Kev Rowland
French Black Metallers Folge Dem Wind are back with their third full-length album, and it would certainly be correct in saying that this isn’t exactly the easiest album to listen to. They are fans of the harsh primitive version of the genre, which the label describes as “a desperate, chaotic and primordial ritual of paleolithic darkness”, which I wish I had written as it is a really good description of what is blasting through my speakers. There is a great deal going on, all of it feeling nasty and evil, but I just wish that the vocals had been high in the mix and whenever I play this I feel that there is a strange split between the vocals and the music, almost as if two separate people had mixed the elements with little or no regard for the other. I fully understand that the final sound must be what they were looking for (it was mastered by Tom Kvålsvoll at Strype Audio (Dimmu Borgir, Emperor)), but to my ears it hearkens back too much to the DIY cassette industry. Kilvaras’s vocals are an acquired taste, but they lose impact by being too low in the overall sound.
Overall it is a solid piece of work, but nothing more than that, and only really of interest to fans of the harsher more chaotic forms of Black metal. www.auralmusic.com