WATAIN: The Agony & Ecstasy Of Watain (BLACK METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

If it carries all the blasphemous paraphernalia of the most radical and disturbing black metal, between corpsepaint, satanic fuel or dead animals thrown in the audience during concerts looking like diabolic rituals, the fact is that Watain has always been a band to be taken seriously, a vehicle for musicians as talented as they are sincere. Of course, the Swedes have mellowed down over the last ten years - in the form more than in content - to the great displeasure of a handful of ayatollahs stuck on their first misdeeds. But the viciousness of this black art of feverish and sharp brutality has not been diluted either by an increased exposure or by a reinforced technical agility.

Many people were nevertheless disappointed by "Trident Wolf Eclipse" (2018). Wrongly, because this sixth album found the right balance between morbid fury and mortifying ambiences. Will "The Agony And Ecstasy Of Watain" make more unanimity? Its title should not deceive you, it is indeed the new offering of the band and not a compilation or a product of the same kind. But it does not translate less the ambivalence of a black metal torn between dark aggressiveness and sinister majesty. In this respect, it is not at all certain that this seventh opus will arouse the support of the fans of the first hour and the eternal grumpy ones more than its predecessor.

The rhythm of this album is of a sustained velocity, yet it rumbles with an uncompromising harshness. A demented start of violence, 'Ecstasies In Night Infinite' and then 'The Howling' harvest the corpses from the start, leaving no room for melody or light. Further on, the same goes for 'Leper's Grace' or 'Funeral Winter', which carry away torrential blasts and possessed vocals. However, from their entrails always ooze this devious and macabre gall which all along poisons this album in truth more nuanced than it seems at first sight.

The fact that it was captured in live conditions inside a church dictates both its authenticity and its telluric depth. Thus, the Swedes did not put in fallow their taste for the gloomy atmospheres as illustrated by 'We Remain', slow sabbath draped by the incantatory vocals of Farida Lemouchi (The Devil's Blood). And even when Erik Danielsson and his henchmen maintain a brutal vice, this sickly ooze corrodes all the space, witnesses the crepuscular 'Serimosa' which searches the night and the demons which inhabit it, or even more 'Before The Cataclysm', prepared by the mortuary instrumental 'Not Sun Nor Man Nor God' and whose hardness is combined with a creeping beauty.

Eternal lord of this Swedish black metal as cruel as vicious, Watain gives birth to an album of an abundant black force, drawing in the speed as in the haunting of funereal atmospheres matter to cultivate its negativity. - Official website

WATAIN

THE AGONY & ECSTASY OF WATAIN

NUCLEAR BLAST

BLACK METAL