Band: Winterfylleth
Title: The Mercian Sphere
Label: Candlelight Records
Distribution: Plastic Head Distribution
Release date: July 19th 2010
Review: CD

Manchester, UK, based formation Winterfylleth (meaning: "winter full moon"), with members of, for example, Atavist or Heathen Foray, is a so-called EHBM-band (English Heritage Black Metal), bringing icy, grim and oppressing Black Metal hymns with a wonderful Nordic approach. The latter not only goes for the musical approach, yet also for the sound, in this band’s case; a sound that is freezing and uncompromising, lacking of over-production or poppy sounds. The ‘heritage’-thing has to do with a Pagan spirit, some kind of tributing the might of Britain’s roots.

This second album, recorded and released two years after the critical acclaimed debut The Ghost Of Heritage (Profound Lore – a smaller Black/ Death-label with splendid bands on its rooster, like Caïna, Krallice, Dead Of Winter [the Canadian one], Portal [the Australian one] or Altar Of Plagues), consists of ten tracks, most of them standing for supremacy in the vein of, let’s say, Forefather or, more recently, Wodensthrone, as well as Norwegian colleagues like early Ulver or Enslaved; even a project as Drudkh sometimes comes to mind. These songs are varying in tempo, and because of the long average duration (some hymns clock ten minutes) there are several tempo-changes and melody-adaptations. Even though it can’t be considered ‘Viking’-material, the whole does exhale an epic spirit, and the addition of some acoustic parts might seem rather evident, yet at the same time it’s been extremely well balanced. Some tracks aren’t Metal-inspired. "Children Of The Stones" and "When The Woods Were Young", the two shortest songs on The Mercian Sphere, are instrumental and acoustic tracks with violins, colouring the whole with a melancholic atmosphere.

So what’s the problem? The album consists of worthy hymns and the performance is beyond average (in positive sense), but I do miss something. More variation? More an own face? More conviction? The Mercian Sphere is of a high quality, yet I’m afraid it won’t surprise the blackened hordes completely.

83/100

Ivan Tibos.