Wyrd
Heathen

Pagan, literally, this first Full-length by Tomi Kalliola aka Nargath, who under the name Wyrd (destiny) creates a halfway between something that is peculiar and wonderful.

It is not an easy album, "Heathen" is a 51-minute and 11-second track, period. Nothing else. The reason for such a reckless release lies in the very nature of Wyrd’s music: it is impossible to understand and appreciate everything the album wants to convey by skipping to the most beautiful riff or the most crystal-clear arpeggio. It’s a story with a beginning and an end, a logical thread composed of music, emotions, and words. Or even a kind of legend that passes through moments of glory, anger, defeat, sadness, revenge... and that speaks of war, battles, blood, and violence. The choice, therefore, is pagan for two reasons: for the musical style, a purely pagan black metal; for the desire to make an album as indigestible but coherent as possible, in the face of those who only listen to isolated songs and rarely entire CDs.

Accepting the above conditions, one can speak of Wyrd’s music as a continuous contrast between still raw black metal and melodic inserts of evocative and airy keyboards. The entire work is done by Nargath, who chooses musical paths that are decidedly more instinctive than technical. Yet, in various acoustic passages, it can be seen that guitar-wise he doesn’t lack at all... The drums are essential and very much neglected contrary to the keyboards, never in the background. The bass lines are also essential, but sometimes they detach from the main riffs and rise proudly to demonstrate that it is not just an accompaniment instrument. The guitars are often raw and rarely use riffs, especially the acoustic ones, which make up the most melodic and refined part of the entire work. The voice, well, it is often in very dirty scream, but sometimes it appears clean as well. And as in the tradition initiated by Quorthon, when he invented viking metal with Bathory, even Nargath shows to be very little in tune, despite the effort he imposes on himself with his nevertheless catchy anthems. Personally, I can’t completely despise this disregard for the right vocal tonalities, in fact they’re not that bad. That he is out of tune is indisputable, however.

The musical peculiarity of this album is that it presents a new initial part and a central and final part already heard. Let me explain: in Heathen there are both "Season Of Grief" (lasting 13:06) and "Oath Of Revenge" (lasting 15:08) completely re-recorded and "cleaned up," as they were contained in the demo "Of Revenge and Bloodstained Swords." The lyrics are completely different from the demo versions. "Autumn Heart", another track taken from a different demo, closes the epic work.

"Heathen" is a challenging and very heavy album, but I haven't heard better ones made in this way and I can only consider it more than excellent.