In my review of Wythersake’s 2021 debut, Antiquity, I said (paraphrasing here) the band had delivered some solid symphonic melodic black/death metal, and with some tweaks, (namely some of the vocals and better synths) could develop into a really promising band. Well, they listened to some of my suggestions.

Just kidding. I know my opinion didn’t matter, but they have made some improvements to their bombastic symphonic black/death metal. They still cull heavily from the likes of the early US symphonic black metal movement like Scholomance, Dreamscapes of the Perverse, Vesperian Sorrow etc, but the song writing (albeit still a little long winded as the album clocks in at 52 minutes, vs Antiquity’s 54 minutes) is a little improved, as are the keyboards, though still not quite up there with some of their peers.

The vocals, however, still remain a bit of a sticking point for me, even though the spoken word/grumble is used less (i.e, opener “Purity Through Non Existence”, the Crematory sounding “The Autumnal Passing”, “ Shrines Of Offal Rise”), it’s still there, and Gabriel Luis, while a fine guitarist, isn’t quite doing it for me vocally.

The busy, solo-heavy songwriting has a few more memorable moments than Antiquity. The band continues to delve into religious dogma and rebellious, Luciferian themes. With the same lineup from the debut, there is some overall consistency in the band’s sound, influence, and delivery.

The slightly improved song writing still has a ways to go to be elite level, stuff, and the band struggles with ending songs abruptly (unless there was an issue with my digital promo), like they didn’t know where to go next  (i.e “Bloodlet the Lepers Created”, “Dancing Plagues of Modern Man”), but as the album goes along the songs get better after the three aforementioned shaky openers.

2nd half album tracks like the instrumental “Gotterdammerung”, “Shrines of Offal Rise”, “Agents Of Holy Death” (which has wafts of Ba-Sagoth) and closer “Perverse Christ Aeon” are all solid, but I’m still not completely enamored with these guys yet. Maybe the third album will fully do it for me.

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