ALBUM OF THE YEAR
BIO
REALM OF WOLVES IS A BAND FROM Hungary.Side projects are: release the longships, VVilderness,
Stvannyr - guitars, songwriting
Ghöul - bass, songwriting
vvildr - lyrics, vocals, drums, artwork
RELEASES
Shores Of Nothingness MAY 2018, IGNIFER AUGUST 2018
REVIEWS
Realm Of Wolves shows a lot of promise with their debut EP Shores Of Nothingness. Within three tracks and 12 minutes, Realm Of Wolves incorporates elements of folky, atmospheric black metal, Galar-esque choral clean vocals, Borknagar inspired melodic passages, and a closing instrumental that wouldn’t be out of place on a Panopticonrecord.
The title track on Shores Of Nothingness runs five minutes of the full twelve and nails the adventurous and otherworldly spirit of what Realm Of Wolves is trying to do. The track ushers forth tremolo-picked clean sections, low-register choirs whose presence invoke a sense of somberness, and singable, folky melodies. The track also brings an epic and triumphant feeling to the EP, specifically around 50 seconds in when blastbeats give way to double bass drum and slower handwork. Then “Fragments Of Self” closes out the effort with similar melodies to “Shores Of Nothingness,” but as a small clean-only guitar ensemble. The two tracks work in harmony to compliment one another with contrast, but not to where the two tracks don’t make sense together.
The issue with Shores Of Nothingness lies with the opening instrumental “Laurentia.” With its misty-and-mysterious main theme and corresponding driving black metal midsection, the track builds nicely for the majority of its runtime. Unfortunately “Laurentia” quickly quiets down toward the end and falls silent after a short bass tapping interlude, only to pick up the energy of its first two sections again once “Shores Of Nothingness” arrives. It seems like Realm Of Wolves wanted too much to happen in not enough time, which is a shame because all the ideas separately in “Laurentia” are fantastic – the execution just isn’t great.
That being said, Shores Of Nothingness shows great promise for Realm Of Wolves. Shores Of Nothingness is loaded with riffs and themes that could be fleshed out over the course of 6+ minute songs with ease and still remain interesting. It’ll be interesting to see how this band progresses over the course of the next few years and how Realm Of Wolves structures their next release. For now, Shores Of Nothingness is a great listen with a few minor bumps in the road that ultimately won’t affect your enjoyment of the great music.
Realm of Wolves is the merger of some Hungarian musicians, all of whom are already involved in their own projects, most of which I already had on my bandcamp screen. Since I knew in advance that this year something would appear in this direction (and I was excitedly looking forward to it), I was accordingly little surprised when I got the EP "Shores of Nothingness" proposed as a new release. Unfortunately, there are only three songs that give us an insight into the collaborative work of the three artists Stvannyr, Ghöul and vvildr, who impressively prove their skills already in the bands Vvilderness, Silent Island and Ephilexia. It quickly becomes clear that the three songs are quite different, but nevertheless fully on a wavelength and undoubtedly carry the fingerprints of all musicians involved. So if you've already got weak knees on Vvilderness' "Devour the Sun", Silent Island's "Equator" or Ephilexia's "Hope Is Our God", you'll be well served with "Shores of Nothingness". But only if he is not averse to the harsh sounds of the rough Black Metal. Because just under this banner, the three want to unite with Realm of Wolves - insofar as their own bands do not already include bonds from the Black Metal.
With only three songs, the longest of which has a little over five minutes playing time, there is not much to review quantitatively. For this you can make each song individually. The entry into the EP is made by "Laurentia", for which I most clearly read the manuscript of Silent Island. The not quite four-minute instrumental piece is emphasized calm, but is from the half much faster and more aggressive and yet remains well-dosed melodic. As expected with the cover of the EP, a good portion of melancholy plays a not unimportant role and runs as a thread through the individual songs.
"Shores of Nothingsness", the EP's title track and the only song with lyrics and vocals, probably shows a corner more clearly where the journey should go. Even though many of the participating artists have experience in pure instrumental projects, Realm of Wolves seems to attach great importance to conveying his message in words as well. I strongly suspect that this song gives the most clear impression of the interaction between Stvannyr, Ghöul and vvildr. It is also noteworthy that singer vvildr aka Ferenc Kapiller has once again gained in voice compared to his solo project Vvilderness and comes here more gloomy and bitter. The last song in this entertaining trio is "Fragments of the Self," a melancholy as well as sad instrumental piece with strong bonds to Silent Island and Ephilexia.
Unfortunately, the fun is already over at this point. Before he started properly, one would like to say. You may forget quickly that this is just the first sign of life of Realm of Wolves and that in the future certainly more will come. In any case, the interaction of the three musicians works so smoothly and harmoniously that I am already looking forward to the first full-length album. And "hungry", the three wolves seem to be too. Otherwise, I can not explain to myself that many a participating musician is active in several bands, where I can also recommend listening to it through the bank, insofar as someone enters completely uncharted territory with the three Hungarians.