Feral –For Those Who Live In Darkness (2014)

Hailing from our cold and desolate neighbor in the north, Canada, today we have one-man battalion Feral and their solid debut release “For Those Who Live in Darkness”. Nicely combining elements from bands like Vreid, Agalloch, Inquisition into a sound that is quite raw, but still in development, this release is actually quite enjoyable. For over 60 minutes of music we can her how this young outfit tries an assortment of different things in order to find its own sound.

The atmospheric opening of “Entering Darkness” nicely leads the way as the guitar’s take center stage and delivering a pummeling and moderately intense outburst. This track has a certain Viking/Pagan Metal edge to it, making it engaging and entertaining. As “Nocturnal Queen” and “True Forgotten Beauty” come around, we can instantly hear the mixture of Agalloch and Inquisition elements into the band’s music. A better testament of the band’s interest in defining their own sound is the track “Weeping Earthbound Spirit”, which features a tense atmosphere after a killer dose of solid riffs.

Further experimenting with their guitar antics, “The Curse” features a few very odd sections that feel quite odd and a bit out of context. The same experimentation bleeds into the weird “Deterioration of the Mind”. Giving it away with the track name, this song is quite unique as it sounds like Feral is deliberately trying to be chaotic and maybe even random with the guitar work in this piece.

As the album closes with another very experimental piece, “Dethroning Your King”, we are starting to get a bit worn-off by this release. It seems like the first 4 songs had pretty good ideas and nice structures, but the last 3 go into more of a freeform style and will probably lose the listener. Overall, we think that Feral shows some great potential in the first few songs, and also interesting ideas (not all) in the more experimental pieces. Filled with well-known influences, this Black Metal release will surely appeal to the more adventurous fans of the genre.

Label: Self-Released

Release: October 23rd, 2014

Genre: Black Metal

Country: Canada