Entry 256 - Ruadh - Sovereign

 

Folk influenced black metal is something that is a hit or miss for me. If done well it can be incredibly satisfying and immensely powerful. When done poorly its almost unlistenable. For the most part Ruadh's album Sovereign is on the better half of that spectrum.

The album starts out with everything you would expect from the genre. The music is as epic as it is majestic. The way the riffs work together with the keyboards and the mix of clean choirs with the howled vocals work well together. I think I spun the first record in the set 3-4 times a side before I moved onto the second one.

The first disc is the obvious highlight of the album. The tracks blend in together, there is a wonderful interlude of rain in between tracks and the music's cadence is just about perfect. It's slow when it needs to be, it hits hard when it needs to as well. It's at the second disc where the album falters a bit.

The second record starts out with a surprisingly heavy riff and almost seems to have an identity crisis for a bit. As the album progresses into the last tracks a bit of the epic moments form the first disc come back into the fold... but honestly the magic is lost. The rain returns to end the album, but the final track is honestly a bit lacking based on the high standards that the first half put forward.

Sovereign is not a bad album at all. It's a shame that it started off so incredibly well only to falter out at the very end. If nothing else the first disc in the set will get repeated spins from me in the future. Maybe then the second half will have grown on me. Only time will tell.