Wide - Uncrossing The Keys [LP]

Manchester's savage sons Wode return with their fourth album, Uncrossing The Keys, marking a confident expansion of their already formidable sound that is built upon a shadowy foundation of feral black metal and ironclad heavy metal heft. They have evolved since their debut album by continuously added elements from various dark corners of the underground into their discography, and the songwriting has grown leaner - yet more intricate, focused, and melodic than ever. Their sound remains steeped in flame and fury, but they've embraced a wider spectrum of moods, painting with blacker, richer hues than ever before. Guitars carry a mournful shimmer at times, and hooks laced with both melancholy and menace, drift above the carnage with moments of elegiac beauty and dark lamentation. The hellish rasp of the vocals rise like ritual chants from another age, conjuring visions of a world perpetually on the edge of twilight. Wode casts a long, cold silhouette over the course of nine tracks that evoke both grandeur and decay, as though the band opened a gateway to a realm where cursed cities smolder under blood-red skies, their walls echoing forsaken hymns eternally. The result of a constant evolutionary process Wode has crafted a truly haunted and commanding blackened heavy metal that raises a dark banner high over a vast and desolate kingdom.