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It is nothing new for black metal bands to take enormous inspiration from nature and the landscape that they live in, whether the frostbitten Norway, the Cascadian Northwest, or urban anguish. Wayfarer come from Colorado.

Already on their third album, Wayfarer have conjured a sound of folk-influenced atmospheric black metal, which is something a lot of bands have done, but Wayfarer managed to give it enough original personality and show enough craftsmanship in their songwriting that listening to Old Souls doesn't feel as outdated as the genre seems to have become. While arguably atmospheric black metal hasn't yet reached blackgaze or djent levels of saturation, said saturation is still an issue and thankfully Wayfarer do stand out from the crowd.

So how does World's Blood paint its pictures of the frontier? Mostly by giving the atmospheric and the acoustic passages as much weight as the black metal ones, if not more. Obviously much of the Americana feel lies more within the former than the latter. Mostly during the three longer songs sandwiched in the middle, the band does switch between the two sounds regularly, and while each passage sounds great, the light/heavy/light/heavy structures do get a bit formulaic. The vibe of some of the atmospheric passages as well as certain more doomy riffs do get close to a desert rock sound, which makes the ambiance much more ardent and soaked in burning sun, but in a less fun and enthusiastic way than, say, Untamed Land.

The vocals are not at all bad, but feel a bit pale compared to the how meticulous the other instruments work to create the sound. This is coupled with much better production than their predecessors (likely a perk of being signed to Profound Lore), making the drums sound way more organic, which is a big step up considering how much this album makes use of percussion, giving the bass more emphasis than most atmospheric black metal in recent memory, and making the sound feel overall more dynamic. The blast beats are great during the harsher parts, but the percussion really shines on the more Americana parts as well, supplementing the twang of the guitars with a dynamic range of ways to make me feel like my shoulders are sunburned even though there's been nothing but rain these past days.

While I do admit that I enjoyed the black metal parts a lot and Wayfarer have songwriting chops, it was mostly the twangier parts in the cleaner segments that sold me this album. I do wish Wayfarer would work both to make their structures more varied than the ones in the longer songs and to blend the two sounds together a bit more than they do. Some female backing vocals during "A Nation Of Immigrants" does push the Americana feel through the roof and it's surprising that they didn't make more use of that. Maybe they'll take a hint from Panopticon and start putting out more acoustic folk-only tracks.

World's Blood is an album that sounds great and is quite successful in being emotionally and aurally engaging enough to evoke a certain landscape. While the great parts are great, it still suffers from limitations of the genre and the longer songs showcase this most. Thankfully, World's Blood is short enough not to make these shortcomings become pitfalls. For what it's worth, still a dark but romantic image of the frontier.

RaduP


1. Animal Crown
2. On Horseback They Carried Thunder
3. The Crows Ahead Cry War
4. The Dreaming Plain
5. A Nation Of Immigrants


Isaac Faulk - Drums, Tambourine, Piano
Shane McCarthy - Guitars, Vocals
Jamie Hansen - Bass, Vocals
Joe Strong-Truscelli - Guitars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQPHAdeoNVk

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