The Swedish orthodox black metal brand rose because people needed a label for music adorned in the style of Dissection, yet composed in shorter riffs and cyclic songs like war metal, with a strong cover story of Satanism to help obscure its anti-social and Darwinist positions.
Ultra Silvam comes to us from that mold, sounding a lot like early Watain with elements of Necrophobic, Dimmu Borgir, and Satyricon in the mix. Songs feature some expanded formats, usually by transitioning into atmospheric elements, but otherwise focus on short, fast riffs with melodic adornment in tight, simple songs.
They must call this “orthodox” because it is the opposite. Orthodox black metal would be the intricate, layered, and highly thematic compositions of Enslaved, Gorgoroth, Immortal, Graveland, and Emperor. This is more like the black metal style applied to fast punk songs with a strong pop sensibility.
Having thrown that out on the table, The Spearwound Salvation is like early Dodheimsgard, Watain, Aura Noir, or Nifelheim in that it is purely enjoyable and has none of the troubling depth of early Nordic black metal. It simply tells you that society is full of lies, so here is some infectious heavy metal at high speed.
This puts us in the duality of anything well-executed but hedonistic in appreciation, which is that it sounds good, has good energy, feels good to listen to, but may not call you back. In fact, that may be its charm: it passes like a quick summer rain, appreciated for a momentary distraction which is then forgotten.
Where The Spearwound Salvation stands above its competition is that these are actual songs, which start, cycle, possibly develop, and then finish. They convey complete emotional impressions, even if momentary ones. They are not just musically competent, but artistically competent, and fiendishly earwormish.
I miss the old black metal too. This cannot be that; it is, however, a breath of fresh air in the disorganized or homogenized material promoted by the “trve vndergrovnd kvlt” which sounds mostly like guitar practice to a fast metronome.
Tags: Black Metal, orthodox black metal, swedes are degenerates, ultra silvam
smh Brett you’re softer than a bag of wet marshmallows. what’s with this *it’s actually the opposite of everything it purports to be which makes it better than it really is* doublethink? and what kind of “competition” does this “stand above” if it can be compared to nifelheim and “punk songs with a strong pop sensibility”?
nobody is going to fall for this superficiality. the bandwagon has been full for a long time and this band is just another mangled corpse caught beneath its wheels
“cover story of satanism” and “sounds like watain” is all that needs to he said or heard
Brett is a pretty ugly, skinny-fat snow-nigger worshipper & wannabe. He’s not that smart either.
Having said that, most black metal is kinda boring. Some of it is OK on a rainy day, but shit’s pretty overrated.
How many times did you even listen to this black metal pop-music? All the good riffs don’t last long enough to develop into memorable tracks and d-beats and punk riffs deface the entire album. At 11:22 Ultra Silvam starts playing a melody from a “The Sound of Music” song…how could anyone not realize that sounds bad?
Also, when will black metal be rid of these hardcore punk shouting vocals. Very low effort sounding. From experience, this to me sounds like “what punks think true black metal” sounds like.
dude Brett hates metal, it’s obvious. there is no quality filter anymore