ALBUM REVIEW: Wormwitch – Wormwitch
Vancouver’s WORMWITCH are arguably one of Canada’s worst kept secrets. Even within the country’s famously impressive black metal scene, this trio have managed to establish themselves as one of the nation’s very best acts. With their caustic blend of primitive aggression and penchant for writing gnarled melodies allowing them to reach wider audiences without having to sacrifice any of the belligerence that has marked their core sound, all but a few of their peers are even creating music on a comparable level. The band’s latest, self-titled record not only surpasses the brilliance of its 2021 predecessor Wolf Hex, a well-regarded record in its own right, but creatively outpaces many of their contemporaries globally, serving as perhaps the best black metal record of the year and elevating the band’s already stunning sound to new heights.
Fugitive Serpent is pure, frenetic black metal at its belligerent best. Domineering drums and sludgy basslines serve as a brilliant backdrop to caustic vocals and searing guitars, taking a classic black metal template and making it far chaotic, meaning that it instantly commands the listener’s attention and sets a lofty bar for the rest of the album to overcome, coming out of the gate spitting venom and bile. Envenomed shifts to a slower pace that accentuates the band’s epic side, underpinning the song’s cavernous rhythmic backbone and providing a great contrast with the abrasive flourishes that are dotted throughout, along with a pronounced emphasis on melodic leads, lending this a confident hard rock edge that adds another layer to this imposing offering.
The Helm And The Bow adopts a blistering pace and extremely focused musicianship, with the sound sitting somewhere between the unerring aggression of the album’s opener and the grandiosity of the previous track – crafting a leaner sound with lots of muscular moments – and snarling vocals that complement this tighter sound perfectly. Inner War introduces acoustic guitars, which add a softer dimension to what has been a thoroughly visceral record, making for a dramatic start for this fairly reserved but nonetheless bestial slab of black metal. Much like Envenomed, the guitars veer towards a catchier, riff-centric style, with the steady backdrop and expansive, spartan vocals allowing them to take centre stage, peppering in immersive, ethereal sections amongst the buzzsaw, thrashing passages.
Godmaegen, with its dissonant opening chords, embraces a similarly fast and feral musicality, but injects a darker, more discordant side into the music that, when paired with the deranged vocals, makes this distinctly primal, throwing in biting touches that provide a subtle jarring quality that transforms it into something exceptionally intense. Salamander, a short instrumental interlude that blends acoustic guitars and percussive drums together, acts as a short, folky segue between songs that adds a gentler, almost medieval feel to the album, contributing lots of character that builds anticipation for the following track. Wormsblood Necromancy, a crawling, brooding juggernaut that brings together doomier guitars, forceful drumming and acerbic vocals, tears away the majority of the vitriolic elements that have defined this album, instead moving towards a mid-paced, sombre sound where every fill seems to count towards the overall tone, making sure that not even a single note is buried in the mix.
Bright And Poisonous abruptly lurches back towards an animated, cacophonous sound and is performed with such a precision that it ends up seeming much more noxious, with a gargantuan undercurrent once again developing a monstrous sound that has arguably some of the most rabid moments, providing a concise take on this album’s style but being more impactful with the time it has. Draconick Sorcerous Canadian Witchknights takes the imaginative and animalistic style that was present on the preceding effort and turns it into something decidedly more bombastic, with weighty, slick leads and intricate musicianship on all fronts making this easily one of the album’s punchiest numbers, as well as a fantastically overblown conclusion to the record.
Even by the incredibly high standards that WORMWITCH have set for themselves over the course of the previous three albums, this is magnificent. Adapting an existing formula to make things simultaneously more abrasive and more catchy seems like a counterintuitive, almost impossible task, but Wormwitch pulls this off with ease, with every song on this record feeling like a stand-out offering in its own right whilst doubling down on the angular and primal sound that has served the band well over the last decade. This is also one of those kinds of records that can be seen as a break out performance, catapulting WORMWITCH onto a worldwide stage within black metal, and it would not be surprising if in years to come people look back on this record as the point where this band became truly world-beating.
Rating: 9/10
Wormwitch is out now via Profound Lore Records.
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