ALBUM REVIEW: Legend: Forged In Defiance – Fellwarden
Legend, the first novel by the late epic fantasy writer David Gemmel, is perhaps one of most overlooked classics of this genre of literature. Detailing the final days of a legendary hero, Druss, in a hard fought battle that was itself an allegory for the terminal stomach cancer diagnosis that the author was sure he was about to receive during the period when it was being composed, it’s a novel that’s often overlooked but well worth checking out. FELLWARDEN‘s latest album, Legend: Forged In Defiance, draws upon this book for inspiration, and, much like the band’s other, excellent output, it’s every bit as epic, adventurous and nuanced as its source material, doing for atmospheric black metal what this novel did for fantasy.
Exultance serves as a grandiose, imposing statement of intent for the music that features on this album, with cavernous drums, folky melodies and monstrous rhythms creating a powerful backdrop on which sonorous, chanted vocals and visceral snarls are overlaid, the first adding to the epic overtones and the second providing a biting contrast. The belligerent, speed-driven sections inject a harsher edge, tempering the soaring quality of the bulk of this track and providing a sinister aspect to the more ferocious moments which, along with some post-rock minimalism, make for an engaging take on atmospheric black metal.
Despair, with its bleaker, almost gothic tone, lives up to the promise of its title, with sombre, ethereal hooks driving the muscular and rumbling sound, piercing through the percussive drums and dense vocals to provide a lighter twist on the magnificent formula of the opener. It’s a song carried by its subtler elements, notably from the excellent guitars, again applying an interesting angle on a tried and tested style and managing to make a piece of music that is full of drama and brimming with great ideas without overdoing it. Renewed Hope, an energetic slab of blackened heavy metal that makes great use of chunkier guitars and backing choirs, is, despite its length, a punchy and anthemic offering that brings back those crystalline post-rock flourishes and harder, leaner leads to create a sound that is engrossing and imaginative, with the classic heavy metal flourishes lending some epic touches to the rest of the music.
Desperation, with its acoustic accompaniments and stripped back, slow-burning sound, leans prominently into the folky, spacious guitars that informed the first track, taking the former’s expansive sound to new heights, and allowing the cleaner moments to inform the music far more effectively, ebbing and flowing between grand waves and polished guitars and searing, monolithic black metal with ease, resulting in a track that is defined by a cohesive, sprawling style.
Serenity does a great job of balancing the myriad elements that comprise this album together in one place, with dancing, folk-inflected riffs that stand amongst the most adventurous on this whole album, gargantuan, doom-laden black metal and hints of heavy metal blended together extremely well, without relying too heavily on one sound to carry the track, crafting a varied and effective climactic juggernaut out of these varied influences. Death is perhaps the most “traditional” kind of atmospheric black metal effort on this whole album, with its hypnotic ambience and haunting vocals, but the imaginative guitar work, thunderous undercurrent and diverse range of vocal performances provide an emotive weight, along with a meatier production, that many songs in this style often distinctly lack, concluding this album on a powerful and majestic note.
It’s rare to come across a record that falls firmly into the category of atmospheric black metal that isn’t at least mostly bland and uninspired, but Legend: Forged In Defiance does an excellent job of being incredibly engrossing from start to finish. This is most likely down to the fact that this is a record that doesn’t tread the same well worn path that a lot of bands in this style would, with the guitars and drums playing a significant role in the album as a whole rather than being relegated to the background, and with the music being impressively varied, incorporating elements of folk, post-rock and even hints of power metal into the mix to create something that sounds a lot more eclectic. Much like the book that it’s based on, it takes an established style and subverts several key tropes in a way that adds new elements, creating something much more effective and memorable in the process.
Rating: 9/10
Legend: Forged In Defiance is out now via Eisenwald.
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