TIAMAT — Wildhoney (review)

TIAMAT — Wildhoney album cover Album · 1994 · Gothic Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
UMUR
"Wildhoney" is the 4th full-length studio album by Swedish death/doom/goth metal act Tiamat. The album was released through Century Media Records in September 1994. It´s the successor to "Clouds" from 1992 and features quite a few lineup changes since the predecessor. Although Tiamat experienced a fair bit of success with "Clouds (1992)", lead vocalist/guitarist Johan Edlund wasn´t completely satisfied with the way the album turned out and after touring in support of the album, Edlund fired all members of the band except bassist Johnny Hagel. "Wildhoney" was therefore recorded by the duo of Johan Edlund (guitars, vocals) and Johnny Hagel (bass), with the help from sessions musicians Magnus Sahlgren (lead guitars), Lars Sköld (drums), Waldemar Sorychta (keyboards, also credited as engineer and producer on the album), and Birgit Zacher (additional vocals).

Stylistically Tiamat have changed their musical direction quite a bit compared to their early output. "Clouds (1992)" still featured a few (very few) death metal elements, but predominantly featured a melodic tinged heavy/doom metal style with gothic metal leanings, but "Wildhoney" is an almost entirely different sounding beast. Other than a couple of heavy riffs and some raw shouting vocal parts, "Wildhoney" isn´t a very heavy album. In fact much of the album feautures an ambient (sometimes almost spiritual), dark, psychadelic and mellow music style. Acoustic/clean guitars, atmospheric keyboards, male clean singing/talking, occasional female vocals, and some nicely energetic and creative drumming.

Artists like Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Mike Oldfield are valid references at various points during the playing time. As mentioned it´s still occasionally pretty heavy music with distorted riffs and harsh shouting vocals, but just as often the listener is transported to a much more mellow and psychadelic tinged place. I´m not going to mention highlights, because the strength of "Wildhoney" is more the overall flow of the album and the dynamic of the heavy and the mellow tracks, which compliment each other perfectly.

While Edlund isn´t the most skilled nor the most interesting vocalist on the scene, he makes it work well here with what he has got. The instrumental performances are high class on all posts, and "Wildhoney" also features a dark, organic, and very well sounding production, which suits the material perfectly. So upon conclusion it´s a high quality album, which upon initial release was considered quite adventurous. In terms of being relevant today, I think the album has aged pretty well, and to my ears it´s one of those timeless releases which works as well today as it did back then. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.
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