Winterfylleth -THE THRENODY OF TRIUMPH (Album Review)

The reason as to why I'm reviewing this album is -partly- because they're from Manchester, my home city (a fact of which I'm glad,) but also because they have a great deal to offer as far as Black Metal goes, the reasons for which I will detail below.

Winterfylleth (deriving from the Anglo-Saxon word for October or "the fall of winter") are a band formed in 2007 and have so far released a demo EP, three studio albums and are due to release an upcoming split EP with Ukrainian Black Metal outfit, Drudkh, later this month. The album release chronology is as follows: The Ghost of Heritage (2008); The Mercian Sphere (2010) and finally the album which I will review today The Threnody of Triumph (2012.) The lyrics typically focus on English heritage and history/folklore, with a heavy use of imagery, especially that concerning geographical landscapes upon which events took place e.g. battles and famous historical events. Threnody is no exception, a beautifully haunting collection of dark yet romantic tracks that keep us rolling forward at full speed, throughout the whole offering to the conclusion. Here's the track list:

1- A Thousand Winters

2- The Swart Raven

3- Aefterield-Freon (*best rendering of Norse graphemes that I can manage on a computer)

4- A Memorial

5- The Glorious Plain

6- A Soul Unbound

7- Void of Light

8- The Fate of Souls After Death

9- Home is Behind

10- The Threnody of Triumph

The Threnody of Triumph

 A Black Metal Masterpiece

The album stabs you with a solid opening on A Thousand Winters, and keeps the knife twisting throughout; a track filled with reverb and a very warm sound, unlike traditional Black Metal, is the first thing that makes the album so great because despite this, they still manage to achieve a very dark atmosphere, without relying on poor production. This idiosyncrasy works very well in their favour, the guitars building into a sonic wall through which the reverb-heavy vocals penetrate, the steam train of the drumbeat carrying the sound forward, advancing the album.

A Thousand Winters: A Breath-Taking Opener

(Lyric video)

The first track is undeniably a fantastic introduction, the lyrics focusing on the story of a ghost trying to reclaim what it lost, the title deriving from the final lyric "...that it were a thousand winters, to thy death-day." This kicks off the entire concept of the album, the songs contained within based around a lamenting of the dead and a progression to the afterlife. Olde and/or Middle English lyrics are also commonplace here, which gives many of the tracks a very Romantic Era ambience despite the dark atmosphere, and this paradox of sound and message is a very strong appeal once again because not only do the lyrics and themes clash with the sound quite often e.g. The Glorious Plain is almost Wordsworthian lyrically, yet dark and heavy sonically, but Winterfylleth's whole brand of BM is very different to other bands because the sound is very much warm as opposed to the bereft-of-reverb sound that is characteristic of most Black Metal, which I think is quite strange given that many of their tracks tend to be set around Autumn or Winter, the coldest seasons of the year.

The Glorious Plain: A Darkly Romantic Ode to a Steppe
(Lyric Video)

As their history suggests, Winterfylleth are a heritage/history-themed band, which is also reflected in their use of what looks like Olde English or early Norse in the third track's title, Aefterield-Freon, which means "mother-tree" I've heard though can't ratify, and is based on folklore. But this album goes beyond the mere mock-up in using clever titles because this track (as well as Home is Behind) is an instrumental English Folk track, not heavy or metallic in the slightest, utilising expertly-layered strings that creates such an epic sound, yet manages to convey such calm as if the eye of the winter storm has been reached, which is a nice break after hearing two heavy tracks clocking in at 7:36 and 7:48 respectively.

Aefterield-Freon: A Beautiful Folk Instrumental
(The Lyric Appears in the Songbook)

Without going into too many more tracks intimately, I will leave this album review by saying that I throughly enjoyed this album with over an hour of diverse music and fantastic musicianship on the part of all involved, with rolling drums, low guitars and above-all, innovative sounds marking a significant step in Winterfylleth's career. I highly recommend it to anyone with an open mind and anyone who likes ambient BM and/or historically-themed music with the instruments to match. If you  do give it a listen then I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did!

Thanks for reading.