Szary Wilk - Wrath

SZARY WILK - Wrath (PUTRID CULT - CD 2021)

Szary Wilk is another new band on the Polish black metal scene, which I had to discover. They recently debuted with an album called “Wrath”. Not a bad start, if you ask me, I definitely enjoyed this piece of black metal. On the first listen what characterizes Szary Wilk the most are rather longer songs (circling around five, up to even eight minutes) and great melancholy and dark atmosphere, harshness and cold viciousness, so reminiscent of a lot of mid 90's black metal releases. Including Graveland, which seems to be a band that a lot of people compare Szary Wilk with. I would actually mention Polish black metal scene of mid 90's in general, not just Rob Darken’s band. But that’s me. 

Anyways, I need to say that I like how the raw production of "Wrath" can allow you to get a good listen on everything and each instrument is well audible. There's enough of that clearness to avoid a tiring mess of sounds, which so often appear on black metal releases. Szary Wilk managed to get that proper balance between these two aspects. Same as they balanced melancholic and rather slow paced black metal with more furious and aggressive parts. The first style does prevail, to be honest, but if you listen to such "Mortuos Voco", then it will turn out that when the music is faster or more up-tempo then Szary Wilk sounds the best, in my opinion. Especially that they build the music around many melodic riffs, what actually did surprise me a little, especially with song called "Wilczy taniec", which quickly became my favourite part of the whole album. That melody can also sometimes bring some old Swedish black metal to mind, like Throne of Ahaz’s “Nifelheim”, which is quite cool as well. Here and there I almost wonder how would it sound, if Szary Wilk added some subtle keyboards in the background, how much would that deepen the darkness of the aura of this music. It's almost a shame we cannot find out about that. But the songwriting is solid as it is, I have to say, every song has something interesting to offer, no doubt. 

What is my final impression on all of this? It surely is quite positive; I’ve listened to “Wrath” a bunch of times and enjoyed this music just enough to gladly add it to my collection. “Wrath” is not the most remarkable black metal I’ve heard this year, to be honest, it is almost mediocre, almost dull here and there. But that doesn’t mean it is something you should easily let pass on. I think that Szary Wilk do standout a little among nowadays scene, not many bands play such music nowadays, like it was taken straight from the fullmoon of 1995. That's good, definitely. 

Standout tracks: "Wilczy taniec" 

Verdict: 70/100