Windhand’s last album, ‘Soma’, was a near text book example of epic doom, closing off with the masterpiece of crushing desolation that is the thirty minute ‘Boleskine’. Jump forward to 2015 and in order not to be overshadowed, the band would have to pull something pretty spectacular out of the bag. This they have done so, and in a truly glorious style with ‘Grief’s Eternal Flower.’
The album opens with ‘Two Urns’, Dorthia Cottrell’s drifting, haunting vocals insinuating themselves through a wall of thunderous rhythms, her gentle and ethereal delivery in stark contrast to the heavy beats, but in no way jarring or out of place, the sounds instead melding together to create a magical whole, tied together in the middle by a solo that owes at least as much to the psychedelic as it does to the metallic. The same trippy sensibility flows into follow up ‘Forest Clouds’ the two segued by squealing, meandering space rock effects straight from the acidic mind of Captain Brock himself before the wall of guitars again stamp out their presence with yet more riffs guaranteed to have the most static of heads nodding along to their infectious beats.
‘Crypt Key’ and ”Tanngrisnir’ continue to build on the power of the first two tracks, down-turned and fuzzy riffs aplenty guaranteed to satisfy the most died in the wool doomster, but with subtle and skilful lighter touches such as gentler vocal harmonies stopping the band becoming an Electric Wizard clone and hearkening back to the age of classic occult rock. However, for all the amplified glory of these numbers, for me the absolute stand out number is ‘Sparrow’. A simple refrain of a lone strummed acoustic guitar and Dorthia’s vocals, it is a song that could equally fit on a folk or country album; not the mullet sporting and rhinestone ten gallon hat wearing caricature that so many associate with “Country and Western”, but the dark, plaintive roots of the form. When she sings of a man “whose love is violence”, you’d need to have a heart of stone not to be chilled by the sheer emotion that comes out. It is a song of pain and loneliness, yet filled with the stark beauty of an empty desert.
To try and follow such a frankly beautiful song would be a thankless task for many artists, but Windhand instead blasts the listener with the funereal slog of ‘Hyperion’, the concrete heavy crush of the drums a massive contrast to the preceding arrangement. This itself is followed up by ‘Hesperus’ and the outer-space wandering of ‘Kingfisher’, each number clocking in at nearly a quarter of an hour each, but each with their own hypnotic yet unique sound that draw in the listener and carry them along in a sea of sound. Each would be deserving of their own EP, and each sounds like they would be epic additions to a live set. Closing the album is ‘Aition’, a return to the lone guitar and beautiful vocals of ‘Sparrow’, the sound of a whispering breeze across an empty plain adding a chilling grace to the music.
This is an album that I’ve no doubt will appear high in the top ten of the year lists of many writers. The last time I saw Windhand live was on a bill with Pilgrim at Camden’s famous, but famously small Black Heart, a room above a pub that on the night was stuffed to the rafters with an appreciative crowd, pint glasses being rattled on their shelves by the thunderous bass lines. With the quality of ‘Grief’s Eternal Flower’, I’ve no doubt that far larger venues will need to be booked to hold the influx of new fans that this album must surely generate.
(9/10 Spenny)
https://www.facebook.com/WindhandVA
18/09/2015 at 11:26 pm
It’s taken a fair old time, but Wino and Conny Ochs (http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/03/wino-and-conny-ochs-freedom-conspiracy-exile-on-mainstream/) may now have a decent rival for album of the year in my list!