Year: 2022
Total Time: 49:22
Label: Nuclear Blast
The Swedes WATAIN, since the release of their debut album “Rabid Death’s Curse” in 2000 until 2010 and the release of “Lawless Darkness”, have had a remarkable course in the Black Metal scene, building a strong reputation contributed also by their impressive live performances. However, ten years of great career will be interrupted by the release of their controversial album, “The Wild Hunt”, which divided the band’s diehard fans as it showed a turn of the band to more soft music paths. Order will be restored in 2018 with the release of the remarkable “Trident Wolf Eclipse”, the success of which will bring them into the arms of Nuclear Blast. This year, WATAIN offer us their new album entitled “The Agony & Ecstasy of Watain”.
It’s no secret that DISSECTION is one of the main influences of the Swedes, along with BATHORY. The opening song “Ecstasies in Night Infinite” proves it emphatically, giving a sweeping opening to the new album. The aggressive rhythms continue in “The Howling”, which vaguely reminds us of “Casus Luciferi” and “Lawless Darkness”. The rest of the album is a reverent dedication to the blasphemous musical tradition of WATAIN, who create dark and blasphemous Swedish Black Metal, straddling the line between melody and ferocity.
Two compositions are quite different from the general set, the seven-minute “Before the Cataclysm”, with the female vocals of Farida Lemouchi from THE DEVILS BLOOD and its haunted slow-walled rhythm, and “Serimosa” with its Dark Metal influences. The main characteristic of the album is the fact that all the compositions sound well crafted and carefully orchestrated, with rhythm changes while the production is simply perfect, proving the impeccable professionalism of the band in order to offer to its fans a quality result.
WATAIN’s new album could be a musical retrospective of their entire discography, as we find elements from all their previous albums, even from “The Wild Hunt”. The band knows how to create a sinister and evil atmosphere, and in this sense they recorded the new album in an old church! “The Agony & Ecstasy of Watain” could be described as “modern” Black Metal album, as we shouldn’t make the mistake of trying to compare it with more traditional forms of the genre. WATAIN with “The Agony & Ecstasy of Watain” offer a great melodic Black Metal album that will excite their diehard fans, and will satisfy the lovers of that particular sound, maintaining the band’s dynamics.
Rating: 7,5/10
Editor: Nikos Manousis
Related Link: WATAIN – Facebook Page
