Beats and yelling: Warmoon Lord

Sacrosanct Demonopathy
Out 16^th May on Werewolf Records

Reminiscent of Gnipahålan for its filling and oftentimes recklessly dense concoction of Nordic black metal leftovers. The result leaves a similar residual feeling of being over sated. All the moving parts work, but at times their simultaneity threatens to collapse the music into incoherence. Given how safe 2021’s ‘Battlespells’ played it, from one angle this newly acquired flamboyance is welcome. Any threat of rampant confusion tempered by a wash of early Abigor majesty, seamlessly weaving the domesticity of traditional folk lines into a metallic panorama. Gone too, are the nods to Graveland through the now relegated keyboard lines that serve as little more than scaffolding for the relentless tremolo riffing.

Production is unapologetically polished, indicating a degree of pride in the intricacies of each particular line, riff, and refrain that they would like the listener to regard in full. Whilst atmosphere abounds, the intention is clearly focused toward an intense study of the guitar lines as the chief driver of each piece. Keyboards are either playing catchup or adopting the occasional lead role by way of variation. Drums are somewhat low in the mix, but this is just as well given both their speed and the percussive quality of the guitar playing. Ditto the vocals, that, much like early Abigor, sound distant and laden with echo, both foregrounding the music itself whilst granting a sense of scale and occasion.

Structurally there is a clear desire to channel early Emperor through flowing contrasts of dark and light. But Warmoon Lord – as is typical of nearly all modern metal – appear weighted down by the number of influences now on offer. Structural coherence – whilst not entirely absent – will often give way to stylistic incontinence as riffs compound on one another, wresting the music in contradictory directions with any overarching throughline of narrative premeditation hanging on by a thread. The atmosphere of early Nordic metal undergirded by an explicitly medievalist ethos being one of the few unifying ideas communicated throughout.

But for fans of this style of black metal in theory as well as practice, the album is an undeniable triumph. What it lacks in purpose it more than makes up for at the molecular level, as competing ideas link to form phrases that serve their purpose in microcosm. A plethora of technique, style, melody, and intensity is deployed to maximum effect. And for the listener fascinated by the idea of artistic overreach, the density of material on offer is difficult to resist. Tension and release, rhythmic momentum as opposed to one dimensional intensity, climatic contouring, and a clear intentionality behind the cadential pacing all elevate this material above ninety percent of modern black metal reaching for similar calling cards.

Pound for pound this represents an upward trend for Warmoon Lord since ‘Battlespells’. Both works are explicitly derivative. But as the derivations compound on ‘Sacrosanct Demonopathy’, a clearer intention emerges through the cacophony. An outrageous assemblage of complimentary material is stuffed into a dangerously restrictive space, bringing an iteration of turbocharged late black metal into sharper relief.