ALBUM REVIEW: A Romance With Violence – Wayfarer

Perched in the Rocky Mountains, and perfumed with the scent of legal cannabis, Denver has proved to be fertile ground for extreme metal in all its rich variety. Mile-High City, as it is sometimes known, has a vibrant and proud heavy music heritage. Thrash-darlings HAVOK come from there, so do the legendary CEPHALIC CARNAGE, and groovy doomsters KHEMMIS. Dig deeper and you’ll soon find the heavy-hitting sludge of PRIMITIVE MAN, the unearthly death metal of BLOOD INCANTATION, and ancestral grind-fusion cult OF FEATHER AND BONE. In amongst Denver’s dynamic underground are WAYFARER.

Formed in 2011, the project received quiet acclaim until the release of World’s Blood in 2018. The success of their third album saw the Coloradoans touring Europe with DARK BUDDHA RISING, and playing the esteemed Roadburn Festival. Two years hence and WAYFARER have returned with A Romance With Violence: an album which promises to tell the blood-soaked story of the American West.

Even before setting eyes on the gilded cover, there is every reason to be excited about A Romance With Violence. The calibre of personnel behind this album speaks volumes, having been put to tape by Pete DeBoer (whose recording credits include BLOOD INCANTATION and DREADNOUGHT), mixed by Colin Marston – guitarist of KRALLICE and GORGUTS, and the engineer behind IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT’s Alphaville – and finally mastered by the inimitable V. Santura, of DARK FORTRESS and TRIPTYKON fame. Unsurprisingly, this album sounds incredible.

The tack-piano guides you into WAYFARER’s world – equal parts romanticised fantasy, historical reality, and cautionary tale – and opening piece The Crimson Rider (Gallows Frontier, Act I) sets the scene beautifully. This is a dusty and lawless world, filled with guns, gold and greed. A great deal of care and attention has clearly been put into the lyrics for A Romance With Violence, which are written to a near-poetic standard, and a crucial component in realising the album’s overall effect. WAYFARER’s bright and atmospheric black metal sound has been tempered with some angular riffing, and structured into more discernible movements to help carry the themes and imagery of each piece.

While The Iron Horse (Gallows Frontier, Act II) is probably the most conventional track on the album, it still manages to exude a subtle western ‘feel’, which is often difficult to place. Elsewhere, the effect is much more striking. There are some stylistic nods to western soundtracks and instrumentation, which become more overt in quieter passages. Brooding campfire tale Fire & Gold brings side A to close with mellow reprieve, before the next big chapter is delivered in Masquerade Of The Gunslingers.

The pacing of A Romance With Violence is noteworthy; WAYFARER meter out moments of tension, intensity and relief with artistic flair, which makes the longer tracks engaging at each turn. This is a far-cry from the musical monotone black metal is often accused of. Closing number Vaudeville serves as a poignant musical and thematic conclusion, which laments the descent of the bloody frontier-days into romanticised pastiche and dime novels. WAYFARER’s point seems to have been that the mythical West of film and literature conceals the ugly truth of the zealotry of ‘manifest destiny’; that being the case, they have made their point well.

WAYFARER have surpassed themselves with A Romance With Violence: musically accomplished and conceptually rich, this album proves that their skill in execution is more than a match for their ambition. They have captured the bloody and hostile atmosphere of the North American frontier, and rendered it in their own style with nuance and flair. A Romance With Violence rewards studied attention, and it deserves to be heard: this is surely one of the landmark releases of the year.

Rating: 9/10

A Romance With Violence is out now via Profound Lore Records.

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