrin who works in other projects such as Celtic Dance and Maléfice.
“Conspiracy of the Wizards” has a very present keyboard and firm vocals reminiscent of the Thousand Swords era, the track brings diverse drum times and epic atmosphere as seen in “Prawo stali” and “Immortal Pride“.
The album itself is very well structured and if Darken took almost 03 years to release he was using silence to his advantage. And the pandemic came in handy.
Clean vocals, epic vocals. We’re talking about the great anthem “Children of Hyperborea“. Here we have the apex of the album. In what sense? We have a black metal of raw essence mixed with the harmony that Darken can bring and that he perfected since Woodtemple and Lord Wind. The vocals experienced in Lord Wins were gradually applied to Graveland. If you remember in “Dawn Of Iron Blades” Olya Fudali does clean vocals in some passages. Keyboards or flutes? Something tells me we have more elements present than we can pick up on a first or second audition. I received the master from Inferna Profund Records and listened to the album a few times in looping. With each audition I noticed new elements.
I wonder if Rob Darken felt comfortable decentralizing Graveland from his hands and delegating roles or responsibilities after a long period of one-man band. The idea of clean vocals is followed by a few more passages like in “Following the Azure Light“, which is very similar to the previous one, which I found an interesting point, because it gives a bigger dimension to the album and ends up seeming like these elements were already part of Darken’s repertoire of arrangements and lyrics. He knew how to create an album. He knew how to manage a band.
“The Three Gifts of the Gods” is the most Pagan Metal we have on the album and at the same time the one that mixes clean passages and breaks the frenetic speed of the album, interspersing Black Metal and harmonious passages of keyboards and varied instruments, some reminding violins. It’s very interesting to listen to this album and wait for what Darken is able to provide to its listeners. Wotanism is at the heart of this album and this track is one of the great branches of Yggdrasil that flow into an intense background of exultation, devotion and paganism.
The more than 7 minutes of “Enlighted by the Wisdom of Runes“, its choir, battle cries and dragged guitars with drives reminiscent of the second wave of Black Metal are a counterpoint to what we’ve heard so far. The slow but heavy pace is a point that says a lot about how much Graveland relates to Black Metal, as well as the war “drumbeat” we have in the middle of the track shows how much Graveland’s sounding maturity is capable of merging in innovative passages with common elements and not without the trademark of something of extreme quality, executed with perfection.
The last track is “River of Tears” is the final track on an album that was born classic. The track summarizes what the album proposes is to make a quality Pagan Metal with the essence founded in the 90s and that Rob Darken has been perfecting over the years and experimenting in his projects and we have in hand “The Release” of 2021. The album comes out on August 9th and I’ve been listening to this album since April basically. We have a long waiting road until August, but none of this is going to quench the glow of an album wrought of iron and fire. A gift from the Gods, a milestone of the Pagan Black Metal world. The essence of the 90s is here and yet it knew how to evolve, grow, glorify itself in its sonic power and still be a tribute to Pagan Black Metal and the 90s and keeps in itself, in addition to all that, the essence of cold nights in Poland.
RATE: 666
