2021 seems a long time ago. So long, in fact, that I had utterly forgotten half of my year-end List. Imagine my surprise then, to discover, while checking for previous references on our auguste site, that I had listed Spectral Wound’s last outing, A Diabolic Thirst. That was as nothing, however, compared to my shock when I discovered that, not only had Deafheaven-groupie Doom_et_Al awarded it a list spot, so had avowed BM skeptic Ferrous Beuller. Perhaps this spread says something about what Spectral Wound achieved with its third record, its brand of vicious, semi-raw black metal appealing to both the ravening death metal machine Ferrous and Sunbather-apologist Doom, as well as yours truly, normally to be found luxuriating at the atmo-end of the BMverse. Can this Canadian five-piece achieve the same lightning-in-a-bottle effect with fourth record, Songs of Blood and Mire?
Pressing play the first time, I was briefly non-plussed, as I appeared to have unwittingly put on a sludge record, the first distorted notes of opener “Fevers and Suffering,” drowning in feedback, recalling nothing more than Charger. This effect lasts only moments but is, nevertheless, disarming. Then Spectral Wound rips you a new one with an altogether more familiar sound. Searing tremolos shed hoar frost in their frozen wake, as Illusory’s artillery-like percussion slams into the listener again and again. As ever, Jonah’s rasping shrieks cut like shards of glass blown upon an arctic gale, slicing into your flesh and your mind. So far, so Spectral Wound. However, there is a subtle, but marked, maturing to the band’s sound on Songs of Blood and Mire. Without losing any of the furious, visceral dark magic that tainted their previous outings, Spectral Wound now weave in, by turns, a really nasty groove, reminiscent of early Bathory (“Aristocratic Suicidal Black Metal”), as well as a Scandinavian epicness, a la Windir (“Twelve Moons in Hell”).
Songs of Blood and Mire by SPECTRAL WOUND
In some ways, Songs of Blood of Mire reminds me of what Miasmata captured on their debut, Unlight: Songs of Earth and Atrophy, as it serves up unflinchingly harsh, yet strangely melodic, black metal, channeling the likes of Dissection and Watain, as much as it does Windir and others. Raw and brutal in places, Spectral Wound are only too happy to kick down your front door, before setting fire to the splintered remnants and pissing on your doormat for good measure (“At Wine-Dark Midnight in the Mouldering Halls”). But that tells only half the story. Once inside, the band stalks your house, shambling from room to room, experimenting with different ways of smashing up your stuff. Debauched, seething, and frenetic, sometimes it feels like Spectral Wound are content to take their time, the groove of Sam’s bass giving the rest of the band space to lay leisurely waste to everything (“Less and Less Human, O Savage Spirit” and the back end of “A Coin Upon the Tongue”). At others, the band is a raging tempest, blasting through walls without hesitation, no shits given (“Fevers and Suffering” and “The Horn Marauding”).
Across its tight, 43-minute run, Songs of Blood and Mire is every bit the equal of Spectral Wound’s previous efforts. At its absolute best (“Aristocratic Suicidal Black Metal” and closer, “Twelve Moons in Hell”), it’s probably the strongest material the band has put out to date. Slightly less raw than previous efforts, there is something here of the transition made by Lamp of Murmuur between its debut and third outing, 2023’s Saturnian Bloodstorm. Whether it’s that deep seam of groove that’s now woven more firmly into Spectral Wound’s sound or little adornments, like the super fun solo dropped (either by Patrick or A.A.) around the halfway mark of “A Coin upon the Tongue,” this feels like a band confident in its songwriting, comfortable with its sound. The excellent production, which retains an organic rawness but emphasizes the details, like the keening, melodic edge to the guitars, hurts not at all.
Clearly written by the same band that conjured Infernal Decadence and A Diabolic Thirst, Songs of Blood and Mire has just a few more tricks up its ragged sleeve. Although it’s Spectral Wound’s longest outing yet (edging A Diabolic Thirst by a couple of minutes), there’s zero filler or bloat here, and the whole thing feels vital and packed with barely contained energy. My favorite Spectral Wound to date, I’m afraid that score counter is in trouble. Again.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Profound Lore
Websites: spectralwound.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/spectralwoundcontramundi
Releases Worldwide: August 23rd, 2024
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