Review Summary: In which Waldgefluster cover both Panopticon and Ben Howard - sign me up!
Some pairings are just perfect - peanut butter and jelly being the default example. Black metal and folk are another one of these essential combos - both genres built more upon tradition than technicality, their blending is near-guaranteed to bring about a suitably somber and woodsy vibe.
Germany’s Waldgefluster have been doing the folk/black metal thing for a while, achieving decent acclaim in the scene while remaining somewhat under-the-radar. While I personally find their songs almost always good-to-great, my complaint has been that most of their albums tend to overstay their welcome a bit, even if their runtimes aren’t particularly excessive by genre standards. However, the band’s latest remedies this gripe with a slim format comprising four songs (just over twenty-eight minutes in total), something which would usually be classified as an EP, although its official identification here is as a “mini-album”. Semantics aside, it’s a pretty nifty little effort, leaning heavily into yet another classic marriage: folky black metal and the autumnal season.
This last note probably isn’t a surprise, given the brazen fall imagery decorating
Unter Bronzenen Kronen’s artwork (the title roughly translates to “Under Bronze Crowns”), and it works well, as something about this time of year’s atmosphere finds voice in these songs - this is music for days of crisp chill air, falling leaves, and a general sense of nostalgic decay.
These songs are a curious assortment, but fit together well. The title track is the only truly new composition, revealing a fairly grand and catchy manifestation of Waldgefluster’s typical fare. It’s then joined by “Herbst Befiel Das Land MMXXIII”, a reworking of one of the band’s early pieces, and by two covers. While cover songs tend to get a short shrift, in this case, they’re the release’s biggest selling point. “The Pit” is a Panopticon tune which appeared on the 2020 Panopticon/Aerial Ruin split. There, it was a moody Americana/folk tune comfortably ensconced within the split’s starkly desolate vibe. Here, it’s been transformed into a bombastic metal track, without losing the deeply personal sense of bitterness which informs the original. In short, it’s a fantastic cover. Then, there’s a metal makeover of Ben Howard’s “Black Flies” - a far less predictable choice, but a great one. Again, a melancholy folk piece has been transformed into a more aggressive metal rendition, with positive results.
Broadly speaking, if you like Waldgefluster’s previous work, or folky black metal in general, you’ll enjoy
Unter Bronzenen Kronen. This mini-album does see some evolution of the group’s sound, featuring heavier utilization of clean vocals (not unused in previous efforts, but more prominent here), as well as a rather epic feel - this is oft-catchy stuff while retaining a fair amount of heaviness. So yeah, pick out your autumn beverage of choice, be it a pumpkin spice latte or an apple cider or a Marzen, and give
Unter Bronzenen Kronen a jam. It may not be truly revelatory, but some things are simply good together, and this season and this brand of atmospheric folk/black metal are one of those truly delightful unions.
