If you want simple evidence of the quality of the current UK black metal scene then you need look no further than Winterfylleth, the Manchester-based band who have been active since 2007 and whose recorded output has arguably reached a peak on their third full-length offering, the stately, often beautiful ‘The Threnody of triumph’. There are no gimmicks with Winterfylleth, no huge pyrotechnic displays or blood-soaked corpse paint, the band stand or fall by their music and on ‘Threnody…’ the band have delivered a masterly work that strikes to the very essence of the pagan spirit with icy guitar riffs forming a frozen backdrop upon which Chris Naughton daubs his lyrical images. The album is a stunning triumph – haunting, majestic and intense it draws upon the work of Bathory, Burzum and Emperor to journey far into a long-lost world devoid of the apathy of modernity and it is as hypnotising as it is memorable.
Opening on the furious ‘A thousand winters’, the guitars whir and sweep around the listener, Simon Lucas’ drums inventively employed to provide a stunning back-bone that is both varied and intense, but it is Chris’ vocals that truly mark this out as something special. Awash with reverb, a glance at the booklet confirms the depth and poetic essence of the lyrics, and yet even without the words clearly penetrating the dense wall of guitars you capture the intense feeling in the delivery as the screams echo and pile up upon one another, the frozen reflections adding an extra layer to the already dense sound the band have crafted. ‘The swart raven’ is a brutal sonic assault coupled with stunning lyrics and a carefully obscured melody that weaves in and out of the mix guaranteeing that for all its rage, it is also a deeply memorable experience, whilst the carefully constructed choral outro is a moment of shimmering beauty deep in the frozen wastes of the song. ‘Aefterield-freon’ (the first of two instrumentals) is a stunning, fiddle-drenched piece of music that recalls latter day Anathema with its picked guitars and air of gentle melancholy and it is a testament to the underpinning melodies of the heavier tracks that such a gorgeous work seems entirely appropriate to the flow of the album. Following on from such a moment of pure calm, the searing guitars of ‘a memorial’ appear to burst out of the speakers, Chris’ vocals a blackened smear tearing at the heart of the song, the drums an unstoppable torrent that hypnotise with their relentless, rolling assault. ‘The glorious plain’ is a darker piece and yet, with the darkness comes a sense of majesty recalling Emperor at their most regal. The choral vocals add depth and mystery to the track whilst the lyrics are deeply poetic and heartfelt, and the overall piece redolent of guttering candlelight in windswept ancient halls, the flickering light betraying the fading grandeur of once great palaces.
Having reached the heart of the album the band slow the pace with the mid-tempo ‘a soul unbound’ which is deeply haunting, a melody rising up out of the frozen earth and capturing the beauty of the spirit, unfettered by the constraints of the body, gazing down upon from whence it came. It is a stunning highlight of the album, both gloriously heavy and stunningly melodic at the same time, Chris Fielding’s excellent production drawing out the very best from the band and putting the elements that make Winterfylleth so special on clear display. ‘Void of light’ is the counterpoint to ‘a soul unbound’, where the music rippled and danced on that track, here it strikes out like a cornered animal, nervous and full of adrenalin-fuelled aggression, it sparks and snaps with tension and rage. ‘The fate of souls after death’ is a dark, intense black metal track with heavy overtones of Burzum at their most feral before taking an unexpected side-path via more melodic pastures. The penultimate track is also the second of the album’s instrumentals, ‘home is behind’ and as with the first one it is a gorgeous slice of instrumental beauty that cuts through the bleak, frozen wasteland of the previous track like a shaft of sunlight. The album closes on the triumphant title track, a surging wall of black metal fury that draws the album to a suitably devastating close, neatly summating the power of this potent album.
Winterfylleth have long been marked out as a special band indeed, but on ‘the threnody of triumph’ they have summoned up all their remarkable talents to deliver a poetic, majestic masterpiece that will, in years to come, be considered every bit as important as Emperor’s ‘Anthems to the Welkin at dusk’ or Bathory’s self-titled debut. Lyrical, thoughtful, moving and deeply intelligent this is a fierce contender for album of the year and extra points must surely be given for the emotive artwork that adorns the album (courtesy of Dan Capp, Sara Lovisa and Simon Lucas) providing yet another clear argument for purchasing the physical product over digital downloads. However you choose to purchase your copy, however, this is epic, life-changing metal that should be a mandatory addition to any serious music collection.
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