b r a n d o n

Wrnlrd is an outfit hailing from Arlington, Virginia, playing something along the fringes of black metal, with a certain ambient twist. On Oneiromantical War, Wrnlrd's sixth release, the band has expanded from a one-man operation to a trio, putting out a monumental album released, interestingly enough, only on LP and MP3. If something like Alcest's Souvenirs d'un autre monde showcases the peaceful, shoegazery side of atmospheric black metal, Oneiromantical War's lo-fi, ugly approach exemplifies the opposite extreme. The most immediate impression one gets from a first listen to this album is that the electric guitars sound something like the way diamond-encrusted sandpaper rubbing against skin might feel. All buzz and sharp edges, the guitar tones on this recording are downright nasty, in a good way. This wicked guitar sound is put to use in a variety of ways on Oneiromantical War, most often an abrasive wall-of-sound approach that occasionally gives way for a catchy riff buried under a few layers of noise. But while the guitars give this album its highlight moments, equally important are the quiet, creeping-ambience sections, which set the tone for the whole record and announce to the listener that Wrnlrd is not really playing by your usual black metal rules. Undoubtedly, the highlights of the album are its last two tracks. "Haxanic Stairway" is a bumps-in-the-dark piece in which haunting acoustic guitar (banjo?) pierces through a veil of uneasily roiling ambient noise. This aesthetic continues with the first three minutes or so of "War," the 20-minute epic that closes out the album. These first three minutes are a simmering cauldron of acoustic plucked strings and quiet, amorphous noise, leading into an abrupt explosion of guitar aggression that starts off as mostly formless sound but gradually resolves into a recognizable riff. Then, nine minutes in, the bottom drops out. Silence. Thirty seconds later, the most imposing sound you can possibly imagine coming from a guitar blazes through the speakers. I listened to this driving down an empty highway at night and freaked myself out; this is not something I want to listen to when I'm, say, camped in the woods by myself. Wrnlrd's guitars from the ten-minute mark on sound like they're bringing all manner of unpleasant beings down on you, which is a disorienting, exhilirating, occasionally terrifying experience. It all breaks out into a beastly rock-n-roll riff for the last three minutes of the song, and the transition from discomfiting ambience to headbanging delight is, without question, the highlight of the album. Wrnlrd (the person, not the band) says he prefers to pronounce the name "wern-lerd," but that it can be "pronounced any way you like." So how do I pronounce it? How about this: "awesome." review by Brandon Wu — 7-10-08 —