(written by Islander)
On May 30th the Eternal Death label will release a new album by the Canadian/American duo Wald Krypta. Entitled Disenchantment, it’s the band’s fourth full-length.
Around here, this has been an eagerly anticipated album, because in their previous releases Wald Krypta have found for themselves an intriguing musical intersection. They are rightly known for the “raw” lo-fi aesthetics of their sound, but their songwriting really doesn’t fit the current template of “raw black metal”.
Whereas that songwriting template often seems calculated to be willfully abusive of listeners… and therefore often dull and uninspiring… Wald Krypta electrify the imagination, even when what their songs might cause us to imagine are very dark and dangerous visions. Their music has compelling emotional power, which the organic rawness of their sound just makes more authentic.
They show this again within Disenchantment, and we have two vivid signs of that so far, one song that has already been revealed and another we’re premiering today.
We’ve already spilled some words about that first song, the extremely well-named “Opulent Impudence“, and will repeat them here:
The song is indeed rough and raw, and it is indeed thoroughly exhilarating. The riffing vibrantly whirs in scratchy, whining tones. The drums sound like thumping on old hide stretched across the frames. The crackling vocals conjure visions of an enraged offspring of vampire and werewolf.
As the fleet-fingered riffing rises, falls, and whirls, often elaborately augmented by a layering of one abrasive guitar over another, the music sounds like a wild dance spinning in a fiery circle, like the jubilant celebration of demons given free reign on an ancient Samhain night. Their vicious glee is infectious. Were we there, it would be damned hard to resist joining in, even if we might get cut to pieces in their frolic.
The wild energy of that song is tremendously infectious, and so is the song we’re presenting today — “Of Disenchantment“. The riffing is again fast and dirty; the drums sound like the rapid clatter of sticks on sheet metal and the pumping of pistons; the vocals are once more savage and voraciously hostile.
The riffing is the dominant feature of the song, and it sounds simultaneously feral and furious, cruel and cold, striving and yearning — perhaps also with traces of despair (and disenchantment) in the most elevated arpeggios.
Moreover, as the heart-pounding music hits its crests and troughs, forever wildly spinning, it also channels a kind of ancient glory, like a code of chivalry born in the age captured in the album’s cover art. And maybe the disenchantment reflected in the song’s name (and the album’s name) could be interpreted as what the modern era has lost, because as exhilarating as the music is, you can discern a sense of loss in it as well.
Eternal Death will release Disenchantment on vinyl LP and digital formats. Pre-orders are available now:
PRE-ORDER:
https://eternaldeath.bandcamp.com/album/disenchantment
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