ALBUM REVIEW: The Agony & Ecstasy Of Watain – Watain
At the end of the last decade, WATAIN were being touted for superstardom. It had taken the Swedes a fair bit of time to break clear of the black metal underground – 15 years, to be precise – but their 2013 album The Wild Hunt was revered across the globe, hit Number 1 in their home country and, when their infamous live shows involving animal blood and provocative imagery began to gain traction, the world was suddenly looking at the torchbearers for a brand new wave of extreme metal. 2018’s Trident Wolf Eclipse continued that trajectory and then, of course, the entire planet ground to a halt, with WATAIN disappearing from the view of pretty much everyone. How wonderful, therefore, is it to have their seventh album The Agony & Ecstasy Of Watain ready for release on Friday April 29th, their debut on new label Nuclear Blast.
On Trident Wolf Eclipse, WATAIN began to depart slightly from their more progressive black metal that had been present before and streamline their sound into the more classic, aggressive style that has been prevalent for the last three to four decades; indeed, unlike previous efforts, only one track – the closing Antikrists Mirakel – breached the five-minute mark on that record. With The Agony & Ecstasy…, it seems as though the band have attempted a balance of both, with some tracks more bludgeoning from the off, others taking their time to proceed, and a couple – like the demonic twists and turns in Before The Cataclysm – being a combination of the two. It’s an audacious task, and one that lesser bands would have fallen drastically short of accomplishing – but WATAIN are not one of those bands.
Beginning with the furious Ecstasies In Night Infinite, a barrage of riffs and blast beats erupt from the speakers and, with it, the immediate recognition of a band who have not lost a single step of momentum; mind you, that was clear from recent single The Howling, which follows and continues that intense pace that black metal is so renowned for. Serimosa is the first that brings the tempo down and develops more into WATAIN’s progressive side, but this does not disrupt the flow; rather, it shows off just how dexterous the band are. Furthermore, this is the first time that the band have recorded live with a full line-up which, coupled with long-time collaborator Tore Stjerna’s exceptional production skills, have resulted in a WATAIN album that, even by their own standards, sounds darker and eviller than anything that’s preceded it. Of course, they’ve never been one to shy away from the occult – the band are, by their own admission, theistic Satanists – but The Agony & Ecstasy is a cut above, a love letter to the Dark Lord that lasts 50 minutes and does not disappoint.
Black metal might be in the rudest health ever right now, and WATAIN’s highly anticipated return has merely added to it. The Agony & Ecstasy is a world-beater, a record that will go down as a cornerstone of extreme metal for years, nay decades, to come. What a truly special band we have on our hands here, as if that wasn’t obvious already.
Rating: 9/10
The Agony & Ecstasy Of Watain is set for release on April 29th via Nuclear Blast Records.
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