October Falls - The Womb Of Primordial Nature (2008)

This 3 man band from Finland too me by surprise with this release. Having heard Marras and Sarastus before, I was expecting some relaxing folk music. These 2 albums can be compared to Empyrium’s last albums, but The Womb Of Primordial Nature clearly takes a different path. It’s more of a folk / ambient black metal album, and it’s great.

The album consists of 4 songs and they probably took a few weeks to come up with the title names (look it up and you’ll laugh about this).

The music is very intense in some points with some other slower more ambient parts. But none of them feel dull or boring all the songs are full of emotion and great passages that keep the listener waiting for more. The band now features Moonsorrow’s Marko Tarvonen on drums, and you can clearly hear the Moonsorrow influences in the bands sound. Mikko Lehto is an expert at creating haunting acoustic guitar passages that can easily rival Empyrium or Tenhi’s folk passages.

The mixture of aggressive parts with acoustic interludes makes this album excel amongst the rest of the folk/ambient black metal releases. The harsh vocals are a great complement to the perfect harmony created by the music. They complement the aggressiveness of the music and leave the listener with a feeling of despair.

This is a great album for fans of early Ulver and early Empyrium. This album will surely stay on my play list for a long time.

Country: Finland