Wormwood - Ghostlands - Wounds From A Bleeding Earth review
| Band: | Wormwood |
| Album: | Ghostlands - Wounds From A Bleeding Earth |
| Style: | Atmospheric black metal, Melodic black metal |
| Release date: | March 10, 2017 |
| A review by: | nikarg |
01. Gjallarhornet
02. The Universe Is Dying
03. Under Hennes Vingslag
04. Godless Serenade
05. Oceans
06. Silverdimmans Återsken
07. Tidh Ok Odhe
08. Beneath Ravens And Bones
09. The Windmill
10. What We Lost In The Mist
11. The Boneless One
12. To Worship
It is a common experience that some albums need time to sink in and grow on you, sounding better and better after every listen. On other occasions comes an album that gets you hooked from the very beginning and the more you spin it, the more you are left flabbergasted by the sheer brilliance of it. Ghostlands - Wounds From A Bleeding Earth belongs to the latter kind.
Wormwood is a Swedish band that had only released one EP, called The Void: Stories From The Whispering Well, before this album. For those who have heard it, bits and pieces of inspired black metal can be detected; however, it was impossible to predict the awesomeness that was slowly brewing in the minds and hearts of the band and was going to come out two years later in the form of this full-length.
Ghostlands - Wounds From A Bleeding Earth reveals influences from classic Swedish black metal and especially Dissection, as well as Viking metal, particularly later-era Bathory, enhanced by Kvelertak-style black'n'roll and plenty of Scandinavian folk. Wormwood is not a copycat band, though; they manage to blend different genres in such an excellent manner that the final result, instead of sounding confusing and/or rehashed, feels so refreshing and new that it offers the listener a natural high.
The band is daring to mix contrasting styles not only from song to song, but also within the same song. The first single, "Godless Serenade", for example, begins with black shoegaze epicness that is followed by an acoustic passage, then a few seconds of melodic black metal riffing before turning into an upbeat black'n'roll anthem and concluding with a-return-to-basics black metal part. "Tidh Ok Ödhe", on the other hand, starts as a bright and happy folk song with accompanying female vocals and a "la-la-la" chorus that will stick to your mind forever. Three minutes later, the song becomes a black metal whirlwind that destroys everything in its path, before changing back to the cheerfulness of the beginning.
The contrasts are endless in this album and I could go on detailing them forever. From the brutal male growls to the ethereal female voice of Alexandra Moqvist and from the sometimes crushingly heavy or other times heavenly melodic guitars to the mellowness of the synths and the violin, this record is a journey of antitheses that are merged in the most resourceful way in order to create an unparalleled atmosphere, wherein the listener feels surrounded by stunning nature and experiences a vast range of emotions.
The guitars and the ingenious riffing and melodies play the protagonist role, escorted by the rhythmic and engaging drumming. The lack of a more distinctively audible bass is the only thing that slightly diminished my listening experience, but the production in general is open and roomy. I have no favourites whatsoever, but if you put a gun on my head, I'd go with the incredibly catchy "The Windmill", a song which I'm sure Tribulation would have loved to be theirs. For the last three months I have been listening to Ghostlands - Wounds From A Bleeding Earth from start to finish, without skipping a single track, at least once a day. Even after so many repeated listens, the ending of the album's epic closer, "To Worship", gets to me and fills me with overwhelming emotion every single time, functioning as the culmination of the previous eleven songs' grandeur.
Best debut and album of the year contender.
"Fly, take me to the sky
Die, I am forever
We are the weaves of this cosmic tapestry
Cry, as the last star is gone"
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 10 |
| Songwriting: | 10 |
| Originality: | 8 |
| Production: | 9 |
 | Written on 15.07.2017 by Only way to feel the noise is when it's good and loud! |
Comments
Comments: 19
Visited by: 413 users
| Jagsey Posts: 143  |
This one took me by surprise. The way the blend different styles together and make it feel familiar, yet unique is hard to pull off and sounds very refreshing. Best debut contender for sure.
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| OpethFlames Posts: 127  |
Yea this album is at the top for album of the year for me so far. Outstanding stuff!
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| Auntie Sahar Drone Empress Posts: 5989  |
Pretty average-sounding melodic BM if you ask me, good but nothing more. I also think you might be exaggerating the degree to which this is a genre-mixer. It variates in sound, sure, but more stylistically than anything else if that makes sense. It's taking influences from different black metal styles, it's not as if its blending black metal with doom, industrial, folk, etc. Now that would be interesting. Not shit but definitely not worth a near perfect score
---- I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go. ~ II. VII
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| nikarg Staff Posts: 7345  |
Written by Auntie Sahar on 15.07.2017 at 19:06 I am mainly talking about different styles of black metal (melodic, atmospheric, shoegaze, black n roll, tr00) blended with folk and Viking.  The near perfect score is predominantly based on my personal view on the quality of the compositions themselves and the pure enjoyment experienced while listening. 
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| Auntie Sahar Drone Empress Posts: 5989 |
Written by nikarg on 15.07.2017 at 21:14 I get your point. I dunno, it's hard for me to get all that excited over melodic and atmospheric forms of black metal all that much. Probably because there's just so much of it around now it's difficult to really separate the "good" bands from the "excellent" ones. Honestly off the type of my head the only atmo BM bands I get seriously hyped up for new releases from are probably Wolves In The Throne Room, Fen, and A Forest Of Stars
---- I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go. ~ II. VII
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| nikarg Staff Posts: 7345 |
Written by Auntie Sahar on 15.07.2017 at 21:27
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| Auntie Sahar Drone Empress Posts: 5989 |
Written by nikarg on 15.07.2017 at 21:40 Nah, not that it's not my cup of tea, I just think there are other bands out there that do this kinda black metal much better. That's all. AFOS I can understand as they're a pretty bizarre band, but if you're not a fan of Fen and WITTR you need to re-evaluate life 
---- I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go. ~ II. VII
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| nikarg Staff Posts: 7345 |
Written by Auntie Sahar on 15.07.2017 at 22:27 Sorry but they both bore me to death.. However, I'm a fan of Hail Spirit Noir and LoC so I'm not really beyond hope, lol 
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| Risto Wandering Midget Posts: 1115  |
Thing is, this shouldn't even be labeled atmospheric black. Maybe the EP is more in that vein, but this is way too folk oriented for it (except maybe Godless Serenade).
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| tea[m]ster Au Pays Natal Contributor Posts: 5266  |
What a debut...excellent review and thanks.
---- rekt
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| nikarg Staff Posts: 7345 |
Written by Risto on 16.07.2017 at 01:18 I agree and I don't think the EP should be under that label either. There is mainly folk and melodic stuff in Ghostlands. Having said that, I don't know how or why the label "atmospheric" was given, but I also don't care much about such things when an album is as mind-blowing as this one. 
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| Cassian Posts: 159  |
Even for me, a gothic and melodic death metal fan, this album is beautiful!
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071  |
Written by Auntie Sahar on 15.07.2017 at 19:06 As some visionary said somewhere... Quote:
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996 
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| Nick Carter Posts: 257  |
I am definetely in the bandwagon of this album. It has something inside of it that feels as a mind-ear bomb after you listen to it, and it doesn't fade away with each time you hear it again. It mixes sounds that have been mixed before, but somehow this sound as if it is the way it has to be mixed since the beginning. It has a soul deep inside.
---- #MetalIsForEveryone
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| Fellow Duh Say Posts: 32 |
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| BitterCOld The Ancient One Admin Posts: 15287  |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 17.07.2017 at 14:36 Somewhere around there as well. Scored it a 7 on MS with the flat scoring, was ok, but every once in a while some cool little riff or section comes on that makes you nod in approval, so 7.5 from me. can't round up to 8, though.
---- get the fuck off my lawn. Beer Bug Virus Spotify Playlist crafted by Nikarg and I. Feel free to tune in and add some pertinent metal tunes!
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| Dark Horizons Posts: 131  |
Really good and enjoyable album, melodic black metal with folk elements and groove! But... 9,5?! 9,5 is for something near perfetction, something that will still shine after many years... 9,5 seems to me a fanboy-vote.
---- We are just a moment in time A blink of an eye A dream for the blind Visions from a dying brain I hope you don't understand
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| Fallen Ghost Craft Beer Geek Posts: 724  |
Hell yes this is awesome! At first I found some parts to be too "folky" for my taste, but they are now awesome, four first songs are outstanding imo!
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| FollowTheJester Posts: 1 |
As far as Melo BM goes I think Sacramentum - Far Away from the Sun and Dissection- The Somberlain would have to be my favorites. I am enjoying this release a lot though. It kind of transports you to an ancient medieval village in the mountains with a mythical landscape as the backdrop
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