The full name is Bretwaldas of Heathen Doom and they may just be England’s best kept secret. Apparently, if they have it their way, this will not change anytime soon. As their MySpace page exclaims, the band has a no live appearances and almost zero promotion policy. Such a stance is not a rarity in the underground. For most, the shitty, it will not be much of a struggle to remain in the dark, but for bands like Bretwaldas, whose output rivals in quality those of the best acts in the subworld of metal, true underground obscurity will eventually prove impossible.
Their third full-length Seven Bloodied Ramparts is a near perfect combination of classic doom, folk, black metal and even crusty punk, but you wouldn’t be able to tell on a single listen. As you enjoy these songs repeatedly they shed their layers slowly and the detail and love that went into every cut becomes obvious. Bretwaldas of Heathen Doom is a duo you see, and since they don’t play live they do not have to adjust their recordings so that they can be loyally replicated in the live environment. It is not like these songs are overcharged with sounds and lushly layered with instrumentation, but the guitars of Sceot Acwealde are definitely doubled or tripled, giving dimension and depth to cuts that truth be told, would have been fantastic had they been stripped to just one guitar anyway.
Seven Bloodied Ramparts comes to a fantastic start with ”Welcome the Rider” which is truly and with no exaggeration one of the best metal songs of the last ten years. That it traverses through metal subgenres is not that impressive, but that it does it with such audacity is. It is crude and raw and rolls out from a black metal intro only to turn into this majestic doom folk cut. Those allergic to the ‘f’ word need not be scared, Bretwaldas could mean the redefinition of the genre, if only, they open themselves to the world.
Past efforts like Droner and Battle Staffs in the Mushroom Wood were about 70% killer. The rest wasn’t exactly filler, but their aim wasn’t focused enough. This time around though these seven cuts brim with an elegance and a confidence rarely seen in metal. “Raising the Wind” is a killer mid tempo, with rolling guitars, a catchy chorus but mostly with spoken vocal lines. Other arrangements reveal grand and poignant musical ideas that are so well executed that nothing ever comes off as grandiloquent or cheesy. The passage from “Flight of Curse” to “Grey Wolf” represents that; sweeping evolving guitars, grunting vocals that at times recall both Lemmy and Tom G Warrior, all on top of some of the best doom (just to call it ONE thing) that side of the universe.
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Written by Bobby Peru
