Premiere: Wormlight Welcome You to Their Nightmare
Don’t worry, this isn’t a trick to get you to listen to that Avenged Sevenfold song.
Black metal is abundant today. It seems like everywhere you look there is a brand new black metal band; everywhere you go there’s someone dressed in corpse paint telling the other kids buying Mountain Dew Code Red to keep it Trve. Hell, I’m writing this in Starbucks right now (yeah, basic, shut up) and the barista had to take a break from practicing with his atmospheric black metal band to take my order, but the only order he’d accept was black. Black metal is popular and it’s a good time to be a fan! I contend, however, that there are two things we need more of in black metal. If you’ve read literally anything I’ve ever written you already know the first one, (it rhymes with skiffs), but the second is melody.
For the mass of black metal today, there is a dearth of bands willingly to take up the melodic mantle. Enter Wormlight and their debut Wrath of the Wilds. Originally formed in 2014 under the name Unhallowed, the band underwent numerous changes in 2015, including the departure of founding guitarist Deafeathered and later vocalist Nordlyst. Deafethered’s replacement, Tiamat Invictuz, was the natural replacement vocalist. The final step in their transformation was a change of lyrical themes (from anti-religion to Norse mythology) and a name change to match. On their debut, an immersive and mesmerizing piece of black metal misery, all of these changes play out for the better and give us a band that sounds fully formed instead of one that teases with hints of what could one day be. They manage to be just the right combination of catchy and heavy, never sacrificing one in favor of the other, and it makes for one hell of a listen.
But this is a premiere! You don’t just have to listen to my words and trust me! Listen for yourselves RIGHT HEQQIN’ HERE! I’m stoked to present to you bowl dwellers an absolute epic in the form of “Nightmare.” It brings some chunky Behemoth style riffs and merges them with the furious infectiousness of Dissection. All I ask of you fine folks is to just do me one favor and headbang along with me at right around 4:56.
Wrath of the Wilds drops on April 25th via Black Lion Records. You can preorder the album here, and give the band a like on Facebook here.
