The rise of the Kingdom of Mercia in 8th century Britain was a watershed moment in history, as it saw the birth of an awareness of ethnic and cultural unity and common destiny under what would come to be understood as a shared sense of ‘Englishness’. Self-proclaimed ‘English Heritage Black Metal’ band Winterfylleth’s second full -length ‘The Mercian Sphere’ has a name that is in keeping with the band’s nationalist themes then, but it’s also an album that suffers from an inconsistency and disjointedness that speaks more of fragmentation than it does of cohesion.
The album gets off to a spectacular start, kicking in with an epic and bombastic track that ploughs a narrow furrow of galloping rhythms and taut, electrifying riffs in the vein of latter-day Arckanum, also throwing in dense, tail-chasing melodies and lethargic, sorrowful riffs that sit somewhere between latter-day Drudkh and Sargeist. The tempo then stretches itself out as the song suddenly plunges abyss-ward with a powerfully depressive, surging melody that strongly evokes Mourning Dawn’s moribund debut, the track eventually drawing to a close with a semi-sludgy mid-paced riff and accompanying clean, Nordic-sounding singing. This latter aspect doesn’t invoke the spirit of proud Anglo Saxon Warriors so much as that of Jon Bon Jovi, but the main vocals are very effective, both on this track and throughout the rest of the album, consisting of hoarse, throaty cries that sit fairly low in the mix and complement the music well.
The ghost of Drudkh remains prominent throughout the album, especially on second track ‘Awakens He, Bereft of Kinsmen (The Wayfarer Pt II),’ the progression of which revives the spirit of the old Autumn Aurora album-track ‘Sunwheel’ in its employment of upbeat, almost jaunty (if portentous and vital) melodic riffing that gradually builds before shifting down to a more sombre, ominous key midway through. This invokes some powerful imagery, suggesting a transition from a warm, sun-dappled forest scene to one of enveloping darkness; dense thickets; lashing rain and unseen menace. This is then augmented by an incredibly gratifying bridge that dispels all the track’s thus-far accumulated energy with its crunchy, miserable, grimly militaristic groove, before segueing back into the cold, blistering riffage that preceded it.
Whilst the band have done a good job of moving forward from their accomplished debut, which for all its assertions of ‘Englishness’ had more of an Eastern European feel to it than anything else, this bold experimentalism has come at a cost here. Whilst the influences are more diverse this time around, ‘The Mercian Sphere’ still succeeds in recreating the mixture of primordial atmosphere, ominous earthy rhythms and mesmeric, searing melodic leads that has been emanating from Finland and the Ukraine in the past few years, embellishing this sound by adding segments of crunchy, choppy grooves in amidst the furious tremolo-riffing, but as the album progresses it quickly becomes apparent that it is the victim of an unfortunate class of styles and aesthetics; namely raw black metal and lumbering post-rock. Don’t get me wrong- I’m all for experimentalism in black metal (and I enjoy both styles), but I’ve always found that for the most part, raw black metal’s emphasis on strangled melody and relentless machine-gun hammering merges about as well with the polished and slothful introspective musings of post rock as oil does with water. It’s certainly possible to reconcile the two aesthetics effectively, as Agalloch proved with their stunning 2004 release ‘Ashes Against The Grain’, but it would seem to be a particularly tricky alchemical process to pull off, and unfortunately the Mercian Sphere contains numerous moments in which this mixture does not work as well as it might. One example is ‘The Ruin’, which commences with yet more early Drudkh worship, merging together a flurry of ancient and half-obscured hypnotic riffs, vital clattering drums and beautiful, visceral melodies before suddenly drawing to a halt and repeating an introspective little ambient guitar line with a country twang to it that sounds like it belongs on Pelican’s ‘Fire in Our Throats...’ album, after which tectonic post-rock riffs clamour for space alongside yet more cold, breakneck melodic riffing. This combination doesn’t sound bad by any means, but try as I might I just can’t reconcile the two aesthetics here, feeling as I do as if they are pulling very hard in opposite directions.
Similarly, ‘The Honour Of Good Men On The Path To Eternal Glory’ opens with a Red Sparrowes-esque intro and, following a brief passage of torrential blasting and a bouncy and anthemic bridge, jettisons its black metal aesthetic altogether but for another rather lazy-sounding Nordic hymn at the end, the bulk of the song consisting of some fairly standard progressive, rocky arrangements that might sound fine in another context but sound patently out of place here. ‘To Find Solace... Where Security Stands (The Wayfarer Pt III)’ fares considerably better, building around an appealingly unsophisticated series of folky and bombastic, Sargeist-like tremolo riffs that simultaneously exude both stoic pride and deep melancholy, before removing the reins and successfully switching to gentle, meandering melodies and organic, unhurried drums a la Isis, then finally returning to black metal once more, the riffs now carrying a more jubilant feel as the song draws to a close. The transitions in momentum and mood are much more fluid and convincing here, showing, frustratingly, that the disparate styles can indeed be reconciled successfully.
The oft-fragmentary feel of the album isn’t helped either by the five minute acoustic interlude that is the fourth track ‘The Children of The Stones’. This is an exceptionally beautiful and well-executed piece, consisting as it does of uplifting arpeggios and major scales on guitar and the sombre and reflective strains of what sounds like a viola, creating a calm, northern pastoral feel that would not sound out of place on Ulver’s Kveldssanger album, but somehow it doesn’t quite sit right in terms of either mood or sound amidst the black metal tracks that bookend it. Whilst an excellent track in its own right, it feels overlong for an interlude and produces a big jump in mood that lacks the necessary transition at either end, and feeling rather jarring within the context of the album as a result (although I should mention that later interlude ‘When The Woods Were Young’ is equally beautiful yet much more in keeping with the feel of the album). Similarly, the decision to end the album with a re-recording and re-working of ‘Defending the Realm’ from previous album ‘The Ghost of Heritage’ does not help with the new album’s sense of identity either, and seems unnecessary given both that it stretches the album runtime to almost 70 minutes and that the track that precedes it is a powerful closer in its own right. That said, the re-recording gives new lifeblood to what was already a rather stirring mid-tempo anthem, the song benefiting here from a clearer sound and closing now with a brief, doomy melody and soaring clean vocals that for once sound entirely convincing.
If I seem overly critical of the album then this can be put down to a frustrated desire to bestow it with unadulterated praise for all that it gets right, but despite its frequent flirtations with brilliance there is no escaping the fact that taken as a whole, the album is ultimately something of a bittersweet listening experience. In the finish it is the more straight-up, galloping black metal tracks like fierce opener ‘Gateway To The Dark Peak / The Solitary One Waits For Grace (The Wayfarer Pt I)’ and powerful late-comer ‘A Valley Thick With Oaks’, with its gradual decline in momentum from undulating peaks of cold and rousing high-octane riffage to plodding , slowing doom that really convince, and it seems very apparent that the band could go far with this more narrow style if they so wished. Despite its flaws however, ‘The Mercian Sphere’ still offers up more than enough ancient, earthy atmosphere and exhilaratingly raw melodies to leave fans of this kind of black metal positively salivating, but at the same time it’s hard to shift the nagging sense that that Winterfylleth’s heathen blades have been somewhat dulled here by post-rock blandness.
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