Band:	Wormwitch
Album:	Heaven That Dwells Within
Style:	Crust Punk, Black metal
Release date:	April 2019

01. Disciple Of The Serpent Star
02. Vernal Womb
03. Two Wolves
04. Spirit Braid
05. Benighted Blade
06. Midnight Sun
07. Dancing In The Ashes
08. Lord Of Chains
09. Iron Woman
10. Alone Before The Doors Of The Silent House

A black metal record that is... fun?

I honestly don't really remember much from Wormwitch's 2017 debut, Strike Mortal Soil, but if it did enough to get Wormwitch in the public eye so that Heaven That Dwells Within would get the attention it deserves, it did a good job. And that is indeed quite the progress to be made in such a short time, considering how great the songwriting is on this thing. While the cover art was definitely a deciding factor in me checking out the album, I wouldn't have stayed as long if it wasn't so damn fun.

So what happens when you take later era Tribulation, put it with some good ol' Dissection, and have it take some cues from Slægt? You don't get Heaven That Dwells Within, because that's much more than that, but you're getting quite close. While I'm not one to describe Dissection as fun, especially with the band's history and all, but that is something I may use a bit more freely when talking about the other two aforementioned comparison bands, but nowhere is that more clear than here, where there's also an element of unexpectedness to the songwriting, with how well each different section flows into the next.

A lot of it sounds like regular black, a lot of it is melodic black, some of it has residual crust punk from the debut, you often get into d-beat sections as well, suddenly you're into an acoustic section with folk choirs, and it's back to meloblack, but it's so damn engaging, not only because of it going into different sounds, but because of how seamless the transitions are and how great the damn songwriting is. This album has no shortage of memorable riffs, drum fills, and vocal lines; with the latter of those probably being the most one-dimensional thing on the record, and by one-dimensional I should probably mean less-dimensional relative to the rest, so you'll find some variety to the vocals as well.

It's honestly been quite a while since a black metal record had me bopping my head and air guitaring like that, thankfully while I'm alone in my room, but that should be a testament to how engaging and fun this record is. At this point you should probably tell which word I've been overusing, so I hope that at least I drove the point home.



Thank you for a wonderful 2019, happy holidays, and see you in 2020!