Hi, everyone. Nothony Moretano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Spectral Wound album, The Songs of Blood and Mire.

Here we have the newest and fourth full-length LP from Montreal black metal outfit, Spectral Wound. With this LP, the band continues to build on one of the more solid discographies in modern black metal at the moment, because for years now, the band has represented very much a back to basics approach when it comes to the genre. I mean, at this point, any left field metal fan is most likely well aware of the minor renaissance the genre underwent from about 2007 to 2015, where you had all of these new records and artists who were bringing black metal to very experimental, atmospheric, progressive, and sometimes texture-rich places, from Deafheaven to Liturgy, to Wolves in the Throne Room, to Lantlos, to Altar of Plagues, and this is just a tip of the iceberg assembly of acts.

But for every action, there is a reaction, and certainly an important part of this black metal rebirth is just how badly-received it was by long-time fans who had a more insular and purest view of the genre.

Yes, despite its experimental and blasphemous origins, there are some people who would just prefer for black metal to embrace orthodoxy. And while I'm not sure where Spectral Wound lands in all of this ideologically, chances are nowhere near a dork and a cardigan. At least in spirit, they're a part of a wave in recent years that's been seeing audiences and artists sway back into the direction of the sounds and the basics that made black metal what it was in the first place. Stuff like more lofi recordings and a re-embrace of the influences that inspired black metal in the first place, like heavy metal as well as thrash metal. I mean, even spectral Woon's album art looks like a callback to bands like Dark Throne and the like, who themselves have been putting out a lot of albums in recent years, where they are embracing older shades of metal that inspired black metal, too, be it heavy metal or doom metal.

So yeah, with going back to basics, Spectral Wound here is just about the most direct, blunt, punchy black metal reset that you could listen to today. And they've been sticking to that formula for several albums now with a very, if it ain't broke, don't fix it type of mentality, which I most definitely get when you can write and record an opener that rips as hard as "Fevers and Suffering". On this track, you have thunderous drums and brutal guitar riffs that burn through a driving tempo on the intro and eventually give way to this brutally wintry wall of blast beats and demonic screams, as well as tremolo picked guitars, the storm occasionally breaking for some ultra-anthemic melodic passages, married, of course, with lyrics that bring lots of archaic and mythological logical imagery. It's really to romanticize all things dark on a natural and spiritual level, which is pretty typical by black metal standards. But it's being executed with a speed and a heaviness and a tightness that makes early Gorgoroth albums feel like easy listening.

But I will say with Spectral Wound's full embrace of catharsis and force and energy on this album, I think a finesse has been lost in translation. I mean, yes, again, this record is very clearly a purist pursuit, but somehow in the mix of it all, the band missed out on the dynamics and grim theatrics that also inspired a lot of the classic early black metal that they pull from. The intense pacing and pounding drums and rolling double bass drums on a lot of these cuts don't leave a whole lot of room for brooding or nuance, for that matter, which is surprising when you look at the build of this album, because it's not like Spectral Wound refused to give themselves the time on these tracks to build up and stretch out and vary things around.

Many of the songs in the tracklist on this thing are six minutes in length at least, and they all feature a third act switchup of some sort, be it a bridge variation or some dramatic fills or even an acoustic layer. Still, sometimes this is not enough to prevent any given track on this album from feeling like a pretty one-dimensional experience.

The biggest offenders being "At Wine-Dark Midnight in the Mouldering Halls", as well as "The Horn Marauding" and "A Coin Upon the Tongue", both of which are a bit too typical for my taste, even if the latter of these two songs has some pretty finely-executed heavy rip passages.

With all that being said, though, these tracks are at least decent, and the rest of the album is just straight highlights, be it the opener that I mentioned earlier or even "Aristocratic Suicidal Black Metal", which is about as close to a black metal party anthem as I think you're ever going to get, with lots of mid-paced, thrilling riffs throughout the track and soaring melodies, too, that set the stage for lyrics that are essentially about reveling in sin and just rotting in hell, as if it's the most epic and awesome thing ever.

We also have "Less and Less Human, O Savage Spirit", which has a lot of classic heavy metal energy seeping into the mix with the very righteous cords and melodies the band executes on this track that they bring a very ghoulish edge to. Plus, I would say in contrast with a lot of other tracks on this record, there's a lot breathing room around the verses on this track that actually make the heavier choruses feel impactful. There's a grandiose finish to the track that I like a lot, too. It's like a lot of absolutely gorgeous melodies fighting through the distortion and static.

There's also a very strong closing track on the record, too, that finishes things off in a low-key, acoustic, theatrical way, which I think is quite fitting.

Again, I feel like this record is just a very great, solid, solid black metal album, just black metal personified. Really, the only thing it's missing is that raw, wild, loose chaos that made, again, a lot of the records they're inspired by so good and interesting. I think it would be great if going forward, the band delivered something that was just a bit more subtle and slightly less mechanical, which I think could easily be pulled off as they continue to stick to the black metal rules.

But yes, very much a kick-ass album that in its best moments is fiery and also surprisingly catchy, but still could have used more variation and specific ideas here and there, which is why I'm feeling a decent 7 on this one.

Anthony Fantano, Spectral Wound, Forever.