Alda are a band from Tacoma, Washington that has been featured before in this zine and plays an atmospheric form of cascadian black metal and this is a review of their 2015 album "Passage" which was released as a joint effort by Bindrune Recordings and Eisenwald.
Nature sounds and drones start off the album before going into a very fast and raw post black metal direction that also utilizes a great amount of blast beats and when the music slows down a great amount of melodies can be heard while the vocals are very grim yet high pitched screams and the songs also bring in a great mixture of slow, mid paced and fast parts.
All of the tracks are very long and epic in length and the solos and leads are also very melodic while some of the slower riffs bring elements of doom metal onto the recording and the vocals also bring in angry shouts at times and when clean playing along with a small amount of classical guitars are utilized it gives the songs more of a progressive feeling and as the album progresses clean singing, female vocals and elements of folk music can also be heard at times and they also bring in an instrumental before closing the recording with a vocal track which also brings in a brief use of spoken word parts.
Alda remain true to the cascadian style of black metal that was established on previous releases while also getting more progressive and adding in more elements of folk music this time around, the production sound s very raw yet powerful at the same time while the lyrics cover nature and the atavistic reclamation of the world.
In my opinion this is another great sounding recording from Alda and if you are a fan of this band, you should enjoy this album. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Animis" and "Weathering". 8 out of 10.
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| Official website |
| Spotify |
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