Artist: Old Wainds
Country: Russia
Label: Darkness Shall Rise Productions
Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD
Year: 2024
With ten years in the making, the unannounced release of ‘Stormheart’ is quite a bit of a surprise. Over the past three decades, Old Wainds has been a band that operated mostly in the shades of the Black Metal scene, getting too little recognition for their sublime and rather iconic work. From as early as the utterly classic ‘Здесь никогда не сходят снега… (Where The Snows Are Never Gone…)’-demo to the album released later on in their career, the band has stood for proud and triumphant Black Metal in the right Eastern European/Russian tradition. Although this album somewhat came from left field and it feels it is way overdue, it is very much welcome.
And even more importantly, ‘Stormheart’ is an album that does fully justice to the Old Wainds moniker. Obviously, in those thirty years of being around the band has changed. Yet, basically that’s just mainly cosmetically as the core business has remained virtually untouched. In fact, they further developed and refined it. Some of the grainy sound and the obviously rawer edges of the amazing aforementioned ‘Where The Shows Are Never Gone…’ got lost over the years, but in return we get a band that runs like a well-oiled machine.
Yet, make no mistake. Old Wainds did not sell out with turning into an Atmospheric Black Metal band, or worse. Although essentially there is nothing wrong with Atmospheric Black Metal, but that is not where Old Wainds’ bread and butter are. That is still with the frantic propulsive Black Metal that’s interwoven with entrancing and downright hypnotizing melodies. With the drums being quite prominent and the superbly swirling riffs, ‘Stormheart’ truly lives up to its name. The album may start out more tentative, but it develops solidly into a full-blown winter storm where the strident riffs continue to hammer you relentlessly.
It is the interaction between the fast drums and the truly phenomenal riffs that propel ‘Stormheart’ to great heights. This is the same downright mesmerizing dynamic that brought bands such as Hate Forest and Drudkh their fame and also made their Russian colleagues from the Blazebirth Hall a beloved niche in Black Metal. A formula that works extremely well and typifies the music from this Eastern European and Russian scene, well before a band like Mgła added their own spin to it and became modern Black Metal.
I am a bit sorry that I didn’t actually listen to ‘Stormheart’ well enough before, because now it missed its well-deserved spot on my “album of the year”-list of 2024. But, while that is also merely cosmetic, it says something about the quality of this band’s grand return. Now I pray on my bare knees (in the snow) not to have to wait another ten years to be allowed to hear a new Old Wainds album.
