#Woe Legacies of Frailty

Band: Woe
Title: Legacies of Frailty
Label: Vendetta Records
Release date:  29 September 2023
Country: USA
Format reviewed: High-quality Digital Recording 

This album was on my “Listen to” list and to be honest I was excited to reach it, cause I remembered listening to the previous two works and I did enjoy it.  I will not compare this release with the previous ones and I will try to give my opinion about this band/release like it was the first time I was listening to this band…

Let’s go then…
Vendetta Records in my opinion is a label that means quality, and knowing the label I was expecting another good band. Well, I was right. Woe is one of the two bands with the same name, without counting of course with the word mixed with another word.

This band from the USA plays Black Metal, but, if you are expecting “Traditional” or “Trve” or even “Raw” Black Metal, this band does not play that, and to be honest, knowing too, the label, I was not expecting that. In fact, I was expecting a different Black Metal approach. Very good one, I must say.

Musically the band is Black Metal, not the styles I mentioned above, but with better sound production, a lot of leads even if the same are not melodic or not so melodic. Sometimes the same leads are simple but effective.

In my opinion, and I can’t deny some songs or part of the same could fit very well in some Death Metal band or in some Black Thrash Metal band. To be honest in some bands and nowadays after many years of the “creation” of Metal music styles and the “rules” related to the same is very difficult to stay connected to just one style. Except if you only play the “roots” of the same. It is? Hmmmm…

Woe didn’t stay connected to those “roots” or “rules” and the band created or managed to do a different Black Metal approach like I said above. The album is mainly fast and the construction of the songs is very well done, and it managed to grab me from the first song till the last one.

Like I said, musically the band is moving inside the Black Metal world, but the voice… To be honest I was not expecting this way of singing. It’s a dry voice, but strong, the words are said fast and with no “delay” in the same at the end of the phrases. The same started to remind me of some bands, I mean the tone of the voice, bands like Ascension, Dysangelium, or even Entartung.

I could easily say that the band was a Black Death Metal band but is not, the band is a Black Metal one but the voice is not the “typical” one. The Black Metal riffs are fast or slow, being direct and looking like a punch of the face, or just being melodic and the mid-tempo present there is Black Metal and if you listen to this album I think you will agree with me.

The album is divided into six songs, six assaults, six battles, six parts… Why six parts? Well, because, these same “parts” are like all the parts of a bike or a car. They have to be tuned and “right” so that everything sounds good and works well.

Although the average per song on this album is around nine minutes +/-, it doesn’t make them “tedious” or “boring”, on the contrary, they are not repetitive, they are very well constructed,and they evolve in steps that are easy to follow, in other words, easy to enjoy and even taste with pleasure and discover the different flavors, like a well-prepared meal.

Black Metal, bikes, cars and meals… Oh my… I need to stop making some strange comparisons. Ahahahah. Or not, this is my point of view and my way of saying things, my way of trying to explain what I listen to, what I feel while listening to my beloved music.

I truly advise you all to listen to this very damn good album, and no doubt for me. This album deserves my final rate. 9/10 The Key Keeper 666

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9/10 Epic Storm
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