### Vreid: Welcome farewell

#### 15/04/13 || Ironpants

Rolling in the black deep.

How about some black ‘n’ roll? I hate that term! Who came up with that? It’s used on everything that’s been scaled down from black metal, but still doesn’t really fit in the black metal division or the hard rock division. -“Hey man, what are you listening to?” -”You know, some black ‘n’ roll, I like to keep my hips working when I am digging it. Wanna see my new black suede shoes by the way? They are fucking evil!”. What the hell? But OK, people have to label shit to make their brain function correctly, not that it usually works anyway, but at least they try. Nah… sorry, I’m feeling grumpy today, I won’t mumble about this, it’s just that time of the month.

Well, Vreid is out with a new album that has to compete with their amazing back catalog. I’m a late bloomer on this band, and their album before this one, “V”, had me enter the world of Vreid. Isn’t it just lovely to find out about a band, and just dig deep in their history and finding a treasure? You feel like a leprechaun finding his lost bucket of gold, or a kid on Christmas eve, or a necrophiliac at… well, you get the picture.

If you are like me, a slow starter, Vreid is Norwegian (of course), and play a blackish kind of metal, that I guess origins from classic black metal. The difference here is that they have slowly transformed into something else. They are not afraid to pull straws from other genres and implementing them into their own style and where many other BM-bands have developed into symphonic black metal, or simply stayed trve black, Vreid have leaned more against other sources of input. You can find a vast number of influences in their music, such as classic heavy metal, 70’s metal, some prog, even some thrash, and first and foremost the melody structures from mentioned influences, but still keeping it “black” regarding the sound. And they serve all their offerings with a classic black metal snarling voice, just to keep it real. A really good voice if you ask me, classic and always well articulated so you hear the lyrics.

And here lies my personal reason why I haven’t got into this band earlier, as I have slight problems with the older, classic sound of BM in general. Not that Vreid has that sound picture now, or even before, but there’s no doubt where they come from when listening to their older stuff. Anyways, now is now, and I fortunately woke up from my ignorant bliss and began listening faster than the speed of light to come up to par with these gentlemen.

On their last album, “V”, they had the most produced sound so far and on this album you get the feeling that they have noticed this and stepped back a few feet and regathered their strengths. On this album they take the production down one level, but adjusting that with even stronger melodies. The sound is one small tad “rawer” or less produced if you want, giving it a more natural feel, which once again points the finger towards their black metal roots. This gives them the opportunity to incorporate even more groovier and melodic riffs but still keeping it rough enough. Vreid have the black spirit in them, and for me, that counts as more “trve” than how the actual songs come out.

For example, in the beginning of “The Ramble”, first song out, you get some kind of Mastodon feel (yeah I said it). When the verse begins, it transforms into slow-medium black metal pace, but it’s slow enough to stop you from saying “yeah it’s black metal alright!”. It’s somewhere in between. The second track “Way of the serpent”, is for sure a real BM tune with obligatory black grind-tempo. I don’t feel the need to go through every song, but I must mention this… In both the title track “Welcome farewell” and “The reap”, you get the feeling that you’ve heard it recently, at least through the intro riffs. It’s not from black metal, but from other genres. “The reap” especially, I have thought about this for a while but I can’t put my penis on it. Discuss it in our forum if you think you’ve cracked it. I’ll buy you a beer if you nail it (hope it’s some American dude so I don’t need to pay up). But that’s no negative criticism, that is rather why they get away with it. I guess they snatch an idea for a melody from just about anywhere, radio, TV, whatever, and incorporate it in to something Vreid-ish.

This is a strong album which is consistent and interesting all the way through. It’s another contender for the top releases in 2013. If you want your boogie woogie dance lessons to pay off, serve up some black ‘n’ roll (gahhh!!). Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Good shit is good shit, however it’s served. Go get it kids!

- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Indie Recordings
- Website: www.vreid.no
- Band
- Sture: vocals, guitar
- Strom: guitar
- Hváll: bass
- Steingrim: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. The ramble
- 02. Way of the serpent
- 03. The devil’s hand
- 04. Welcome farewell
- 05. The reap
- 06. Sights of old
- 07. Black waves
- 08. At the brook