Black metal, in and of itself, can be very polarizing due to the imagery, lyrical content, and if the band is “true” black metal or not (side note: what a stupid debate to have). One such polarizing band, UADA, has dropped their fourth full-length album, Crepuscule Natura (Eisenwald Records) and is some of their best work to date. Sticking to their signature melodic black metal sound with lyrics mostly about nature and the cosmos, the Portland, Oregon, four-piece put us on a spiritual journey for forty minutes.
While UADA has put out some memorable work over the last near decade, including Crepuscule Natura, there are elements here I need to comment on, and I find myself on the negative side of the discussions. “The Dark (Winter)”, lyrically speaking, has passages referring to conspiracy theories around the Covid-19 pandemic, such as: “And may they choke on their preferred words of conspiracy, those opened mouths eating out of the hands of tyranny. We will never know what it truly means to be free, for behind the house of cards awaits us our hanging tree”. Mentioning “Misinformation flooding through the controlled flow, like misguided fables from the sleeping woke” to attack the “woke” people who were upset with their alleged-fascist former drummer years ago is tone deaf at best. For this group to come out and state “We are not interested in political agendas within our music…” then releasing such a song is textbook hypocrisy. Eighty-percent of this album is fantastic UADA material that I have come to love and defend, but having to listen to more musicians complain about Covid being “fake” or whatever is the literal drizzling shits. Move on.
And, as to that fantastic material, the opening track, “The Abyss Gazing Back”, sets the bar for Crepuscule Natura right out of the gate. Passages of blast beats with tremolo-picking guitar riffs trading off with eighties-inspired harmonized guitar leads and the big finish in the last minute of the track completes a fantastic opener for the album. The first single UADA released from the album, “Retraversing the Void” follows this same ideology. Plenty of catchy guitar leads to whistle along to and then bang your head when the black metal portion gets poured on. The final track “Through the Wax and Through the Wane” is the longest track on the album at just over twelve minutes, but is not overkill. After multiple passages trade-off, the last four minutes highlights a harmonized guitar lead that has a melancholy emotion to it but also carries a punctuating punch that is perfect for the outro of an album.
Buy the album here:
8 / 10
TIM LEDIN