As the tendrils of winter usher in good bourbon1, unwanted family visits, and moon-bitten frost, the trvest of the black metallers come out to peddle their wares. Releasing anything so late in the year is a bold move, as list-mania seizes the hearts of authors across the blogosphere, making an uphill battle for bands from the first note. Here to try their luck today is two-man USBM outfit Wuldorgast, a band so young that at the time of this writing, they don’t even have a page on the Archives. Such youthful vigor is brimming with promise, and debut Cold Light arrives with admittedly dope artwork, seeking to leave its mark on my top ten(ish) and trigger a holly jolly shakeup. Does it stand a chance?
Cold Light sports some of the most engaging production I’ve heard in a black metal album by a country mile, filtering the razor wire of Spectral Wound into a Blasted Heath echoing assault. This extra touch of the cavernous (rather than the merely lo-fi) helps the drums to thunder and riffs to ring out with space and clarity, aiding chug-heavy sections in “Natural Life is Eternal Battle” and the more blast-heavy sections of “Cold Light of Reason” in assaulting the listener from the onset. Leads are caustic and catchy, weaving blackened infectiousness from the first listen, with trusty double base incisions disguising simplistic riffing under howling, reverb-drenched trimming. Vocals yowl and shriek with organic bile, sounding like they’re emerging from the bottom of a well. All in all, Cold Light lashes out as engaging and pleasing to the ear.
However, repeated listens slowly degrade infectiousness into replete repetition and overt simplicity. The first half of Cold Light sports riffs that sound like Judas Iscariot with improved production, but Wuldorgast forgot to include the proper stream-of-consciousness flow that comes with the style. Instead, the listener is treated with moments and melodies that are enjoyable at first blush, only for the band to insist that you don’t yet enjoy them as much as you ought. First song ” Obscured in Shadows” features exactly four riffs, run through twice. Other songs feature more riffs in quantity, but each sound like a minor tonal variant of the one that came before it until all the moments begin to blur together in a haze. The drumming is serviceable in such sections and leads are ear-worm bait, but are placed predictably and are played exhaustively, as if the band got too stoked on their own ideas and forgot how to self-edit.
This is made more confounding by the matter of track sequencing. Wuldorgast manages to cram almost all their good ideas into the back half of the album. Cold Light ends with songs featuring actual time signature changes, riffs that consist of more than two to five notes2 and vocal style alterations. “Cipher to Eternity” is the easy highlight, with absolutely monster chug sections, punky riffs, nifty effects over the instruments, and leads that scream “mosh-fodder” after the first measure. Such a bizarre raise in quality (instead of the typical front-loading) does make Cold Light a unique listen, but the good songs don’t outweigh the front half’s collection of tediousness.
Ultimately, this peculiar bisection of quality is Wuldorgast’s greatest stumbling block. Black metal this cavernous is a rare treat, and when Cold Light hits, it hits hard and with savagery. In tone, I enjoy it very much. It is unfortunate that it hits far too infrequently, with no tone able to disguise its weakness. An improved track sequencing and greater use of imagination across an album’s worth of songs will go far in helping them cultivate their sound. Otherwise, this is a curious end-of-year footnote. If you haven’t had your fill of winter black metal yet, harvest the b sides for a playlist, but otherwise, it seems year-end lists are destined to remain undisturbed.
Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Iron Bonehead Productions
Website: wuldorgast.bandcamp.com/album/cold-light
Releases Worldwide: December 13th, 2024
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