Style: Atmospheric Black Metal, Melodic Black Metal, Folk Metal (Mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Summoning, Moonsorrow, Dissection, Runescape Music
Country: Italy
Release date: 4 January 2025
Five years is a long time for most anything to happen. In the United States, that’s enough time to get an entire college degree with time to spare, have a child and start them in school, or to completely upend your life through an unexpected turn of events. Five years is also enough time to grow considerably as a musician—Italian black metallers Ashlands have returned after five years to conclude their self-titled Ashlands Trilogy, a story that follows a group of refugees who must traverse a harrowing landscape known as the Ashlands. Let’s investigate Ashlands’ musical arc over the last half decade through their self-titled trilogy – can we and the protagonists make it to safety, or is the five-year destination not worth the journey?
Ashlands’ arc begins with Runescape-style MIDI folk à la Caladan Brood, laying the groundwork for atmoblack passages with hoary harsh vocals and occasional detours into aggressive meloblack riffage. However, Ashlands aren’t content to stay in one place for too long, showing more interest in eschewing repetition, whether it be through pulling off the gas to explore folky compositions (“An Entrance Beneath the Dunes”), giving way entirely to piano to close a track (“Amber”), or meditating on Pink Floyd-style soloing (“Pyre”). Part II expands on Part I’s Gilmour-esque guitar sensibilities (“Morrow”) and its meloblack facets (“Mountain Augurs”), offering the most menacing atmospheres yet explored and taking the most time of any release in the Trilogy to explore folky soundscapes (“As the Skies Rain Eternally”, “Engraved in Black Lava”). Part III shows a slight return to roots, sitting closer in style to Part I but with less of a focus on folk instrumentation along with a more psychedelic and surreal touch (“Celephaïs”).
My biggest takeaway from this trilogy is that Ashlands are spectacular at writing folk passages: they have an acumen for melody that is both memorable and evocative. “An Entrance Beneath the Dunes” opens and closes on gorgeous instrumentation that effuses a medieval atmosphere; “Celephaïs” indulges in pastoral imagery through dreamy acoustic guitar work in its opening moments before later exploring a weird yet intriguing synthy abyss; and “Engraved in Black Lava” presents some particularly memorable folk moments that do the best job across the trilogy of creating interplay between folk and metal moments. Their marriage creates a strong sense of both melody and intensity, allowing Ashlands to engage the listener while remaining true to Part II’s darker story beats. However, metal sections like this are more the exception than the rule: many of the heavier sections across the trilogy leave me wanting. There’s nothing wrong with Ashlands’ riff construction, per se, and it’s even quite compelling at times, like the doomy and mourning guitar work in “Celephaïs” or the aggressive meloblack assault of “Mountain Augurs,” but pieces like “At the Shifting of the Tide” and “Pyre” are plagued by decent-if-unmemorable black metal tremolos.
Where Ashlands struggles the most, however, is bringing all of these elements together, as there is a nagging lack of cohesion across the trilogy that detracts heavily from its memorability, despite the overall positive experience. I would have loved to see more interconnection of ideas, as Ashlands have proven on Part II that they are capable of cohesive songwriting: “Mountain Augurs” cleverly transitions between ideas and stays true to its central focus; “Engraved in Black Lava” follows suit, allowing a little more experimentation in its folky opening moments, but there is a strong logical flow from passage to passage. While thematically the chaotic songwriting of Part III makes sense for its eldritch storyline, compositionally tracks like “At the Shifting of the Tide” swirl around ideas such that the music becomes difficult to follow and disorients in a way that obscures the story being told. Additionally, tracks like “Amber” and “Pyre” from Part I do a less than stellar job of bringing ideas together, while “An Entrance Beneath the Dunes” comes closest to cohesive success through the reintroduction of folk ideas throughout its runtime.
So where does all of this leave us in the present day? Ashlands have plenty of great ideas to share, and their knack for folk songwriting considerably elevates their music. While glimpses of greatness are already present, there is still a bit of work to be done as far as bringing Ashlands’ sensibilities together into a complete package. Regardless of the Ashlands Trilogy‘s strengths or flaws, it is an achievement to finally close off a five-year project of any type, and in that respect, I’m very proud of Ashlands and excited that they have such an undertaking under their belt. Part of me gets the feeling there is still a slight search for identity in Ashlands‘ future, as all three EPs explore ideas in different manners, but their core sound holds a lot of promise, regardless of what direction they plan on going in. My hope is that whatever they do next, they can do it while playing to their strengths as folky soundscape crafters, meloblack writers with a skillful eye for editing, and compelling story writers with the acumen to cohesively bring all their ideas together.
Recommended tracks: Mountain Augurs, Engraved in Black Lava, An Entrance Beneath the Dunes, Celephaïs
You may also like: Caladan Brood, Liljevars Brann, Ungfell, Aquilus
Final verdict: Ashlands I – 6/10; Ashlands II – 7/10; Ashlands III – 6.5/10; Ashlands Trilogy – 6.5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent Release
Ashlands is:
– The Wanderer (guitars, bass, keyboards, vocals)
– The Vanguard (lyrics)
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