Review Summary: Blackbraid II: Blackbraider
Like any good sequel, Blackbraid’s second installment sees some dramatic growth. The production feels a little more polished and the hour-plus runtime is almost twice the length of their debut. Fortunately this works with the project’s established melodic black metal as the rhythms are tight, the rasps are fairly legible, and the guitars are just as at home dispensing molten riffs as they are lapsing into atmospheric acoustic excursions.
Seeing material of this caliber out in a year’s time also reflects a strong sense of purpose; much like how Judas Priest had Sad Wings songs ready in the days of Rocka Rolla, I don’t doubt this has been in the works for a long time.
At any rate, we certainly get some great tracks out of it. “The Spirit Return” and “The Wolf That Guides The Hunter’s Hand” are some triumphant fast-paced blasts, but it’s especially cool to see the band exploring their slower side more. “Moss Covered Bones on the Altar of the Moon” cycles through some vibrant mid-shuffles while “Twilight Hymn of Ancient Blood” and “Sadness and the Passage of Time and Memory” dig into extreme doom territory with especially crushing riffs and deep growls.
I also appreciate how the interludes play into the album, sounding pretty in their own right and segmenting the songs in a way that better their overall flow. “Celestial Passage” is the best instance of this in action, alleviating any fatigue that came with the thirteen-minute “A Song of Death on Winds of Dawn” while clearing the path forward with complementary electric swells. The opening “Autumnal Hearts Arise” and “Spells of Moon and Earth” also do a splendid job of setting up the respective onslaughts that follow in their wake.
The closing cover of Bathory’s “A Fine Day to Die” is also a noteworthy addition. I must admit to its inclusion feeling redundant on paper with this album being such a longboi as is, but it holds its own in balancing the original flair with a couple quirks. The subdued yet distorted rasps in lieu of cleans on the opening segment is a neat touch and the gallops feel a bit faster here.
As somebody who enjoyed Blackbraid’s self-titled debut but wasn’t totally sold on it, it’s great to see their potential be so realized with album two. While it’s essentially cut from the same cloth as its predecessor with many of the same tropes on display, the ambitious scope makes it feel more like the other way around. The riffs are incredibly strong and the atmosphere is potent enough to keep the runtime from feeling too overwhelming. With a vision fulfilled this successfully, it’ll be interesting to see where Blackbraid goes from here.
