I got to admit that some nice cover artwork sometimes draws my attention a little too much. Sure - that’s what a cover should do but it just doesn’t say anything about the musical quality one is about to hear. No wonder that after being amazed by some fine artwork I sometimes hit the ground when the music itself is totally disappointing. Sometimes… This definitely is not the case when speaking about Ceremony Of Ascension by WALLACHIA. The brilliant cover suits perfectly to this really varied album by this Norwegian band.
Due to the fact I’ve never heard of WALLACHIA before I first got some information via internet and get to know that they are supposed to be an epic-symphonic black metal band. So I’m more than surprised when the opening track Self-Inflicted Stigmata comes along with some nice crushing Death Metal. Well - it seems that after a ten year long break Wallachia changed their style, they would not be the first band to do so. Wrong…
The next song Refusalvation comes along both in a heavy melodic and a speedy black metallic way with some additional synth parts which are placed decently in the background. After that your ears get blasted with a dose of pure Black Metal by the following Kamikaze Christians (really cool song name btw) which offers another surprise by it’s really atmospheric, nearly mellow, part at the end of the song.
Rival Of A Cursed Destiny steps on tremolo drenched Black Metal terrain only to suddenly change direction and head along in a folkish and nearly True Metal galloping way.
And Ceremony Of Ascension continues in that way. WALLACHIA jumps from one sub-genre of the harder side of metal to the next, mixing various styles and knowing how to keep the listener constantly interested. With each new song you eagerly listen which turn it may take, which surprise is around the corner.
The brilliant song Genesis Enigma deserves a special mention. With its epic spherical nearly spacey synths and a strong Bathory (Hammerheart Era) influence – one can definitely speak of a tribute here – this song absolutely knows how to please the listener totally.
Thankfully however the variation on Ceremony Of Ascension never sounds too cramped, too knotted or even too complex. Each part has its definite meaning, is well placed and - important - well dosed. The songs were written in a nearly ten year long period and as one knows for oneself during ten years you get tons of influences and go through a lot of musical phases and this comes out clearly on Ceremony Of Ascension.
With Ceremony Of Ascension WALLACHIA present a really extraordinary album with a long-term effect. Each song itself offers a lot to discover and comes up with new, finer facets each time you listen to it. The production by Golden Dawn’s Stefan Traunmüller, who took part in the orchestration and also appears as a vocalist, is more or less flawlessly done and comes along with a modern and clear sound. Ok, the sound could have been a bit better and the guitars are somewhat sharp in the mix but I’ve heard a lot worse than that. Overall a really well done new start (which one can speak of after a ten year break, I would say) by WALLACHIA and highly recommended for friends of diverse, epic yet modern (black) metal. Ok, you don’t get anything completely new but everything here is melted together in a nearly perfect way and you will enjoy this a lot. There are definitely some so called "symphonic BM" bands (*cough*) out there who should listen to Ceremony Of Ascension very closely. THIS is how it’s done!