ALBUM REVIEW: Nattarvet – Wormwood

Sweden’s WORMWOOD are a name buried deep in the underground, and have been producing excellent melodic black metal since their formation in 2014. With their debut, Ghostlands: Wounds from a Bleeding Earth (read our review here), WORMWOOD created an album that saw the band come out of the gate with a very strong statement of intent with an almost fully formed sound and style. Just over two years later, WORMWOOD are back with the follow up to that album, Nattarvet, and album that is even better than their first, and finally sees the band consolidate their own distinct sound and create an album that very well could gain them international recognition.

WORMWOOD kick things off with Av lie o börda, a steady, mid-paced offering that showcases razor sharp, energetic melodies. A strong, hook-laden opener that has some excellent, hard rock inspired lead guitar flourishes, Av lie o börda sets the listener up for the rest of the record. I bottenlös ävja with its brilliant, monolithic sound building from the opening keyboard section ends up being a far more folk orientated affair. It becomes far more vicious and aggressive as it progresses, making use of fierce and speed-driven parts to add some intensity, counterpointed by more sublime moments which really help to carry this song and provide variety throughout.

Meanwhile, Arctic Light is, for the most part, an intense and powerful piece of music with a hypnotic interlude in the middle leading into an intricate and impressive second half that has some great guitar parts and soaring vocals, making for a lively and bombastic sound. This is one of Nattarvet‘s better tracks, although it does outstay its welcome by a couple of minutes. The Achromatic Road again makes use of some brilliant keyboards, which give the first moments of this song a dark ambient feel, before launching into a huge sounding, mid-tempo affair with subdued guitars, which allow the vocals to be the focal point of the song, with some incredibly strong drumming also being far more prominent in the mix. It also begins to experiment with cleaner tones, and far more technical guitar work, which makes this a thoroughly engrossing song from the first note to the last.

Well into Side B of Nattarvet, Sunnas hädanfärd is a thunderous and atmospheric, lead driven slab of melodic black metal, which again makes great use of those cleaner, more ethereal passages to build a vast and sprawling sound that, at many points, borders on viking metal, bringing in glorious clean vocals in among the caustic, bellicose shrieks, adding further depth to the bands sound, and adding another intriguing element to this record that really pulls the listener back in.

Penultimate offering Tvehunger, with its almost classical acoustic guitar opener, proves to be one of the album’s more intense and visceral affairs, with the great, dancing viking metal elements within its sound being complemented by bleak and caustic black metal ones, an interchange between styles that pays off and works extremely well. With far more primal rhythms blending with more cacophonous leads and vocals, it manages to balance the catchier side of the bands sound with a far more feral and frenzied approach, making it an instantly memorable offering that does a great job of setting the listener up for the sixth and final song on the album, a weighty and sprawling monolith called The Isolationist; this particular song has a very solid and powerful rhythmic undercurrent, with brilliant, hypnotic lead guitar parts breaking up the general ferocity on offer and making this yet another atmospheric and grandiose track. There are plenty of cleaner, soaring passages, which work incredibly well, and it keeps the song interesting for most of its near twelve minute running time. Even though this song is exceptional at many points, it is one of those tracks that really feels as though it could have ended much more naturally a few minutes prior, and it goes on slightly too long. Nonetheless, it’s a great end to a fantastic album, with the final riff being as hair raising as the ones that started it.

Nattarvet is an incredibly impressive record from start to finish. Throughout, the music is varied, and it’s clear that WORMWOOD are still searching for their own definitive sound that they can call their own, but this results in an album that is diverse and imaginative, seldom, if ever, becoming dull, something that is hard to maintain on a record that comes close to an hour in length. The slick, polished production also works well, and really allows many of the songs better moments to come to the fore in a way they wouldn’t with a raw and dirty production. This is, to date, the strongest and most memorable effort from WORMWOOD, and it could very well see them gain a respectable following within the international underground and take them to new, lofty heights.

Rating: 9/10

Nattarvet is set for release July 26th via Black Lodge Records. 

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