WODENSTHRONE -

WODENSTHRONE - LOSS - BINDRUNE  
Purity is to Wodensthrone what health and nutrition is to Coca Cola. Notice that the analogy was to 'purity' and not to 'strength' or 'heaviness.' Indeed, Wodensthrone has plenty of powerful heaviness amidst its extra-long album’s songs. Minutes where the vocalist barks and howls, the guitars deliver swift passages or the drums rush through blackened stories are not scarce. Then what does the band do? Go melodic/ambient on the listener with a heap of synthesizers to deliver the cliché-ridden quintessential folly of our times. Followers, not thinkers.
The album is value for quantity money with its length, and moments of metallic brevity are sure there, yet it will not be long before one comes to expect dampened hope that the band will consistently deliver. Those That Crush The Roots Of Blood has moments that hearken to early Ulver for instance. Upon These Stones is typical with its brutality and speed that becomes ambient and sentimental soon enough. Black Moss ratchets up the vocal delivery, which is rather interesting and crushing, although the disc’s unheralded hero has to be the drummer whose beats and power is overshadowed by an unfavourable mix and sound. When heard, the drumming is obviously delivering on the promise of a metal drummer enthusiastic about power and creativity.
Loss is a concept album regarding Pagan England. The historic fables and myths lend the band an extra dimension of interest were it not the wimped out shards of the synth. Perhaps the band should look into Sabbat’s History Of A Time To Come to see how it should be done. In the meantime, Wodensthrone, while not really bad, is more In The Woods and less 1349 despite the label’s insistence that the group is black metal. - Ali “The Metallian”