Howdy lads and lasses, this is Gabe Cavaliere doing his very first album review. Today I will be reviewing a band I strongly believe will be a band to look out for in the future. This band is called Wilderun and this is the debut album Olden Tales & Deathly Trails. The reason why I'm saying this is because this band has an. Wilderun Olden Tales Review![]() Often times I've wondered what would it have been like if a band like Turisas had been founded in New England rather than Finland. While this obviously didn't come into being, a band from Boston called Wilderun have gotten about as close to making it so as possible, while simultaneously avoiding the trap of becoming an overt tag-along singing about Nordic tales. This is a band that has taken a Northern European style and moved it in a direction for easier accessibility to an American audience that hasn't encountered it before, utilizing the same general arrangement and stylistic techniques as their Scandinavian influences, but borrowing from less obvious (or more so depending on one's perspective) source material. The actual musical content of this album is not so much original from a compositional standpoint, as one will note the traditional origins of such names as 'The Coasts Of High Barbaree' and 'Storm Along' (the latter the subject of numerous tall tales centering on a character from this band's own native Massachusetts). Nevertheless, one can't help but be impressed by the elaborate nature of the arrangements that have been put together, much of it rivaling the complex layering heard out of the Hollywood score approach of the likes of Epica and Therion. The technical department is not overtly showy, but also impressive and gets to about the same level of busyness as Wuthering Heights, while also avoiding the convoluted tendencies of Tyr. In other words, there is a lot going on, but not so much so that the listener forgets that these are folk tunes. The earlier comparison to Turisas does not only extend into the album's symphonic tendencies, but encompasses the entire approach taken. Although these songs are fairly long and involved, the melodic material and vocal lines are very easy to follow and process. Evan Barry has a very rich baritone voice that mostly tends towards a husky clean singing approach with a side-order of beastly bellows that come off as a bit of a mishmash of NYHC belching and early John Tardy shouts. The whole of the album comes off as slightly ballad-like, as frequent employment of acoustic instruments and softer interludes tends to lighten the blows struck by the metallic assaults in their midst. There is also a general sense of a mid-tempo, Viking feel in line with Bathory's post-black metal albums 'Hammerheart' and 'Blood On Ice', particularly during the heavier parts of the introductory instrumental 'The Cracking Glow' and most of the aggressive parts of 'Storm Along'.
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