Will of Gods Is a Great Power

Perfection – the state of being perfect; being entirely without fault or defect; satisfying all requirements; corresponding to an ideal standard or abstract concept. I think we all understand the concept of perfection, but how do we apply it to music? Music is so incredibly subjective and so emotionally charged. The emotion music elicits isn’t quantifiable or tangible. Here on site, I’ve already given three albums a perfect score and I’m about to do that again. To me, an album doesn’t need to be consistent all the way through to be perfect, nor does it need every note to be flawlessly arranged. Some albums have something very special – a type of aura. If the album accomplishes everything it set out to do, and nothing else has been able to replicate it or get close, then it’s perfect. By this criteria, Scald’s Will of the Gods is Great Power is a perfect album.

I still distinctly remember the very first time I listened to Scald. I was young and just starting to dive into the epic doom metal scene with bands like Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus, and Solstice. I asked a close friend, someone I considered a mentor, for more bands in that vein and he told me to listen to Scald as soon as possible. I was in for a treat – I put on Will of the Gods is Great Power shortly after speaking with him and I was hit immediately with a wave of emotion. This album had something very special indeed. I felt utterly overwhelmed, but amazed at the same time that I found music like this. The pure sense of wonder and astonishment persists for me today, over a decade later.

My experience with Scald is not a unique one. I’ve witnessed firsthand others feeling the same admiration and amazement at their first listen of Will of the Gods is Great Power – some who otherwise would have never touched epic metal in any way. It’s difficult to distill the magic at work here, but on a high level Scald play slow paced, folk-infused, epic doom metal. When you think of this genre, Candlemass immediately come to mind, but that’s not really a big influence here. Scald draw their inspiration from Hammerheart-era Bathory and mix it with Manowar‘s Ross the Boss-era epics like “Secret of Steel” to create a powerful and triumphant sound.

Will of the Gods is Great Power clocks in at over fifty minutes and features just six tracks. When songs are simple, slow, and average over nine minutes there’s a serious risk of being dull and drawn out, but that’s not the case here in the slightest. Every note, every folk passage, every riff, every synth touch, every beautiful vocal melody – it all matters and has massive impact. Instead of being long and boring, the songs feel painfully short. I’m always left yearning for more when the album ends and I often find myself starting it back up immediately.

The production plays a huge part in making Will of the Gods is Great Power so mesmerizing and addicting. On the whole, it’s rougher than most albums in the epic doom style. Instead of being warm and bass heavy, Scald’s production is cold and virtually devoid of bass. The treble heavy production works in conjunction with a thin, razor-sharp guitar tone to create a wintery sound with a ton of bite. The drums and bass guitars are buried in the mix, accentuating the lead guitars and giving plenty of room for the band’s all star vocalist, Agyl, to drive the music and shine.

Agyl’s vocals are one of a kind and in a league entirely of their own. It’s impossible for me to discuss him without sounding hyperbolic, but he is genuinely one of my favorite metal vocalists. His tone is phenomenal and when combined with his bombastic and dramatic delivery it creates a deadly combination. Agyl compliments the instrumentation nicely and is often at the forefront of the music, allowing him to be the band’s centerpiece. Scald gives him all the room possible to drive the music and few do this as effectively as Agyl. He typically sits at a lower register, but there are plenty of moments where he shows off his tremendous range and graces us with his haunting highs. There’s a powerful moment half way through the track “A Tumulus” where he sings entirely in his highs, giving me shivers everytime without fail. The only complaint I’ve ever seen concerning Agyl is around his pronunciation. Given that Scald are a Russian band, Agyl’s first language isn’t English and this is painfully clear. He has difficulty pronouncing words clearly and sometimes it feels like he’s singing with a mouth full of cottonballs as a result. It’s largely incomprehensible and he could be insulting my mother for all I know, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to make out the words he’s singing to understand that Agyl’s voice is simply beautiful.

Unfortunately, Agyl passed away in a tragic accident very shortly after the release of Will of the Gods is Great Power. Scald split in 1997 with just this lone album as their legacy, but what a legacy it is. With just one album, Scald left a lasting impact far exceeding what many bands accomplish with expansive catalogs. I have listened to this album countless times over the years and the sense of wonder that overcame me the very first time is still there the hundredth time.

Album Rating: 100/100

Favorite Track: A Tumulus

Originally written for RideIntoGlory.com

‘Epic’ has become a bit overused in the world of metal with hundreds of bands often completely wrongly being tagged with the term. It’s a pity really, because often bands that truly do deserve the tag get completely buried, and ‘Will of the Gods is Great Power’ from Russia’s Scald is one album that really does in every way qualify as one of the most ‘epic’ sounding albums ever.

The album features a fantastic mixture of the majestic grand riffs and vivid imagery of Bathory’s Viking metal style albums such as ’Hammerheart’ which it is clearly hugely influenced by and the crushing slow tempos and down tuned guitars of traditional doom bands like Candlemass and Solitude Aeturnus. Every riff is equally powerful, and combined with the Viking-themed lyrics can conjure up images of ancient lands and Viking warriors that most so-called ‘Viking metal’ bands can only dream of doing.

While the music isn’t particularly complex, the instrumentation is superb throughout and the music is structured and composed perfectly with a perfect mix of heavy riffs and melody, staying completely gripping through the long song lengths. The guitar work in particular is amazing. As well as the great riffs there are with plenty of sweeping guitar solos, all of which are well composed and sometimes breathtakingly beautiful and emotional. All of the music is played on just guitar, bass and drums apart from waves and wind sound effects used to enhance the atmosphere and chimes playing a hypnotic melody on ‘Ragnaradi Eve’.

Released first only on tape, it survived only because of the quality of the music to be remastered on CD. The remastering didn’t do much though, because the production is still awful. While the bass is clear, the guitars are thin and the drums are ridiculously weak. The thing is, while some may be put off, the production in many ways actually helps the music. While taking away some of the power that most doom contains, the production makes the atmosphere sound completely natural and believable, in a way similar to good quality black metal that gets the production ‘right’ like Ulver’s ‘Bergtatt’. The production can take a while to get used to however, and may not be immediately appealing. The more you get used to it though, the less noticeable it becomes.

The vocals are most affected by the production, which is one of the album’s biggest problems. Maxim "Agyl" Adrianov, who sadly passed away in 1997 leading to the band’s break-up, was clearly an incredible singer, with a range that seemingly effortlessly managed to go from a low growl to an ethereal high pitched wail. Agyl could definitely rival the very best of epic doom metal singers such as Messiah Marcolin, though his singing is unfortunately very restricted by the production. The vocals sound distant and unclear, buried under the instruments. This does help the atmosphere somewhat, but it makes his singing seem a lot less impressive, especially when he sings the higher notes. It also makes it very hard to understand the lyrics which are well-written for a non-Native speaker and fit the atmosphere perfectly.

‘Will of the Gods is Great Power’ is overall an incredible album with the only real flaw being certain parts in the production. Scald borrow from Bathory and Candlemass, and manage to reach the same quality, arguably even surpassing them. A must for any fan of epic doom metal.

Too often the word “epic” is used in describing music. Many times if something is simply long it’s deemed epic. While length certainly plays a part in properly capturing an epic sound on a recording, a long running time alone does not make something epic. Indeed, something that is truly epic will have a certain something about it, a quality that is inherently hard to define. It’s the combination of songwriting, vocals, lyrics, production, instrumentation – in short, everything that goes into a recording – yet is also more than this. It’s a feeling. Some bands can capture it; many try for years and never really come close. In 1996 the five members of the Russian band Scald perfectly captured this essence, creating an album which, aside from a few essential works by bands like Solitude Aeturnus and Candlemass, perhaps best represents exactly what the “epic doom” genre is all about.

Originally released only on cassette, this gem finally made its way to CD a few years later. Though it was supposedly cleaned up you would scarcely know it. If you have heard the Solitude Aeturnus debut (if you haven’t, I must ask – why not?) then you have a general idea of what this thing sounds like production-wise. The drums are rather punchless and low in the mix (bass drums are barely audible) while the guitars have a very thin, yet razor-sharp sound – there’s definitely no down-tuned heavy riffing here. The vocals, thankfully, are given a slight emphasis over the music, so you can hear them easily. Put this sort of production in most any other form of metal and it’d sound terrible. Strangely enough, part of the charm here is in fact the production. Compared to the polished productions often seen today this wintry-cold yet majestic job lends a refreshingly natural feel to the album. Though I’ll confess to knowing little about black metal I do understand that what some fans feel are “bad” production jobs on some black metal albums are intentionally used in order to evoke certain artistically important feelings that, when properly done, set a mood that is otherwise nigh impossible to capture. Listeners aren’t supposed to think of a few guys sitting in a recording studio, they’re supposed to imagine darkened forests, wintry landscapes, and so on, all without directly being told to so, but instead almost subliminally via an achieved production quality. This same sort of idea is perfectly captured on “Will of the Gods…”.

Another part of the charm with this disc is the vocal work as singer Agyl gives an amazing performance. What does he sound like? Well, perhaps the best comparison I can come up with is to mix equal parts Robert Lowe, especially his early work and his ability to make his voice sound so “soaring” without ever feeling strained, with a good mid-ranged NWOBHM-style singer. Agyl can definitely sing, but there’s also a slightly rough edge to his voice – nothing remotely approaching a growl or scream, but just enough to lend the proper feeling of aggression and power when needed. He does have an accent that makes his pronunciation of certain words a bit awkward-sounding but it’s not nearly as noticeable as it would be in, say, a power metal band with fast sing-along choruses. Besides, regardless of how he pronounces words he sounds tremendous. Like the best singers in this genre his range is incredible – listen to “Sepulchral Bonfire” at the 10:50 mark or “In the Open Sea” around the 7:45 mark. Those screams send chills down my spine every time I hear them. It is a shame, however, that the lyrics for this disc were apparently never released publicly in any form. Perhaps they were, but I have had zero luck in finding them anywhere.

The guitar work on display here is equally outstanding. Doom is, of course, a slower form of music, something that guitarists Harald and Karry take full advantage of here, weaving in all sorts of awesome melodies and solos. In fact, the guitars here have a slight tendency to make the music sound faster than it is. Often so much is going on guitar-wise yet the overall pace is still pure epic doom. Once again the production helps add to the atmosphere as the guitar tone is absolutely perfect with much more treble than bass. This may sound strange but trust me, it sounds great. I just can’t help coming back to that word – “epic”. The two guitarists work well in tandem; very rarely in the roughly 54 minutes that this disc spans is there a dull moment music-wise, the hallmark of a good epic doom metal album. Never once did I find myself wishing they’d have sped anything up. Instead, it all seemed perfect as is. The songs are pretty varied, at least as much as epic doom metal allows for as a genre. You’ll notice lots of Viking-metal influences (i.e., “Hammerheart” era Bathory) and even, like Solitude Aeturnus did for a while, some incorporation of power metal elements. Again, don’t expect double-bass barrages and the like, but Scald keep things interesting via the slight mixing of various styles.

Undoubtedly the final part of the charm of “Will of the Gods…” is the fact that the band broke up after recording this album, due mainly to the unfortunate death of singer Agyl. Thus, Scald’s legacy will consist of this album alone. We know they’re done forever so we don’t even think of something like a bad album “tarnishing” their legacy. Many times we find ourselves waxing nostalgic over bands or artists that have long since disbanded or passed on, often forgetting that we didn’t care much for said band or artist while they were recording. This being said, Scald are fully deserving of any posthumous praise they receive. They left us with precious little in terms of quantity, but the sole album they did produce stands as a landmark in the epic doom genre. Any fans of epic doom who haven’t heard this are advised to procure a copy as quickly as possible (amazingly it’s still rather easy to find thanks to re-releases by Wroth Emitter). If there ever was a musical definition of “epic” this is surely it. A classic of the highest order and an album with an atmospheric feeling that most bands, even with all the money in the world, couldn’t come close to replicating.