siLLy puPPy WUTHERING HEIGHTS was and still is the baby of guitarist, vocalist, bassist, keyboardist and sole songwriter Erik Ravn. Formed in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1999, this Danish band has featured a fair number of Swedish musicians over its two decade plus career with only Ravn remaining from the early lineups. Starting out as Angelica in 1989 and then changed to Minas Tirith, Ravn shifted gears and crafted a unique mix of power metal, progressive metal and folk music which at the time was fairly unique.

Fast forward through the 90s and by 1999, Ravn adopted the name WUTHERING HEIGHTS which despite making you think of the famous Kate Bush song about the English 19th century novel by Emily Brontë, in fact doesn’t portend Ravn’s infatuation with the novel or subject matter. In fact, WUTHERING HEIGHTS has always been fairly eclectic not only in the musical sense but in the lyric department as well with references to everything from Tolkien fantasy inspired worlds to simple good old-fashioned personal references.

WITHIN is the debut album which emerged the same year the band was officially formed and featured the lineup of Swedish singer Kristian Andrén as lead vocalist, bassist Kasper Gram, drummer Morten Nadgaard, keyboardist Rune Brink and Erik Ravn on guitars. With an album cover resembling something out of the Symphony X playbook, WITHIN does indeed deliver a crafty mix of progressively infused power metal that also exhibited a fair number of technical workouts as well as local Scandinavian folk flavors.

While considered a pioneer in the Scandinavian power metal scene for adopting folk music and more progressive compositions, other bands would soon follow with Sweden’s Falconer and the Danish Manticora emerging around the same time. The band also featured similarities with Germany’s Blind Guardian in how it deftly mixed classic 80s heavy metal and speed metal with the more modern sounds of power metal all the while adopting aspects of progressive rock with the extra features of folk. As with most power metal, WUTHERING HEIGHTS was primarily concerned with strong melodic hooks and clean powerful vocals but occasional engaged in some more extreme growly vocals.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS would become one of the biggest names in progressive power metal all throughout the first decade of the new millennium but on WITHIN, the band was still trying to perfect its formula into a seamless product that would really reach its full firing power until 2004’s “Far From The Maddening Crowd” however WUTHERING HEIGHTS even by today’s standards emerged as a unique sounding band that hit the ground running. The compositions are fortified with strong powerful melodic hooks and the instrumentation is distinct in how the various styles of metal switch things up to make a powerful debut.

Unfortunately WITHIN seems a bit clunky as well as the stylistic approach doesn’t seem quite accomplished and i’m also not the hugest fan original singer Kristian Andren’s vocal style. Of course this is a personal thing but it is detracting enough for me that i rarely visit these early albums but in the end WITHIN is a very well constructed album for the most part with a unique stylistic approach that the band would build upon to craft the more accomplished albums to come. Add to the positives, the production is really good and the band along with Royal Hunt kept Denmark relevant in the metal world after King Diamond, Merciful Fate and Artillery had put Denmark on the metal map.

adg211288 The Danish progressive power metal act Wuthering Heights easily number among my favourite bands. They've a strong discography of five studio albums, but the one that really seals the deal for me is Far From the Madding Crowd (2004), their third full-length effort. It is on this album that they brought in vocalist Nils Patrik Johansson, whose voice, which I think is one of the true great ones from the modern metal and hard rock scene, takes the band's music to the next level. None of this is to belittle their prior efforts or previous vocalist Kristian Andrén, whose two albums with the band I also regard highly, but Far From the Madding Crowd is, for me at least, one of the best power metal albums ever recorded.

The style on Far From the Madding Crowd is basically the same as on the group's first two albums Within (1999) and To Travel for Evermore (2002). Progressive power metal with folk elements. The difference in tone of Nils Patrik Johansson's voice is what clearly sets it apart from it's predecessors though. He is able to shift through so many different styles that it would be easy to think there is actually more than one vocalist on the album. At times he even sounds eerily similar to the late Ronnie James Dio, though at others nothing alike.

Musically Far From the Madding Crowd does seem a little less progressive to my ears and more focussed on power metal than the two previous albums. The band's folk elements appear commonly but as usual aren't a dominating force in their sound, being there for (very effective) flavour. In spite of this it's easy to think of Far From the Madding Crowd as Wuthering Height's most folksy release. Even when the actual folk instrumentation is not there they have a very folksy style to their lyrics. The inclusion of The Bollard, a song originally by obscure Danish folk act The McGalster Clan, further raises the folk feel of the album.

The crowning achievement of the release is certainly the Longing for the Woods trilogy, consisting of tracks 4, 6 & 9. Rather than seeming like an unnecessary repetition, their presence gives Far From the Madding Crowd a kind of unity that many other albums lack. The band's writing is strong across the board though, with The Road Goes Ever On being an excellent track to get listeners hooked once intro Gather Ye Wild is out of the way, which in itself is one of the better intro tracks in existence. The Sensory Records version has a partial reprise of it as a bonus track and I actually highly recommend picking up that version if you can, since it rounds the album off well. I could actually highlight every single song as a highlight on this album, since there isn't a single second where the quality takes a dive.

And that brings me to my summary and to do that we return to something I said at the start of this review: Far From the Madding Crowd is one of the best power metal albums ever recorded. This release is so essential that saying that it is not in bad company with releases such as Somewhere Far Beyond (Blind Guardian), Keeper of the Seven Keys I & II (Helloween), Black Hand Inn (Running Wild) or Land of the Free (Gamma Ray) isn't overstating it's quality. All power metal fans should own this.

adg211288 Salt is the fifth full length album from Danish metal band Wuthering Heights. Anyone who knows the group’s music will already know this but this is one of those bands that are impossible to pigeonhole into any one genre of metal music, simply because they are always drifting between power, progressive and folk metal on their albums, sometimes with symphonic elements in there as well. On Salt the symphonic element that has cropped up in the past isn’t so evident, but we’ve still got a mix of three great metal genres in one album here, and this mix makes sure that Wuthering Heights never get stale.

Once again songwriter Eric Ravn has given his listeners an album of the highest possible quality and with it topped off by excellent musicianship and the powerful vocals of Nils Patrick Johansson this isn’t a release that will disappoint the group’s followers and is a highly recommended album for anyone really into progressive, power or folk metal to check out as an introduction to this great band and since that is something that can be said of all their albums, maybe says volumes about the quality of music they produce.

Salt opens with a short track, Away!, this is a song of sorts in its own right but at the same time serves as an introduction to the album. It builds up with some chanting before Nils’s vocals bursts out of your speakers. How can I not note right away just how much like the late and great Ronnie James Dio this man can sound at times (while at others, nothing alike)? Nils in one versatile vocalist, and as you get deeper into this record, you’ll be able to here just what I mean.

After this the band deliveries great song upon great song, first The Desperate Poet gives us a full power metal assault (though it has its softer parts such as the Bridge), and then with the third track, The Mad Sailor, they switch to full on folk metal and produce one of my favourite songs from the album and indeed, their entire catalogue. The chorus in this one is one of those that is just so addictive that I want to keep playing the song time after time again.

What I think makes Salt really great is that these style switches don’t sound out of place. They are what really makes Wuthering Heights what they are and with track after track being as good as the last, there isn’t a lot to complain about on Salt.

But there is something. It’s not a major quibble, but it is here and must be said. One track annoys me, not because it is bad, but because it is a missed chance. Water of Life, which is track eight on the album, and with Away! Aside is the shortest of the songs. Now this is a good song, but there is much potential here for it to be a great song like all the other tracks on the album. This is an acoustic piece and one that as it gets going sounds really good and could easily be one of the highlights, if not the highlight of the whole album. There’s just one problem, just as soon as it starts to get really epic it starts fading out and then it’s over and to me, is the only part of the album that sounds, well for want of a better word – wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I do like Water of Life for what it is, but this is one of the biggest missed chances I’ve ever heard in album. It affected me so much first time listening to the album that it distracted my attention from the epic closing track Lost at Sea, because I kept thinking “what was Eric thinking?”. Lost at Sea, for the record, is the longest song the band have recorded to date and it’s a good closer, going out in an epic progressive fashion.

Despite the one major disappointment I can’t help feeling about Salt, overall it is a highly enjoyable album and easily stands up to its predecessor 2006’s The Shadow Cabinet, even if it doesn’t top the group’s masterpiece 2004’s Far From the Madding Crowd. If that one missed chance wasn’t here then it really would be an album worth a perfect score, however, unfortunately, I can’t justify it in this case as much as I’d like to. However very close effort.

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)