Winterfylleth - The Ghost of Heritage (2012) reissue

While we wait for some more new music from Winterfylleth, Candlelight is re-releasing their debut full-length release “The Ghost of Heritage”. With a complete overhaul in the packaging and a remastered sound, this excellent album sounds even more impressive and clear than before, showcasing Winterfylleth’s destructive nature.

The wall of distorted guitars is immediately set with the devastating opening track “Mam Tor (The Shivering Mountain)”. In this track the band shows their polished BM sound similar to Wolves In The Throne Room and those kinds of bands. The riffing is punishing, but the harsh screams are just magical in this context. There are some clean choir-like vocals that add creepiness to the song and nicely contrast the excellent guitar work. Things turn a bit into the unknown with the atmospheric acoustic guitar driven track “The March to Maldon”, a very nice and momentum building song. This track was just the buildup before the explosive “Brithnoth: The Battle of Maldon”.

Since very early into this album Winterfylleth let their presence be known by combining folk elements with raw Black Metal into a very concise mixture of beauty and brutality that very few bands can achieve. The mixture of heavy riffs in melodic passages with hyper-brutal blast-beats Black Metal is something that is very well used to contrast the expansive side of the band’s sound against their more compact and destructive BM nucleus, “The Ghost of Heritage” is a clear example of this. The band can also go on full-on Folk mode in tracks like “Guardian of the Herd”.

The bonus tracks “The Ruin” and “The Honour of Good Men On The Path To Eternal Glory” are both from their latest release “The Mercian Sphere”. These songs nicely show the maturity that the band has gained over the years between releases and are also pretty fucking good. Our favorite has to be the moody “The Honour…” and its several mood swings nicely captured by the crushing guitar work.

Whether you are in the mood for crushing Black Metal or some melancholic Folk Metal on the heavy side, “The Ghost of Heritage” is all you need. Winterfylleth is an excellent band that delivers crushing tunes with an excellent sense of melody and structure behind them. This re-issue is a great improvement over the original version and while it does not feature any ‘new’ songs, it will sure hold the fans of the band in their seat until they release something new.

Release: May 22nd, 2012

Country: UK