Wagars – Sidrabenes lāsts (The Curse of Sidrabene)
Wagars are back! And judging by this album they still have that black metal troll inside them as this is still dark and grimm stuff. Wagars has been reviewed before on Some Will Never Know, and my colleague Guido was very happy with their previous album. He was not the only one enjoying this album very much, as Wagars debut was awarded as debut of 2013 at Latvia’s Metal Music Awards. Some time later I bought that album and I must say I agree with him. Their debut is full of black metal crust punk, a combination that works very well.
The darkness of black metal and the energy of crust punk are mixed together for a second time, but this time Wagars added a bit melancholy. They lower the tempo every now and then and add melodic guitars to give a slightly different mood to this album. Prime examples are Zem Sventes (Under Svente) and Būris (Cage), with it’s slow doomy parts and even some acoustic guitars mixed with the black and crust madness. Although this is definitely not a bad thing in my opinion I can imagine crusties being a bit disappointed the band is leaning more towards a metal sound. As I don’t wish to scare ‘m away with this review I’d like to reassure ‘m there’s a couple of tracks on Sidrabenes lāsts that could be on their debut as well (Zobena ēnā (In the Shadow of the Sword) for example). There’s still plenty of music for them to enjoy on this album. Other parts of their sound have remained the same compared to their debut. The production is again dark and heavy. Their singer still barks out his lyrics with his deep growl. Lyrics are still in Latvian. The title referring to a pre-Christian castle that was destroyed twice by crusaders. They were kind enough to include a translation to their lyrics on their bandcamp page. They are pretty poetic in a dark way and tell tales of societies crumbling down and being in touch with nature.
There’s one big downside to this album: this is currently not released on physical format and apperently the band has no plans to change this. I hope they change their minds about this…
Back to reviews overview