NETHERBIRD - The Grander Voyage

Netherbird - The Grander Voyage (2016, Black Lodge Records)

With the happening of Jon Nodtveidt’s greatest offering to Metal in the form of Dissection’s Storm of the Light’s Bane back in 1995, a multitude of copycats and followers from Sweden took a spin at the blend of Black and Death Metal with melodic guitar riffs and a huge penchant for the epic of Heavy Metal of the 80’s. In this wave of Swedish melodic Black/Death Metal acts, Netherbird is one of the most loyal band in the genre. Back after a short break, between 2014 and 2016, the Swedes made a comeback in full force.

As aforementioned, Netherbird plays a style of Black/Death Metal that places itself in the vein of the natural successors of Dissection. It is a reinterpretation of the genre as a painting by numbers executed with full mastery and a special touch that makes it more than just another Metal record.

To be honest, I have next to nothing in interest whatsoever in Melodic Black and Death Metal. To be really hooked, it must be a very good album, in the case of The Grander Voyage, the fact that the second half of the album is so surprising with ‘’The Silvan Shrine’’ and ‘’Emeral Crossroads’’ makes it a more than noticeable album. It was not expected that the latter half of the album be so strong in its simplicity but at the same time with its phenomenal execution.

With the right audience, this album might be a near-masterpiece, for the writer of those lines this is a very good offering that reminds us all how the Swedes know how to make Melodic anything. It doesn’t felt into the cheesy category like the Stortregn album I reviewed earlier this year and that I put down in flames. The Grander Voyage is one of the few Melodic Black/Death Metal albums I might be revisiting in the weeks to come.

7.5