Gwynbleidd - Nostalgia

One album I missed from yesterday's roundup of the last month's listening was the new album from Brooklyn prog death outfit Gwynbleidd. Nostalgia was actually released in 2009 but has taken a while to get across the pond and into my ears.

At first I assumed the band were Welsh, given the rather bizarre name, but no. New Yorkers they are. Well, expat Poles living in New York. The name apparently comes from A. Sapkowski's "The Sword of Fate" and is the name given by some elves to some other guy. I haven't read the book so I can't really elaborate meaningfully on it.

The album itself, then, is an interesting beasty. On first listen, your response is likely to be similar to mine; they sound just like Opeth. Except, they don't. There are many similar elements, downtuned riffs, mournful guitar punctuating the complex bass and drum backing. It's more like taking the heaviest bits of Opeth from Orchid to Blackwater Park, grinding them up and using them to inspire and fertilise a bush of progressive death metal. Sinuous vines of lead guitar weaving in and out of the dense branches of bass and growled vocals, the drum providing a solid, unmovable root and the topmost leaves comprised of the delicate percussion that gives texture and depth. Okay, so the bush analogy is a bit weird, but you get the idea.

The album flows from section to section, passage to passage smoothly and logically. The soundscape it creates sounds more like one long composition than separate songs, and this is definitely an album you'll want to listen to in its entirety. I'm not sure why it's taken so long to hear anything from this band, but I'm glad I finally have.