This is the way to mark your first album on a new label, and the reason that Napalm Records wanted to be the ones to release the ninth album by the UK Black Metal band.
Having left us in 2024 with The Imperious Horizon, a dystopia somewhere in the future, The Unyielding Season sees that future becoming the present and is a beautifully sombering record that is technically brilliant and audibly amazing.
The 10 track album is one that grips you from the start and doesn’t stop gripping, in a way that only the best music can do as the band tackle real concerns and issues, including adapting a poem by Sir Philip Sidney – ‘The Countess Of Pembroke’s Arcadia’ into Echoes In The After to share their reaction to the felling of the famous Robin Hoof tree at Sycamore Gap on Hadrian’s Wall.
Winterfylleth’s ability to be relatable is one of the many things that sets them apart from other Black Metal bands, and the subject matter that sometimes feels like it’s rehashed and churned out – this band make real music with real meaning, passion and feeling, and it can be felt throughout every single track on the release.
The way that storytelling throughout the record happens is straight out of the top drawer and goes some way to making this my favourite release by the band. I felt like I was on this emotional journey with the band as the guitar tone meets synth and keys, the blistering drums and that well-known Black Metal vocal brings it all together to create what can only be described as the perfect combination in Black Metal and a combination that puts the band in the upper echelons of Black Metal, not solely the UK scene.
The fact that ‘Unspoken Elegy’ is an acoustic-led instrumental just goes to show that the band are not single-minded and are happy to make music that feels right – in fact music that feels – as the band show a stripped back, gorgeous sounding offering to the listener and a real maturity that sometimes is overlooked in this genre.
The Unyielding Season has been one of my most rewarding listens in a long time and is an album that is more than the music; it is an experience, and that experience is dark yet touching and complete, a listen as you are likely to find.
Stunning.
The Unyielding Season will be released on Friday, 27th March 2026, via Napalm Records.
Review: Ed Ford
The Unyielding Season tracklisting:
1 Heroes of a Hundred Fields
2 Echoes In The After
3 A Hollow Existence
4 Perdition’s Flame
5 The Unyielding Season
6 Unspoken Elegy
7 In Ashen Wake
8 Towards Elysium
9 Where Dreams Once Grew
10 Enchantment
WINTERFYLLETH is:
Chris Naughton – Vocals, Guitars
Simon Lucas – Drums
Mark Doyle – Bass, Backing Vocals
Mark Deeks – Keyboard, Synth , Backing Vocals
Russell Dobson – Lead Guitar, Backing Vocals
WINTERFYLLETH online:
FACEBOOK
INSTAGRAM
X
NAPALM RECORDS
