Wormwood – Ghostlands: Wounds From A Bleeding Earth

As winter passes and leaves it’s mark we got the pleasure to review the new album of Wormwood,the Sweden based Black Metal band the band behind the wonderful EP known as The Void:Stories From A Whispering Well.This new album is set to be released on the 10th of March 2017 through Non Serviam Records and it was recorded in the Wing Studio by Sverker Widgren(Diabolical,Demonical) and to be quite honest it’s way more better than I expected and I remained quite surprised to find the beautiful voice of Alexandra “Lalla” Moqvist on vocals, the charming sounds of Martin Björklund’s fiddle and of course last but not least the powerful vocals displayed by Nephente(Netherbird,Riket). Before starting let me tell you that this release is way more epic than the previous one even though the elements in Wormwood’s music remain the same: Black Metal with a little dose of good old Rock n’ Roll and one big chunk of Folk.

The album features 12 tracks in the following order:

1. Gjarllarhornet
2. The Universe Is Dying
3. Beneath Ravens and Bones
4. Silverdimmans  Återsken
5. Tidh ok Ödhe
6. Oceans
7. Windmill
8. Under Hennes Vingslag
9. Godless Serenade
10. What We Lost in the Mist
11. The Boneless One
12. To Worship

The record starts with an atmospheric note one that seems like a warning, successfully combining an ambiental track with drone like sounds an a beautiful choir while finally kicking off with the The Universe is Dying.Right from the start you can feel the Rock N’ Roll elements in the guitars but the ground shattering vocals will soon make you realize this is still in the Black Metal area and it will instantly hook you up to it’s epic atmosphere . While this song speaks of the downfall of the downfall and end of humanity the next one takes us on a mystical trip and it’s one hell of a trip , from an battle like song going towards the epic side and we encounter once again the choir that we met in the beginning of the album.The next song is one that sets of with an acoustic note and soon enough we find ourselves left just amazed by the calm present in the beautiful voice of Alexandra Moqvist out only objection on this song is just that it could be a little longer. On the next track we find again the voice of Lalla but in an epic duo with Nine’s vocal , kicking off powerfully, sometimes transcending perfectly to the acoustic side but going quickly back on the epic track it’s just something that will surely get stuck in your brain for a time. What We Lost in the Mist is the only track that starts with that pure Swedish Black Metal sound and after one quickly acoustic passage we can find ourselves once again in the Melodic Black Metal area.While the album starts on a more like atmospheric approach it ends in a grand  manner of an epic scale signaling us that is time to end our journey and get back to this cold reality.

Overall I find this record one of the best ones I’ve listened in the last years concerning this side of metal, being very well balanced between Folk Metal and Black Metal, having quite an unique mixture of vocals , sometimes powerful as a storm and sometimes calm as a sea before the storm , I rank this album on maybe the best ones on the last few years featured in the Folk Metal scene.