WIEGEDOOD — There's Always Blood at the End of the Road (review)

WIEGEDOOD — There's Always Blood at the End of the Road album cover

Album · 2022 · Black Metal

4.5/5 · 2022-03-03
siLLy puPPy

As a side project of Oathbreaker members Gilles Demolder (bass) and Wim Coppers / Sreppoc (drums), the black metal project WIEGEDOOD has actually surpassed the former in number of albums released. This Ghent, Belgium based trio also features vocalist / guitarist Levy Seynaeve of the bands Amenra, Black Haven and Hessian (A.D.). WIEDGEDOOD formed in 2014 and released an atmospheric black metal trilogy titled “De Doden Hebben Het Goed” which forged fierce yet haunting black metal soundscapes with atmospheric cascades of sound.

Four years on WIEGEDOOD has jettisoned all traces of atmospheric smoothness and opted to crank out the ultimate slab of pure musical rage on its fourth full-length THERE’S ALWAYS BLOOD AT THE END OF THE ROAD with a frenetic fast paced energetic delivery that declares war on all creation with one of the most frenetic assaults of black metal fury i’ve experienced in a long time. For whatever reason WIEGEDOOD has decided it’s going for the gold in the black metal olympics with incessantly rampaging black metal vehemence at breakneck speeds that pummel the senses and leave all but the most dedicated devotees of punishing extreme metal in utter ruin.

With the fury of Mayhem and the energetic drive of contemporary tech death metal bands, WIEGEDOOD (which apparently means ‘crib death” minus one letter) generates a suffocating display of black metal wrath that keeps its roots in the occulted underground with dense distorted guitar riffs chugging along at the speed of light, terrifying jangled guitar distortion and blastbeat bass and drum orotundity designed to destroy everything within its tumultuous reach. The perfect balance between melodic runs and atonal angularities offers a unique tension not common in modern black metal as well as moments of diversion into eerie even darkly psychedelic passages that don’t rely on keyboards but rather strange chord progressions and off-kilter time signature deviations.

“FN SCAR 16” hits the ground running with a furious uproar of pure black metal rage complete with whizzing instrumentation and lunatic vocal screams. Everything is on steroids and caffeine and cocaine and pretty much everything else. Oh, and Mercury seems to be in perpetual retrograde and the sun stopped shining and the zombie apocalypse is upon us and everyone is just sooooo fucked! You catch my drift. This is about as head banging of black metal as you could ever hope for but there are scant moments when the metal is allowed to drop out to bring us some bizarre inter dimensional static of some sort. The album also utilizes the art of amp feedback and implements various guitars for extra effects.

While totally extreme all the time may sound like a recipe for monotonous ennui, WIEGEDOOD are masters at spicing shit up with varying riffing strategies, dynamic instrumental interplay and above average musicianship that allows for fascinating drum rolls, guitar workouts and even Levy Seynaeve’s blood curdling screams display more variation than the average black metal vocalist on perpetual puke mode. THERE’S ALWAYS BLOOD AT THE END OF THE ROAD pretty much offers everything i love about the extremest sectors of the black metal universe! Aggression, weirdness and a battle between melodic forces and chaotic atonal dissonance. There’s even moments of throat singing and the album delivers an unrelenting tension that offers enough variety to sustain it all the way through. Brilliant!