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#FOR FANS OF: Pagan Black Metal
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Runespell is one of those solo projects with an obscure origin. It was founded in Australia some years ago, by a quite active musician known as Nightwolf, who has been an active part of the local black metal scene. He was a member of projects like Drowning the Light or Necrostrigis in the past, among others. Currently, he shares its time between Blood Stronghold and Runespell. The second one is his best-known project, thanks to a quite solid discography and the exposure given by the fact that he signed a early deal with Iron Bonehead Productions, which has released all his albums so far.
Runespell plays pagan black metal with a raw nature, but at the same time strongly melodic. Music’s rawness principally comes from the production as it is far from being over polished. The vocals sound distant and dark, but not buried in the mix, which is maybe one of the most classic characteristics of tradition black metal. The instruments sound well-balanced, and they have a quite natural, if not “warm”, feeling, like if the songs had been played live as they seem not to have excessive adornments in the production and mixing. I think this is a good point as this kind of music sounds more authentic when it doesn´t sound too packed and artificial. Contrary to some other pagan black metal bands, which have a quite more upbeat sound, like a heroic march towards the war, Runespell’s music has a slightly darker approach as it is perfectly depicted in the excellent album cover art. In any case, the melodic touch of the guitar gives to the compositions the expected epic touch for bands that are influenced by medieval times. So, what we can find in this album is a very well achieved balance between darkness and light, perfectly executed in the very interesting five tracks included in 'Verses in Regicide'. We can also listen to two short, beautiful instrumentals songs with a quite strong melancholic and interesting atmosphere, that serve, in the case of the piece "Windswept Burial", to close this quite enjoyable album. The album opener "Structures of Collapse" is one of my favourite tracks, as it creates the appropriate mood to enter the album with a great initial section, that gains in intensity until the rasped vocals and the excellent guitars make a furious appearance. The initial rapid pace is modulated by a quite variable pace with its ups and downs in terms of speed. Nevertheless, the main role is for the excellent riffs with its strongly melodic nature that leads the song all the way through. This melodic excellence is kept in the following song called "Vengeance Reign", which has an opposite evolution in its structure. The first part is a mid-tempo composition with a quite up-beat main melody, until a clear change comes in the second half with a clearly faster approach. Pace-wise, this album has its variations, although Runespell seems to be more comfortable in the mid-tempo sections, where the melodic nature of its compositions can shine in its full glory as we can appreciate, among other fine examples, in the longest composition "Tides of Slidhr". Fortunately, the pace changes are appropriately place here and there to avoid this feeling of be listening to the same song all the time. Apart from that, the energetic nature of the riffs makes the songs to have an extra point of interest regardless of the pace.
In conclusion, Runespell’s 'Verses in Regicide' is a very good album of pagan black metal. The raw production contracts with the strongly melodic nature of the compositions, even though the combination is excellently done and the final result sounds robust and credible. (Alain González Artola)
