False Light - White Ward (2022)

Ideated from: some new releases I’ve been playing heavily

White Ward’s 2019 album, Love Exchange Failure was a best-of-the-year sort of favorite for me, so I was excited when this one landed. It does not disappoint; they’ve gone even further down their odd and unique path.

Here we have some great black metal, but with a lot more space and variation than most such acts. There are extended stretches and even whole tracks that really show off the band’s melodicism and give a welcome break from the sometimes pummelling loud passages. Having a full-time saxophone player in a black metal band is brilliant for the extra texture the instrument adds to both the soft and the loud sections.

It’s always fun for me when a band has a full vision for something that isn’t quite what anybody else is doing, and then executes it exactly as they mean to. These guys kind of blow me away in that regard.

Tracks I Liked

Leviathan - a 13-minute epic with a lengthy sax break and some wild swings in tempo.

Phoenix - after a nice respite on the track before, this plunges us back into the black froth. One of those tracks that can’t quite ever be played loudly enough.

Cronus - Some great clean vocals mixed with more ruckus