So I am not sure if everyone reading this has had this experience but have you ever been on Bandcamp looking for new releases then a band’s name or album title or anything just draws you in to listen? That is what happened here last year. Finland’s Spiritwood caught my attention with last year’s The Art of the Subliminal Wayfaring with both the band’s name and the album title and I was really happy with discovering this mysterious group (or solo possibly? There is no information on a lineup anywhere online.)
This year, Spiritwood has returned with the release of Cold Moon Blasphemies. This album is the epitome of staring into flickering flames and being mesmerized by the movement of the flame. There are elements of atmospheric black metal, doom, symphonic black metal and just raw, evil, straight from the bowels of hell black metal. Each track on this album has the right moments with a mix fast aggression and slow melodic harmonies. Tracks like The Necrocosm and Aion are perfect examples of this as each have an anxiety inducing chaos surrounding them while also utilizing the slower paced, droning dirge-like doom atmosphere.
The guitars are your usual overly distorted black metal riffs with some slower doom inspired riffs but where this album shines most is the otherworldly, damned soul trapped in hell sounding screams and the haunting keyboard melodies that dance around at all the perfect times adding to the bleak atmosphere. Now don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of raw black metal so the guitars were not a problem. Some moments of this album are almost reminiscent of Limbonic Art’s In Abhorrence Dementia and Obtained Enslavement’s Witchcraft.
The melodies, the vocals, the song structures, the atmosphere, all of it together makes this another amazing release from Spiritwood. This album is definitely for anyone who is a fan of melodic, symphonic, doom, atmospheric and raw black metal. I highly recommend this album and suggest you succumb to the void that is Spiritwood.
Overall Score: 9.0/10
Review by Neil Andersen
