Review Summary: black winged delirium.
Let's get one thing straight. If it wasn't glaringly obvious already, Wode aren't here to cater to the chorus of mamby-pamby nose-turners who exclusively listen to Kayo Dot or Deathspell Omega demos for a sense of self-congratulatory counterculturism. That sort of fluff is for midnight wanks with your socks on and lonely walks in the rain.
"Keep it" I say,
"I need a fix of prickly, chest-haired black metal with ironclad riffs, sharp teeth and a sleeveless attitude to get my gears going. Those fedora-donning ensembles of art school dropouts simply won't do." Now, if this brazen and off-the-cuff sentiment resonates with your inner cheap-beer drinker, then you, like I, need Wode. And you need them now. We all remember Jason Statham's cinematic masterpiece
Crank, right? Good, because from there we can draw nearly a straight line between that timeless film's oeuvre and that of
Burn In Many Mirrors. The adrenaline doesn't stop. It simply cannot, for the whole premise depends on it. Moreover, Wode's knack for embalming these sentiments on their latest offering with the braggadocio of tried-and-true kvltness sautéed with a sausage-fingered dash of NWOBHM riffage makes them the perfect candidates for soundtracking an "easy going evening with the mates" in the notoriously pretentious spheres of extreme metaldom.
Everything that made their last two efforts such brilliant exercises in unabashed badassery has been dialled up to eleven on their third full-length effort. The riffs are rattlesnake deadly, the mood is grim and bloodlusting, and the songwriting is tighter than a nun's you-know-what. Everything that counts in the world of Wode has been counted twice over on
Burn In Many Mirrors; an album dripping with a sultry homage to everything that's made the last 30 years of extreme metal such a global phenom. Frosty black metal, melodic black metal, osdm, thrash metal, speed metal... it's all here, and it all combines into a surprisingly cohesive package once again. You can almost hear the jean jackets and leather boots ruffling through the speakers as these gruff Manchester boys rock their diddies, with shameless influence borrowed from everyone between Dissection and Obliteration. Timbres of epic conquest, occult summonings, scathing strife and sombre seasons are achieved through a fine balance of eschatonal tremolos, fervent drumming and a boldly roasted production job that lends itself well to the coveted real estate between raw and rich. It makes for an album that isn't just fun, but also replete with the kind of dynamism the beckons repeated playbacks. Through and through, it's a blast and a half that definitely spends less time fretting about the merits of innovation and quality journalism than you do, and we're all the better for it. Is Wode's newest incantation a timeless work of high art? For many, probably not, but where
Burn In Many Mirrors falters at cementing itself as a bonafide mantlepiece, it more than succeeds in appeasing the restless legs of the metal gods themselves, and for that, we thank them.
