Feel the Anger of the Wind

The Austrian outfit Woodtemple are perhaps best known for being the closet devotees of the Polish scene over any Norwegian variant, with the rich layers of keyboards and the strong pagan vibe of Graveland seeping through their work. Whilst it’s easy to do down imitation acts as the preserve of the uninspired and less creative minds, there is something to this pursuit that warrants closer inspection. If we take Woodtemple’s debut ‘Feel the Anger of the Wind’ released back in 2002 as our starting point, one reading of it could simply be taken as a highlights reel of Graveland’s career, which by 2002 had already morphed from energetic raw black metal to the plodding grandiose Viking metal of ‘Creed of Iron’. Woodtemple offer a mix of those militaristic, marching tempos with stirring, heroic chord sequences, and low, throbbing keyboard accompaniments that offer a backdrop of depth and size.

But Woodtemple are also reaching further back to Graveland’s ‘Carpathian Wolves’ and ‘Thousand Swords’ days with some grimmer, tritone based riffs, along with the vocals that offer a pretty convincing facsimile of Darken’s ghoulish ejaculations from those early days. Much like Emyn Muil are to Summoning, any assessment of an imitation act as faithful to the source material as Woodtemple will essentially stand or fall on the quality of this particular approach to black metal in general. Graveland themselves offered an interesting alternative to both the Norwegian style and that of their Southern European counterparts. Darken’s subsequent attempt to take this in the direction of mid-paced Viking metal was also welcome, but it ultimately stagnated, with albums flowing thick and fast offering scant variation on the exact same formula.

On ‘Feel the Anger of the Wind’, Woodtemple are doing very little to justify the need for another act putting out yet more of the same material, with innovation and development in short supply. An ethereal atmosphere is maintained throughout thanks to those simple but empowering keyboard arpeggios and harmonies, the guitars are for the most part churning out the same generic riffs set to tempos and rhythms that vary little. An imitation this convincing is neither better nor worse than what Graveland were doing at the time, but this is of little benefit to the listener. Unless of course that listener simply cannot get enough of this style despite the excessive volume of releases that Darken chucked out during the 2000s and onwards.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

"Son of Graveland." "Graveland, Jr." Whatever nickname you may have for Woodtemple, Aramath doesn't exactly make much of an effort in trying to convince us that we're not listening to blatant Graveland worship. While this shouldn't exactly be startling to anyone (the other reviews of this album on here both have the word "Graveland" in the first sentence), it's worth noting that perhaps on future albums Aramath's music comes into its own, but for now at least with this first album, it's clear that there's still a lot of work needed in order to pull off this style convincingly.

One of the main problems with Woodtemple is that it's lacking in energy. While it's not required to be particularly talented when it comes to actually performing the music (just look at early Burzum material) in this specific genre, creativity and enthusiasm can definitely make or break an album, regardless of any skill or proficiency with a musical instrument. What Woodtemple presents us here on "Feel the Anger of the Wind" is a genuine, convincing effort to make epic, pagan metal, and while the atmosphere is excellent, the music itself comes off as generic and lacking in energy and intensity.

Take for example the first two tracks of the album. The atmospheric introduction (appropriately titled "Intro") is well-executed and really sets the mood, but once it goes into the second track ("The Day Church Burnt,") and the metal comes in, it soon becomes apparent that we're listening to an amateur. The riffs, while interesting at first, get old pretty fast, as they're too repetitive and rely too much on simple, three-note power chord progressions. The vocals and drums (not to mention the cheesy lyrics, see "The Crow of the Shadow Wood" for a laugh) are definitely the weakest factors here, as Aramath's voice sounds like a goofy mix between Rob Darken, Abbath, and Gollum, and the programmed drums come off as pretty weak and just kind of...there...only providing some "war drum" atmospherics every now and then just to mix it up. Predictably, the bass just follows the melody of the guitar, which pretty much sums up the whole album, as all of the songs suffer from a lack of characteristics that make them stand out individually, and also struggle to not come off as half-baked, rejected song melodies that didn't make it on Graveland's "Memory and Destiny." Lastly, the songs are just too long, and definitely make the album much weaker and almost less epic. While the inspiration and ideas are there, they're too few in number to be stretched out over songs clocking over ten minutes or so. Even the atmospheric introductions, which are my favorite parts of the album, tend to drag on a bit.

While I don't hate this album, I really can't recommend it to anyone unless they absolutely cannot get enough of Rob Darken's various musical entities (Graveland, Lord Wind, etc.). Hopefully, Aramath has since practiced his instruments, grown as a songwriter, and either acquired a better drum program or found a decent, real drummer, and we will see how or if Woodtemple's music progresses on the following albums. For now, let this be a good lesson on what a generic album of this style sounds like and how it can be improved if you're someone like me and are aspiring to make some epic, pagan metal of your own some day.

The album begins with an extremely Graveland-inspired synth and percussion intro, which is semi folk-sounding, and uses the same galloping beats (also highly Graveland-related) appearing later in the album. The second track kicks in with a riff strummed in accordance with the galloping drum-sound, and a somewhat depressive nature (highly distorted, low tuned, minor-sounding chords, down-beat rhythms). Quite a bit of downstrokes are used, and this is accented with some harsh crashes. There is little change in this style, apart from a few occasions with double kick and an altered pace. As the album continues, the same guitar style is used throughout. Double kick pops up more often in songs, as do slightly more upbeat synth melodies (sounding triumphant and battle-oriented, and sometimes further depressing the atmosphere). This album is quite minimal and unchanging, less interesting than it could be, but still enjoyable. I recommend it to fans of Graveland's late 90's and more recent albums, and I consider it the best work of Woodtemple.

Starting this disc off, I really enjoyed the intro, as it calls to mind middle period Graveland with its epic sound. But, as the disc goes on we begin to hear how much this sounds like a bland project inspired by Graveland. First, this is a one man project and he utilizes drum machines for all of the percussion. The drum programming is very awkward and leaves every song sounding very synthetic. A few times, especially in 'The Day Church Burnt' the timing is noticeably off with the rest of the music and completely ruins the songs. I'm not against drum machines at all, it's just that the percussion on the 3 actual songs is done very badly. Secondly, speaking of ruining the songs, the vocals aren't that great. They sound like a low end growl processed through an echo chamber that sounds like a cross between Varg Vikernes and Rob Darken. Pretty bad. Third, the songs are WAY too long and rarely transition into anything new or interesting.

With only three actual songs on this release, and the reasons that I've pointed out above, this is a totally disappointmenting record. It is a very boring, mediocre album and I can't really recommend it to anyone (except for possibly the intro and outro, which are done very well).

There is decent guitar playing however, and the compositional skills are there, but it just isn't implemented in a way to make it satisfying to the ear. If Aramath got a band together and stuck to songwriting and guitar only, the future for Woodtemple could be very good.