ALBUM REVIEW: Covenant Death – Plaguewielder

Since their formation in 2015, Ohio’s PLAGUEWIELDER have seemingly gone from strength to strength, with 2018’s Surrender to the Void and 2019’s Suffering From Self Inflicted Wounds in particular not only seeing the band at perhaps their most focused and most intense, but also gain some well deserved critical acclaim. The the trajectory the band’s sound has been taking over the last few years, it’d be safe to assume that they were heading in a much more visceral direction with their music, but their latest record, Covenant Death, sees a marked shift towards more a melody-driven sound, whilst retaining much of the dirty blackened sludge that they have become famous for, resulting in an album that is as catchy as it is savage.

To Dance with Wolves starts things off well, combining punishing rhythms with slick, melodic leads. The catchy hooks on offer give this a much punchier sound, at odds with the caustic nature of the vocals and the more visceral, chaotic sections that are peppered throughout this song, getting the balance between intensity and accessibility just right. At Night They Roam maintains the tight drumming, chunky grooves and aggression, but opts for more discordant leads, turning the music it a much more dissonant, punk-inflected affair with a much darker feel, with a more pronounced black metal influence coming to the fore.

A Death That Knows No End has some great, ethereal guitar work and a much more intricate approach to the drums, which gives a more expansive and diverse edge, adopting a leaner, melodic black metal sound whilst still retaining the thick, sludgy undercurrent, meaning that it doesn’t sacrifice any of its depth musically. One With the Shadows continues in a similar vein, with the hazy tone working well with the sharper guitars and vocals. The drums, likewise, provide an unrelenting aural assault that underpins the other elements with a machine gun precision, adding a thunderous pace to what the guitars, bass and vocals are doing.

Covenant Death sees the keyboards make their first prominent appearance since the closing minutes of the opening track, and provides a sublime, grandiose interlude that breaks up the ferocity that has characterised this album so far, serving as a fantastic change of pace. CRGP, with its grating, frenetic style, with lots of speed-driven moments and an energetic, jarring rhythms, is a brilliantly primal take on sludge-tinged black metal that is a short, sharp shock of cacophony that stands as one of the album’s heavier and abrasive numbers.

Black Mysticism returns to the vaster more atmospheric guitar flourishes that defined A Death That Knows No End, with huge chords and a cavernous drum sound providing an excellent backdrop to the bellicose vocals, injecting lots of melody into the mix whilst ensuring the the track, as a whole, sounds acerbic. Forever We Shall Be has a great guitar tone, murky and bleak, that works extremely well here, allowing for a sound that has a lightness to it, whilst still managing to pack a punch when required. It’s a powerful track, with a slightly more progressive approach to it and a more layered sound that enables all of the best parts to rise to the top of the mix, resulting in an interesting and hypnotic conclusion to this record.

In comparing this album to more recent releases from PLAGUEWIELDER, it’s clear that there’s been a slight, but noticeable, change in the band’s style, incorporating more melodic flourishes than on earlier records, or at least amplifying that which was already there. It’s got a far slicker feel to it, and a slightly more polished production, but it definitely has it’s aggressive and chaotic moments in there. Branching out musically has paid off, with this being arguably not only PLAGUEWIELDER‘s best material to date, but also its most catchy and diverse. The noxious mix of black metal, sludge, punk and even a touch of ambient music has worked here, and hopefully PLAGUEWIELDER will be able to develop and surpass the sound they’ve created here in the future.

Rating: 8/10

Covenant Death is out now via Disorder Recordings.

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