WOLFCHANT — Embraced By Fire (review)

WOLFCHANT — Embraced By Fire album cover

Album · 2013 · Power Metal

5/5 · 2013-03-18
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Embraced by Fire is the fifth full-length album by German folk metal act Wolfchant. It was released in 2013. The special edition of Embraced by Fire comes packaged with a new version of the debut Wolfchant album, Bloody Tales of Disgraced Lands (2005). The new version is characterised by an updated sound which most notably covers the fact that on Wolfchant’s previous album Call of the Black Winds (2011) they expanded their sound to include a clean vocalist, Nortwin, alongside their established harsh vocalist Lokhi. As such Nortwin’s vocals play a prominent role in the new version of the debut, which I’ve taken to calling Bloody Tales of Disgraced Lands 2013. Since Embraced by Fire is essentially two albums in one I’m going to dedicate this review to the both of them, starting with the new album, Embraced by Fire.

Embraced by Fire in terms of sound pretty much picks up where Call of the Black Winds left off. It doesn’t so much continue the diversification of the Wolfchant sound that began on that album, which moved them away from being a pure folk/melodic black metal act, but rather comes across as the end result of that experimentation. Their sound has actually reached the point where I struggle to identify them as a folk metal act first and foremost, where I had previous always done so. While I would say that there are more obvious folk elements on Embraced by Fire compared to Call of the Black Winds, the main driving force as I hear in the album is power metal, something which is further augmented by Nortwin’s presence on the album, as he is perhaps better known as Michael Seifert of the heavy/power metal act Rebellion. Is it pure power metal? No, but there’s certainly a lot of it here. And while there are still subtle elements of folk here both in melody and even the vocal delivery, the way Wolfchant were folk metal before in that their leads were folksy and dominate in the sound, is no longer really apparent. I would still just about call Embraced by Fire a folk-power metal album, but it’s in a much different sense to say artists like Elvenking or Falconer. And the album overall is yet different to anything Wolfchant has done before.

But Embraced by Fire is still more than just the work of a folk-power metal band. There are a lot of symphonic trappings to be found, as there were on Call of the Black Winds but they are used even more to be found here, while it arguably retains some of Wolfchant’s old black metal aspects since Lokhi is still here doing his black metal growl. Honestly though Lokhi is the only aspect of the old Wolfchant sound that is still in evidence on Embraced by Fire. Any other elements of black metal have long since been replaced, mostly by the power metal stuff.

Vocally sometimes it does feel at times that it’s Nortwin who’s running the show despite Lokhi being the original vocalist. Wolfchant proved they could be awesome as a folk/black metal act with A Pagan Storm (2007) but bringing Nortwin in was possibly the best move they’ve ever made in their career. Call of the Black Winds was an awesome return to form after the weaker Determined Damnation (2009) and it ended up one of my highest rated albums of 2011. Nortwin is such a commanding presence to front a band. Despite being listed as the clean vocalist his singing style is just as aggressive as Lokhi’s growls, except in the rare instances where he purposely takes things down a notch for a more mellow section, which he equally excels at. Nortwin and Lokhi do still complement each other vocally as they did on Call of the Black Winds, but that increased power metal element is, sadly, making original vocalist Lokhi into something of a spare wheel. Not really in the sense that his role is diminished in the overall sound or that he’s no good (he’s one of the best in his style as far as I’m concerned actually) but because Nortwin is that good and powerful the album reaches that point where I couldn’t care less if Lokhi was there or not.

Overall the new sound of Wolfchant sounds more directed than ever before, especially compared to Call of the Black Winds, a brilliant but perhaps ultimately a little chaotic album. In the hindsight that this new release gives me Call of the Black Winds seems very much the transitional album. Anyway the more focused sound will no doubt make Embraced by Fire an easier listen for those who may have found Call of the Black Winds difficult in the way it jumped about with a lot of influences.

The good thing is the compositional quality is still very high. The only song here that doesn’t manage to maintain quite the same regard from me is the closing Winters Triumph. It’s still excellent, but just doesn’t grab me in quite the same way as the rest. The rest of the songs though maintain that very high level of quality the band delivered on Call of the Black Winds. Personal favourites from the eight songs would be the title track, Autumns Breath, Einsame Wacht and Turning into Red. Freier Geist is also worth a mention on the more negative side. This song features some additional growls from Freki of the band Varg. His growl sounds a bit more hysterical than Lokhi’s. With my feelings on Lokhi already starting to feel like a spare wheel already documented in this review Freki’s presence here not only feels pointless, but also comes over as an inferior performance to Lokhi’s. Like with Winters Triumph it’s still an excellent song but I just don’t see the point in bringing in a guest who’s not going to bring anything to the table.

As with Call of the Black Winds Wolfchant have proved that they excel within their field and with Embraced by Fire being the album I’ve actually been expecting and indeed wanting to hear from them ever since Nortwin joined, I’m happy to award them once again with a top tier rating. I’d even say that they even outdid themselves on this one.

98/100

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org/wolfchant-embraced-by-fire-t2827.html))