Style: Hypnotic black metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: Long winding songs that lead to an extraplanar state of consciousness
Thoughts: Some albums don't click at first. Some require time to marinate before they begin to show their true colors. Like a fine whiskey they show their complexities over time and the more time that they are allotted the more nuanced they become. Ultha has created one such album.
As one might have surmised, the first few listens of The Inextricable Wandering were not entirely positive. I had this sense that there was points that I enjoyed, but overall the music was not connecting with me. I left thinking that I needed more listens to fully form an opinion.
That break ended up becoming days... then months... then almost a year. It wasn't until the album got a repress on Vendetta that I decided to come back to it. That's when I decided that I was going to spend some time with the album and truly form an opinion.
I think most of my difficulty getting into the album had to do with the opening track. The Avarist (Eyes of a Tragedy) is likely one of the weaker tracks on the album. The track suffers from being overlong and not exploring enough ideas during that time. It tends to overstay its welcome by a few minutes.
The main melody is what sits wrong with me. It's first heard around 3 minutes into the track and while it's good at building tension it is not a riff that should be repeated as much as it is. The introduction is quite intense and works exceptionally well for the song. It's when the melody comes back time and time again that it wears out its welcome. Mix that with a fifteen minute song and you have the ingredients for something that makes quite the big ask for a new listener.
Needless to say, even coming back to the album now the opening track is a bit long. It could use a few minutes trimmed off. But one lackluster song does not a bad album make. The album really opens up with the second song With Knives to the Throat and Hell in Your Heart.
This song ratchets up the intensity immediately with two interlocking riffs that have a rare ferocity. Mix that with a well executed blast beat and the howled vocals and you got something that immediately grabbed my attention.
The track explores a lot of the same themes that the opener did, but its about five minutes shorter. A much better representation of what Ultha is all about. It also leads into the first major deviation of the album... and the point where I knew I was hooked
There is no Love, High Up in the Gallows (holy shit what a song title) is an ambient track that builds such an ominous atmosphere that it brought me goosebumps the first time I really listened to it. This track is where I knew that the album had gone from a good album to an outstanding one. This track is so good I wouldn't mind seeing Ultha explore an entirely ambient driven album at some point.
Without going into a track by track breakdown of the album, the second half of the album is significantly better than the first half. Cyanide Lips picks up the same intensity that the ambient track did but in metal form. We Only Speak in Darkness channels some eighty's goth rock with a black metal foundation, and the closer is eighteen minutes of the bands sound fully realized.
The Inextricable Wandering is an album that will be in my collection for a long time. Being in LP form I have the option to skip side A which has the weakest track on it. What I'm left with is 50 minutes of some of the finest black metal I've heard in recent years. A fine wine indeed.
Written June 25th 2024
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