ALBUM REVIEW: Treacherous Beckonings – Windthrow
Sweden’s WINDTHROW are a band that are both brilliant and varied in their sound. The brainchild of its sole member Robin Petersson, the band have appeared seemingly out of nowhere with their debut album, Treacherous Beckonings, a record that is a great way to introduce the band to the world, blending black metal and heavy metal together, with just the slightest hint of folk music, to great effect, making for an impressive, if slightly reserved, debut record.
Jag For does a great job of setting the tone for Treacherous Beckonings right out of the gate, with tight, robust black metal guitar hooks, intricate, thundering drums and a palpable atmosphere cloaking all of the music and making it sound huge. Making use of glorious, soaring lead guitar melodies and harsh, dirty sounding gutturals, this is a song with a lot of various musical elements on full display, from black to death to straight forward heavy metal, making it not an incredibly diverse song, and a fantastic way to open the album. Rimfrost, a sonorous folk music orientated track with a deep, expansive sound, acts as a brief interlude between the first and third songs, but it nonetheless stands out significantly from the rest of the record, stripping away all traces of metal completely and providing a brilliant piece of music that wouldn’t be out of place on a WARDRUNA record.
This leads straight into the epic and powerful Rushing Blood, a song where the bands heavy metal influence is on full display. With dense, pounding growls providing much of the extremity in the sound, this is a solid, mid-paced and dependable track with lots of dancing lead guitar licks. However, compared to the first two tracks, the music is far more restrained and not anywhere near as diverse and adventurous with its sound, only really bursting into life in its closing moments, which ultimately lets it down a little. Having said that, it’s still a very grand and impressive song, with some especially notable guitar work that manages to keep it interesting through to the end.
Alea Iacta Est, by contrast, is an energetic and frenetic shock of heavy metal with some well placed black metal flourishes that help to make it instantly memorable and ensure that it is one of the albums stand out tracks. With steady, primitive drumming providing a great backdrop, the sludgy roar of the vocals and the authoritative, razor sharp edge of the guitars really works to make this track sound so good. It’s a great song that sets the listener up for the fifth and final song, Morrowless, really well. This final track is a great, slow burning piece of music with a foreboding guitar line that quickly gives way to a dizzying, chaotic motif with blistering guitars, crashing drums and visceral, meaty vocals. The song shifts between faster and more measured, mid-tempo sections, with some solid, epic sounding guitars carrying the music extremely well throughout the songs near 11 minute run. As the song surges towards its climax, we get some more impressive drumming patterns that help to provide an excellent backdrop to the rest of the music, and some bleak, cleaner vocals that add even more atmosphere to the mix. It’s a great song, overall, although there are a few passages in this song that weren’t entirely necessary, and you get the feeling that this song would have benefited by being about two or three minute shorter. Nonetheless, it’s a good way to bring this record to a close.
This is an impressive debut that shows a lot of promise. Sometimes, when you hear a one man band, you can tell that it is only one person writing and recording all of the music. This is, luckily, not one of those cases. The music is so diverse and well done, and stands as a testament to just how good Robin Petersson is as a musician and writer. There are a few things that make an appearance on this album that should feature a bit more prominently in the sound, the folk instrumentation of Rimfrost being one prime example. The blend of black, death and heavy metal is just right, with no one element completely dominating the sound of any given song, and making for interesting and memorable songs. The band has set themselves a high bar to overcome with future music, but if what we hear on this record is anything to go by, then whatever comes next will be exemplary.
Rating: 8/10
Treacherous Beckonings is out now via self-release.
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