video review: 'TRIDENT WOLF ECLIPSE' by watain

Well, I'm not going to deny this black metal is a little outside my comfort zone... but hey, it actually wound up closer to something I'd like more than I expected. Interesting review, to be sure.

Next up... I'm not sure, we'll see!

album review: 'trident wolf eclipse' by watain

So when I've talked about black metal, I haven't really talked much about record labels - and that's mostly because as a frequently controversial metal subgenre that has remained almost entirely underground, most major labels and distributors don't touch it, and that suits groups just fine. Now on the one hand that can make finding certain black metal records a real pain in the ass, because distribution can be limited and scarce... but on the flip side, if you hear that a black metal group signed to a major label or distributor, more often than not you could give odds that the group will have diluted or diversified their sound.

Now granted, when it came to Swedish black metal act Watain in 2013, some of that you could have predicted already. While their early records did showcase some impressive shredding and a theatrical brand of theistic Satanism - which of course led to the sort of elaborate live show that was intensely controversial - I personally never found them all that challenging or abrasive. The production was always pretty clean, the vocals were never too guttural, and the song structures felt more accessible. And by the time they signed with Century and put out The Wild Hunt, openly dabbling in tones that were more progressive or doom-inspired with even clean vocals, they were primed for that crossover and had the sales to prove it, even the atmosphere, intensity, and writing had taken a bit of a dip along the way... and then close friend of the band and occult rock artist Selim Lemouchi committed suicide. It was a moment that shook the band deeply and drove them back to expanding on the desperate dark empowerment themes that characterized their full-length debut in 2000, a truly nasty little album that might have textures that'll satisfy black metal purists, but really doesn't showcase the refined compositional strengths that would start to come later on Casus Luciferi. So if they were going back to that tone and style as seasoned veterans, this could make for a pretty damn potent listen, right?