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Band: Wormwood
Album title: Arkivet
Release date: 27 August 2021
Label: Black Lodge Records
Genre: Black Metal, Atmospheric Metal, Melodic Metal
Tracklist:
01. The Archive
02. Overgrowth
03. End Of Message
04. My Northern Heart
05. Ensamheten
06. The Slow Drown
07. The Gentle Touch Of Humanity
"Could I explain the beauty of nothingness? I would sing my song till the end of time."
Finally, it is here, the new offering from the hottest Swedish metal band Wormwood. It's nothing strange if this album was one of the most anticipated this year since the combo already hit hard the metal scene with their previous two albums, Ghostlands: Wounds From A Bleeding Earth (2017) and Nattarvet (2019). Now, the third album of Wormwood brings some of their typical captivating melodic and atmospheric blackened metal, but yet it's different. The music is fresh, epic, yet more flowing, with just a few folk elements. It has a mystical depth and brutally honest hypnotic sound that keeps echoing in your head long after you press stop. I can easily say that Arkivet is a strong contender for the best metal album of 2021. I believe that if the previous two albums "only" got several nominations for the best album and high chart rankings, this one is here to take the prize.
Arkivet is a conceptually themed album about humanity's destructive force, the inability to adapt to nature, and our inevitable and well-deserved death. It's a journey through the past, present and future mistakes of man. The elaborated and poignant concept was disclosed in the first revealed video for the track "The Archive", later also in the video for "The Gentle Touch Of Humanity", and this certainly made our appetite grow. The entire story is available in a novel written by author Mikael Strömberg, which comes with some editions of the album. The album title Arkivet, which in Swedish means a document that you prepare for the close ones after you die, where you can tell your last wishes, how you want to have your funeral arranged, where the important documents are located, etc, is smartly used as a metaphor for the world. It's meant as the last words to an already dead planet.
Musically speaking, the album shows perfect musicianship and great songwriting with no mistakes done, yet there's not a single dull or mellow moment. The dynamics are very high from start to finish, and the band nicely enriched the already atmospheric sound with some cinematic additions. Vocals are great, not your typical black metal shrieks but more of a kind of ferocious powerful blackened melodic chants with several epic clean moments and some growls are here and there, but always in perfect symbiosis. The sound is dense, haunting, atmospheric, with beautiful melodic lines, some intriguing progressive chords and epic passages, yet there's constantly present that certain Nordic melancholy. The compositions are massive and have an intense building up drive. It's hard to say that this is a black metal album neither is any kind of a flower-power kind of modern post-black metal or blackgaze for hipsters and the Instagram generation, far from that. Arkivet is a metal album, a dark one, strong and majestic, a pure form of cold blackened art with a solid structure that has the power to resist the test of time. Even the minimalistic white front cover art suits its purpose.
Evocative and aggressive, this musical gem is less folk metal-oriented than the previous two Wormwood albums. Nevertheless, there's still present that spirit, best heard in the captivating piece "My Northern Heart", a gorgeous iconic hymn to our ancestors and our previous unsullied land. Everything is cohesive, and if you listen carefully to the songs, you'll notice some riffing and guitar leads that sound almost "bluesy", and in general, the music owes a lot to the classic hard rock and heavy metal. The stout and catchy rhythmic lines, smooth technical drumming, nicely added synths, even if rarely heard in the forefront, deepen the atmosphere where needed. Just listen to the final lines of the monumental closer "The Gentle Touch Of Humanity", or how nicely builds up in tension the driving opener "The Archive",... simply mesmerizing. The band got the right pathos, the right momentum that doesn't cease for a moment, but there's still time to take some deep breath when the band adds some acoustic or ambient parts before another shiver comes down your spine.
There's no bad thing in here, except for sometimes a little too raw production, especially on drums, but I guess that this was an intention anyway to bring forth "rock 'n' roll" spirit. It's hard to point out at one single track and say that this one is the best. Each track is special and brings something unpredictable. Each track is different, each one has a special vibe but yet all together form a coherent totality. I enjoyed for example in the dynamic, aggressive yet catchy melodic parts of "Overgrowth", where fantastic dual guitars, great synths, and overall strong rhythms make such an exceptional sonic experience. As well the drive of "The Archive" or the epic cinematic feel of "The Gentle Touch Of Humanity" and the typical Nordic metal hymn "My Northern Heart" kept me hooked. Each track is a masterpiece, and I guess that most of them are to become timeless metal classics. This album has immense depth, it's powerful, unique, and it has a strong message. A must!
"Our final message like dust turned into stone. From nothing we became."
The review was written by Tomaz
Rating: 9,5/10
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