The Skies Turn Black

A long five years after Wild North West, the Norwegians’ last opus, Vreid have returned with their tenth full-length, and it’s a curious mixture of their usual styles that threatens to lose focus at points. The biggest culprit here is single Kraken, a three-minute keyboard-drenched instrumental made for an independent movie of the same name, that is decent enough but feels like a poor interlude, sapping energy from the tracklisting and simply not fitting in alongside the surrounding pieces – it should have been left as a separate single much as the band’s cover of The Rolling Stones’ Paint it Black from 2022 was, curiosities rather than album padding. This is the longest Vreid album yet at over 55 minutes long, and you certainly notice the length; less, as ever, would have been more.

It’s a shame as there is a lot of excellent material here. Opener From These Woods is business as usual for fans, a pleasant acoustic introduction setting a lush stage before galloping blackened riffs ride in, thrashier than usual at first before opening into a prog-tinged mid-paced melodic section, clean-sung and with more than a little Green Carnation in its DNA, before returning to blackened heaviness for its conclusion. All very solid to good, depending on your expectations, built on for the following title track which leans a little more into prog black-thrash territory with a greater focus on riffing, explored more in its second half with touches of psychedelia before the lead guitars take the helm for some undoubtedly lovely soloing.

Some would find the spinning wheels sound a little tired at points, for sure – the likes of A Second Death and Build & Destroy are solid enough little blackened rumblers but are they worthy enough to not feel like filler? The best track present is Loving the Dead, ironically, the most out-there on the album and the most experimental that the band have been in a long time courtesy of Djerv vocalist Agnete Kjølsrud who provides perhaps her best and most varied guest vocalist spot ever! It’s a gothic-drenched eight-minute piece that builds yearningly up like classic The Gathering given a slightly spooky overhaul at points before a lengthy instrumental section that more than holds your attention, yet Agnete is definitely the star thanks to a vocal range that switches between beautiful gothic croons and her more infamous deranged yelps.

Elsewhere, Echoes of Light sounds like a smooth prog-jazz piece from the 70s (or some Opeth experiment!) dominated by acoustic guitars and dragging on a little long, whilst Chaos takes a path bizarrely like earlier Dimmu Borgir with its triumphant synths, contrasting nicely with the following stomping Flammen - another reused single from 2023 this time, although it certainly is one of the better songs present with plenty of classic black metal synth, which can be a little trying elsewhere if never quite becoming overused. Another related issue here is sadly the production, courtesy of band leader Hváll, which leans towards the brittle and plastic-seeming at points, rarely distracting unless you listen for it but equally far from perfect. Overall, there’s more than enough that’s worthy of your ears to make The Skies Turn Black a definite recommendation – as with every other album Vreid have released! – yet enough strange decisions and general bloat for this to come with a warning.