THE SYNN REPORT (PART 112): WRVTH

 Album Reviews, THE SYNN REPORT  1 Response »
Aug 302019
 

 

(In this August edition of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy Synn writes of all the albums released by the California band Wrvth, including a review of their most recent album, No Rising Sun, released on August 23rd by Unique Leader Records.)

Recommended for fans of: Fallujah, The Faceless, Bosse-De-Nage

It’s always sad to see a band hanging up their boots just as it seems like they’re hitting their stride. Such is the case with Californian Technical/Progressive/Post-Death Metal crew Wrvth (pronounced “Wrath”, not “Ruth”) who released their fourth and final (and finest) album just last week, before all going their own separate ways.

Beginning life as a much more straightforward Technical Death/core group and operating under the lengthier sobriquet of Wrath of Vesuvius, it wasn’t until 2015, when the band changed their name, upgraded their sound, and released their career-redefining eponymous album, that they really came into their own, having developed a new approach that was simultaneously both atmospheric and aggressive, chaotic and cathartic, ambient yet angular, and which they would go on to refine to near perfection on this year’s No Rising Sun. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): MIZMOR, QAALM, WRVTH, THE FIFTH ALLIANCE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jul 212019
 

 

We missed a day yesterday, dammit. I spent too much time listening and not enough time writing — so much time listening that I have many things I want to recommend across many heavy genres. I liked the way the following four tracks flowed together, so I’ve collected them here. The plan is to post a second installment of this round-up tomorrow. It goes in very different directions than this one. I’m not posting it today because I want to make time and room for the usual SHADES OF BLACK column, which will arrive soon(ish).

MIZMOR

I spent an hour yesterday listening to Mizmor’s new album Cairn, which is how long it takes to proceed through the record’s four long tracks (they range from 10 minutes to 18 in length). It’s an emotionally overpowering experience, as stunning as the Mariusz Lewandowski painting (“Time Immemorial”) that Mizmor’s alter ego A.L.N. commissioned for the record. Of the album’s four tracks, the opener “Desert of Absurdity” is the first one out in the world, and the first one in today’s collection. Continue reading »

WRVTH: “WRVTH”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jul 072015
 

Wrvth-Self Titled

 

(DGR reviews the new album by WRVTH [formerly known as Wrath of Vesuvius].)

It hasn’t been lost on me that over the years I’ve been lucky when it comes to seeing bands. While not in a preferred situation, my living in Sacramento has allowed me to see some really good shows, groups just starting out who have gone on to do some awesome things. By virtue of proximity to a couple of rather large cities and a populous region, I’ve been lucky enough to see some hyper-creative people roll through town multiple times.  Even though I have often joked that Sacramento is some backwater cow-town pretending to be a city (you’d be forgiven, judging by all the highway billboards and signs in our airport for thinking that the most exciting thing to do in Sacramento is go elsewhere), there have been perks — such as being able to see WRVTH over the years as they’ve came visiting from their hometown of San Jose, California, on tour.

At the time, the band was going by the name Wrath Of Vesuvius and they were dealing in the sort of hyper-technical metalcore-and-deathcore hybrid that was gaining steam in the mid-to-late 2000’s. It had its moments for sure, as many talented musicians continually added different elements into a -core sound.  In the case of Wrath Of Vesuivius the band neared a tech-death sphere multiple times. If you were to view a particular chunk of California in those days through a sort of prism, focused in on three corners — one being the Bay Area, one being Sacramento, and one being San Jose — you would’ve found quite the scene for that sort of hybrid, and eventually quite a few of those bands went full-blown technical death metal. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WRVTH — “HARROWING WINDS”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Apr 152015
 

 

At the end of this post we bring you the premiere of a multifaceted song named “Harrowing Winds” from the self-titled third album by California’s WRVTH, which will be released in June.

WRVTH (pronounced “wrath”) were once known as Wrath of Vesuvius, and this new record follows a 2009 EP (A World In Peril) and two previous albums, Portals Through Ophiuchus (2010) and Revelation (released by Mediaskare Records in 2013). But even if you are familiar with the band’s previous efforts, the new album reflects some changes in musical direction, along with that alteration in the band’s name — and “Harrowing Winds” is a signpost to those changes.

When I first heard the opening minute of the video clip for the song, I was having trouble squaring it with the little “Unique Leader” logo in the bottom right of the video frame. The shimmering, reverberating guitar harmony is tranquil, even transcendent. But as the song evolved, that Unique Leader connection became more understandable, just as the song became darker, more extreme, and more unpredictable. Continue reading »