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Boring, repeating Death/Doom, and that's just to start with.-
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| Seidr: For Winter Fire |
Death Metal, Doom Metal
Flenser Records
May 25th, 2009
- A Vision from Hlidskjalf - 11:26
- On the Shoulders of the Gods - 11:51
- Sweltering - 11:23
- In the Ashes - 4:43
- The Night Sky and the Wild Hunt - 9:26
- A Gaze at the Stars - 10:30
- Stream Keeper - 14:21
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| Review Information |
Release length: 1:14:30
Review posted on May 22nd, 2011
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| | Overall Score: 5/10 |
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| Discography |
Discography covers all information available up to day of review and is updated if future albums are reviewed. |
| Full-Length(s): |
For Winter Fire (2011)
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| EP(s): |
Cortez the Killer EP (2010)
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| Demo(s): |
Blood in the Soil (2009) • Cosmic (2011)
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| Review |
Hailing from Louisville, Kentucky, Seidr is a band that combines the Southern appeal of their regional heritage into a Doom and Death Metal effort. For the most part, the material here has more of a wild-west vibe going to it then a subtle sense of Southern hospitality that some bands from that are have incorporated into their material, such as High on Fire and Pantera. All of this leads to an album that pushes well past seventy minutes of slow paced Doom with some Death metal intensity. For the group's debut full-length effort, do these seven tracks make for an interesting seventy three minutes of intensity, or does it make for an all-too-familiar pretension release?
Well there's no doubt that the sound is somewhat unique thanks to that gloomier Western approach to the material, and not just a casual coating of a Southern vibe to the release. For Winter Fire is, for the most part, a Doom Metal album that seems to find the Death Metal elements tacked on. The material seems to take ideas from other Death/Doom acts like Novembers Doom, but while the atmosphere for the Doom parts work well for Seidr, it's the gutteral moments that take away from that atmosphere for the most part that make this combination feel a little amateurish at times. "A Vision from Hlidskjalf" makes for an impressive start atmospherically, though when the music shifts away from that atmospheric Doom approach to cater to some more intense music with gutterals that carry the slower and ominous presence laid out by the Doom Metal foundation, but at the same time those atmospheric elements that make it so gloomy and carry the strong Southern/Western vibe feel completely left out for a more traditional sound that focuses on heaviness more then consistancy.
This song doesn't quite set the tone for the album, as this song has the heaviest geographical-based atmosphere on the album. Given how the band didn't really transition that atmosphere well between the varying Doom Metal passage to Death Metal passage, it's perhaps for the best. "On the Shoulders of the Gods" makes for a much stronger track because of the lack of that atmosphere, making a track that's sole focus is creating a brutal and heavy atmosphere more then anything, which the band does well with crushing music and layered gutterals that are accompanied by higher pitched rhaspier vocals similar to the gutteral performance. This is actually where the general atmosphere of the album is established, as the rest of the material follows a similar slower paced foundation with multi-layered gutterals. But, the multiple layers of vocals, while intimidating at first, will slowly grow on your nerves, especially on the acoustic piece "In the Ashes" which again features multiple vocal layers throughout the track that are distinctive against the main somewhat echoed style, and all performed clean on the song that is catchy and doesn't necessarily feel dark, ominous, or anything of the sort to the recording, but instead more somber and as if a self-realization, all coming together for a less then five minute song that simply does not fit the overall scheme of the album.
While the vocals do tend to get a little on the annoying side, it's not the only issue to be had with this release. Outside the tracks that don't quite seem to fit the general idea and atmosphere of the album, as mentioned earlier, you also have a rather raw production quality that feels like the band is using it well, but also causes the vocals to sound a little less intimidating and more jumbled thanks to the layering executed with the album. The music is also rather loud, and can dwarf the vocals all together at times when performed lower during some moments that don't have a strong, higher volumed number of layers behind it. On top of all that, you have the annoying reverb found in the start of "On the Shoulders of the Gods", which starts off slow in a very Sludge manner, but is formed more of annoying echoing reverb then anything for almost half the song, and considering it's nearly twelve minutes, that's just too long to listen to it without getting some kind of migraine. Seidr seems to enjoy it though, as more of it appearts on other tracks like "The Night Sky and the Wild Hunt", and alright song that has a slower pace and eventually gives way to a gypsy-like atmosphere that is ushered in through a transition of high pitched reverb. While it's short, it's still really annoying and of a much higher pitch then what was at the start of "On the Shoulders of the Gods".
Unfortunately, another draw back to this release is that many of the songs that hold back on the Southern atmosphere start to sound very similar to one another. There's no real change in anything past "On the Shoulders of the Gods" outside of the track "In the Ashes". Each song goes at the same pace, perhaps just slightly faster or slower, but only for certain sections. The vocals are performed in the same manner with the echoing background layered vocals that are the exact same style every time, all right down to the chords essentially being the same slow paced performance over and over again from start to finish in pretty much each song. "Stream Keeper" does prove to be the exception to the rule, and that's mostly because of it's much slower pace set by the drums against faster guitar work that sets up a haunting atmosphere thanks to the effects used to fade it in and out. Eventually, the song gradually becomes just a slower version of the material that makes up the album, the music isn't necessarily heavy, it loses that haunting vibe, and just sounds generic with nothing to really hold the listener with varying atmospheres that seem to make no real fluid or sensible connection to one another throughout the song, ending on a rather boring and confusing note.
All in all, Seidr shows some promise, but the band seems to be locked in common concepts for their performances. The material on For Winter Fire isn't the worst composition of Death and Doom Metal out there, but it's not the most exhilerating or original. The band has some unique ideas, but they fail to stick with them and capitalize on the atmospheres, as well as on transitioning between them, or even creating a viable fluidity to the album that doesn't feel like they had one or two ideas and just shoved them onto the recording to have them. Instead, what we're given is maybe thirty minutes worth of intriguing Metal, with about forty minutes of filler, repetition, and songs that feel out of place, making For Winter Fire a rather boring mess for most the album with little replay value outside the random nostalgic factor later down the road.
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Digital review copy of this release provided by:
Flenser Records.
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