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Darkwoods My Betrothed > Autumn Roars Thunder > Reviews
Darkwoods My Betrothed - Autumn Roars Thunder

Going astray - 70%

Felix 1666, November 21st, 2018
Written based on this version: 1996, CD, Solistitium Records

"Autumn Roars Thunder" is a difficult album for all those who enjoyed "Heirs of the Northstar". The centerfold of its booklet shows a very atmospheric picture of a Northern landscape and the music focuses, compared with that of the debut, also on atmosphere. The strict and icy approach of the thunderous predecessor does no longer exist. The elegiac title track rolls in slowly, the vocals lack bitterness, malignancy and coldness and a very calm spoken words part marks a really weak sequence of the eleven-minutes-monument. All in all, this opener can be understood as an experiment with some good melodies, but it also holds crude elements.

After such a statement at the beginning, the band has to accept that the faster tracks on the album appear somewhat half-hearted. It gets obvious that the dudes are heading for new shores and they do it in a competent manner, but I guess I would not have bought the album back in the last millennium if I had known some tracks in advance. Even songs that break loose in a pretty hysteric manner, for example "The Conspiracy of the Pagan Cult", confront the listener with breaks that kill some percent of the strength of these tracks. Nevertheless, it feels great to hear the insane screaming of the lead singer on these songs and to experience the straight hammering of the drums. One can discuss about the relatively great influence of the keyboards during some parts of the songs, but fortunately the cold fury of the fastest sections turns out to be their characterizing feature. On the other hand, Viking-inspired mid-tempo tracks such as "Hymn of the Darkwood" are simply too long, to say the least. The song structure is neither adventurous nor unpredictable and the female background vocals coalesce with the strange, wannabe-heroic male lead vocals to a relatively inedible cocktail. I admit that the slower songs have a handful of good riffs, but from time to time they disappear behind the keyboards, the lead and background vocals instead of claiming a leading role.

For fans of harsh, merciless black metal, the album is like a rollercoaster with countless ups and downs. In its feeble moments, the album sounds like a collection of leftovers that Ancient never dared to release. The lead vocalist is no natural born vocal talent, although he seems to be exactly of this opinion. No doubt, he made a good job on the debut, but here he fails. An aggravating factor to be taken into account is that almost dreamful breaks appear occasionally and make me think of finishing this review prematurely. But it goes without saying that this would be inacceptable and, honestly speaking, the narrow-minded, typical Northern black metal sequences are still fascinating ("I Burn at the Stake", "On the Top of the Falcon Hill"). These eruptions of primordial force help the full-length to keep its head above water. That said, it can be recommended with restrictions. Its production avoids severe shortcomings, but naturally it cannot make up for the reduced power of the compositions. So decide for yourself whether or not you like to check a pretty heterogeneous work of an actually talented group. Just do not expect a ferocious masterpiece like the debut.

From the Land of a Thousand (Burning) Lakes - 80%

doomknocker, January 10th, 2015
Written based on this version: 1996, CD, Solistitium Records

Darkwoods My Betrothed's debut wasn't the kind of discography opener to really knock potential listeners for a loop, but as a whole it was a competent and slightly above average black/Viking metal noise-making. It was clear that the band was starting to formulate ideas on where they wanted to go on a musical level, even if the final output was rather uneven, a path that could only result in proper evolution as time progressed. And despite a lack of legit exposure and distribution from a label just starting to wet their feet in the extreme metal pond (as the packaging for "Heirs..." shows, it was Hammerheart's first pressing), a year or so later saw the band's sophomore creation come forth...

"Autumn Roars Thunder", much like :"Heirs...", doesn't go out of its way to shove past other black metal bands and albums in order to be noticed, nor does it make enough of a scene to be naturally gazed upon, but compared to "Heirs...", it's quite a ways more focused and inspired. Things start off, interestingly, with the album's longest and most dynamic track, with plenty of melody and moody ambience more In the Woods... than anything else that, strangely enough, isn't touched upon all that much as "Autumn..." continues on, for a single song later we're treated to a complete tonal shift to a more straight-up black metal barbarity. This ends up being the main cynosure for the entirety of the album, deviated every once and again for something slower and more grounded on a track-by-track basis ("When Ancient Spirits Battled" and "Hymn of the Darkwoods" shoot for the Viking technique/sound but in a more straightforward way, and acoustic guitars come and go to stir things up rather decently), but for the most part this is a far more blackened recording taking a couple more strides in the direction of their demo era versus the forest-dwelling feel of "Heirs...".

The production is powerful yet clear, with plenty of bite to the guitar tone and an interesting amount of oomph behind the bass lines (you can actually hear the bass!), and as before, the guitars and bass take center stage and craft far more insidiously evil riffs and progressions than the lyrical themes could possibly allow (the band was still maintaining their Odinist stance here despite the more seriously Satanic vibe the music contains) while the keyboard sections simply add their own level of depth and atmosphere, both dark and majestic. Drumming is a bit more jagged than before, with a few moments where raging blast beats are interrupted by a noticeable lull in tempo coming to pass, again showcasing a roughness and slight sloppiness in the overall product not being fixed up in the mixing process. Pasi's vocals are, for the most part, a more confident-sounding throaty demonic black rasp than the previously heard irritating wail (though it still pops up here and there, only with more body and spirit behind them) and that still silly-sounding drunken singing that doesn't fit the material as well as I'm sure he'd hoped for. But I guess them's the breaks?

In the end, this proved to be a better overall product than "Heirs of the Northstar" and a better Darkwoods... album overall, but it still couldn't do much to push the band's name any further from the black metal mid-card roster. One more album down the line would prove to be their undoing, unfortunately for them, before the forest was lost to the trees. It happens...

Good but not Great - 70%

Draconist, May 20th, 2004

Originally called “Virgin’s Cunt” this Finnish band formed in spring 1993. After the release of two demos, the band signed a record deal with Hammerheart Productions. Their debut album “Heirs of the Northstar”, released in 1995, was a combination of elaborate guitar playing, atmospheric keyboards, raw and clean vocals, its highlight being the 16-minute epic “Yggdrasill's Children Fall”.

“Autumn Roars Thunder” is the band’s second effort released by German label Solistitium Records in 1996. Production-wise the sound is great and the songs are long and epic. The album opens up slower than their debut, creating a hymn-like atmosphere, which precedes the faster tracks. When it comes to singing the vocals are varied, like in their previous material, between ordinary and typical black metal vocals plus occasional spoken parts. The raw vocals are unclear as usual, but this time there are more clean parts. Which isn’t a good sign! When it comes to reach clean high notes his voice wavers at the attempt and more often than not, ends up singing out of tune and at certain times this gets rather annoying. In general I think this is a good album with interesting guitar riffs but what I like most with this album are the thunderous drums and the keyboards, which at times give you barbarian-battlefield atmosphere. A standout track to watch out for is “Red Sky Over the Land of Fells”, which contains the best guitar riffs on this album and pleasant choir-like vocals.

Apart from the vocals only one thing still irritates me: the lyrics are almost illegible and why were they printed in a different order from the track listing?