Artist: Wuldorgast
Country: USA
Label: Iron Bonehead Productions
Formats: LP / CD
Year: 2024
At the very end of 2024 Iron Bonehead Productions offered us the debut album of American Black Metal band Wuldorgast, a new entity comprised of two musicians active in several other bands of which Geheimnisvoll, Luring and especially Åndutsyn are specifically noteworthy. Coming from the “Order Of The Broken Sword”-circle, these two individuals always seem on the lookout to establish new bonds and alliances, there’s no shortage of talent, so why not?
Just like the majority of the music coming from these gathered musicians, ‘Cold Light’ too is predominantly based on the touchstones of 90’s Black Metal. Yet, other than the majority of the music coming from these grounds, Wuldorgast serves itself with a much less raw and gritty overall sound. In fact, ‘Cold Light’ feels very similar to a lot of established acts out of the Norwegian and Swedish Black Metal out of the second half of the 90’s and beyond.
Let’s preface by saying that Wuldorgast is not here to bring you anything new or to reinvent wheels, instead their goal seems to be simply to meet the musical needs of the musicians involved – and those who happen to be heavily invested in the same musical realms. ‘Cold Light’ offers a wide range of recognizable elements that go from classic second era Darkthrone and Carpathian Forest and the wild rocking nature of Urgehal to the slower parts of Marduk and the overall melodicism of early Watain or Ondskapt.
If you’d listen to a song like ‘Natural Life Is Eternal Battle’ it is hard to deny Darkthrone’s or Urgehal’s influence, but it is the band’s sense for melody that is one of the main assets of this debut album. More than once instrumentalist Sceadugenga (Åndutsyn, Grundhyrde and Geheimnisvoll among others) shows off his talent with adding an unmistakable Epic Heavy Metal topping on a good number of tracks. Check out ‘Cipher Of Eternity’ for instance, this song holds some great leads and a warm Heavy Metal-like song writing that reminded me a little of the way Sordid Blade writes their music.
While no rules were disturbed or boundaries broken, ‘Cold Light’ is a very solid Black Metal record, offering something for the fans of those bands from the late 90’s and 00’s. Its rather smooth and clean sound helps the album to go down easily. If this idea doesn’t really appeal to you, I’d suggest to check out Åndutsyn or Geheimnisvoll instead, these largely hold the same guitar signature, but adds much more bite in the form of a raw and overall more compelling production.
