It’s easy to become cynical when you spend enough time writing reviews. Without a pause every once in a while to recharge the mental batteries you start to see an awful lot of trees without ever appreciating the proverbial wood, which can leave you very much in danger of missing out on some fine releases. With the Christmas period particularly overwhelming in terms of box sets, rereleases, blu-rays and so forth, even the thought of digging into a pile of CDs can become a bit daunting, but with the top release on the pile being an album by Swedish melodic death metal crew Netherbird we’re glad we did because ‘the ferocious tides of fate’ is a fantastic record and the perfect way to kick off 2014.
Netherbird are a five piece band who have been active since 2004, releasing three full-length albums to date as well as numerous EPs and singles. Drawing comparisons to Cradle of Filth (round about that bands feted ‘Cruelty and the beast’ period), Emperor and Winterfylleth, the band’s sound is a blackened, frozen assault that offers a good deal of variety and melody across the six lengthy tracks without compromising the underlying, visceral rage. Opening with ‘elegance and sin’, the band instantly set themselves up as purveyors of a particular brand of stately black metal, with twin guitars winding around one another in a ghoulish intro that provides a sedate, elegant intro to the main, rampaging body of the track. Set somewhere between the haunted wonder of Emperor’s ‘Prometheus…’ album and Cradle’s ‘Cruelty and the beast’, the sound is drier than Filth’s highly polished assault, with the use of keyboards kept to a minimum, making sure that the guitars maintain their ferocity. The key to the band’s success, however, is the way in which they allow the music to breathe, breaking down the track for a haunting, softer passage that sets up the songs devastating climax which sees a perfectly phrased solo battling for musical supremacy against Fjellstrom’s inventive drumming. Opening to the sound of torrential rain, ‘Sa Talte Vgg’ is a brief segue track that runs directly into the blazing, hell-bound fury of ‘Ashen roots’, surely the album’s most out and out aggressive blast of searing metal. With the twin guitars of Bizmark and Johan Nord perfectly complimenting one another, it is notable that even at its most ferocious, the music is carefully constructed so that the deeper you listen the more nuances you find, whether it be an intricate drum figure from Fjellstrom or the way in which the guitars twist and turn around one another in a sinewy, serpentine fashion, only combining on rare occasions to deliver the most crushing riffs.
‘Shadow walkers’ has a strong folk element to it, highlighting the band’s versatility and the depth of song-writing on offer, but the real revelation is the tormented doom of ‘Along the colonnades’, a song that shimmers in cold twilight, drawing inspiration from acts like early Swans, Blut Aus Nord and Neurosis. Slow, melodic, overwhelmingly powerful, the guitars here are subtly built up with clean riffs underlying queasy lead lines that bend and slither over the surface of the song. When the track does finally revert to more traditional black metal moves it is with a folk element that adds the melody and the song moves through several riffs before vocals are finally introduced. It is a deep, dark, twisted track that earns the ‘progressive’ tag with its complex song writing and ever-evolving structure. The final track, ‘of the setting sun’ rounds out the album with a nod to the classic metal of Iron Maiden with its twin guitar intro before heading into the grandiose territory of Emperor with huge riffs speaking of candle lit halls standing abandoned and isolated in a frozen wasteland. It is a bracing, highly impressive finale to an album that places the emphasis firmly on quality over quantity.
Dispensing six tracks in just under forty minutes, ‘the ferocious tides of fate’ is a wonderfully composed blast of carefully nuanced melodic black metal. Recorded at scarecrow studios by PNA (the band’s guitarist), the sound is dry but powerful, capturing perfectly the interlocking guitars and devastating percussion without burying the vocals or bass in the mix. The song writing is the real winner here, however, the band clearly having spent time and energy developing each song to perfection before unleashing it in the studio, and as a result the album is an original, invigorating assault that has something new to say in a genre that is somewhat crowded. On their third album Netherbird have proved their worth beyond a shadow of a doubt, and this grand, varied album will make a proud addition to any extreme metal fan’s collection.
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