Whitemour - "The Devil Inherits the World" (Art Gates Records, 2018)

Band: Whitemour
Title: The Devil Inherits the World
Genre: Death Metal with Black Metal influences
Time: 40.09
Release Date: 16th November 2018
Rating: 85/100













Art Gates Records returns today on these putrid pages with this Finnish quartet called Whitemour! I think that "tormented" is the right adjective to describe Whitemour, whose story started in 2006 as a black metal band but they had so many troubles as well so many singers (even 3 in only 6 years!) that they broke up in 2012, managing to release only a demo, a single and two EPs. But, you know, the metalheads are really persistent people, so Jani Rohunen, an original founder of them and also guitarist (but he don't plays anymore in the band), thought well to give new life to Whitemour in 2014. And it seem that this persistence brought to good fruits since Whitemour, after many years of hard work, released their long-held debut album "The Devil Inherits the World" through the excellent Spanish label Art Gates Records. But Whitemour, mind you, aren't a black metal band anymore, even though...

...even though they still show relevant black metal influences throughout the 9 songs (+ intro "Deathlike Silence") of the album. In fact, Whitemour plays essentially a gloomy death metal strongly characterized by dark atmospheres. These ones are determined by various factors: firstly, some songs are completely focused on mid/slow tempos, like the haunting "Malefica"; secondly, the lead guitar is truly important here, because it plays frequent layered riffs so to give, also through creeping arpeggios, more atmosphere to the music, and you can say the same about the solos, that are never virtuosistic but always functional to the mood of the tracks; and, thirdly, the frugal use of sinister keyboards that, present in the second side of the album through numbers such as the same "Malefica" or the following titletrack, lead the listeners towards mysterious and damned landscapes very close to the '90s black metal. In addition, the black metal soul of these 4 guys is well expressed also by the screaming vocals (impressive especially in "The Day I Died") of the new singer Kristian Nyman, that alternates them with classic growls.

If all this isn't enough, you must know that this album show a good variety. To mention a few, "Voice of the Fallen" opens the album through very groovy mid-tempos. Instead, the closing song "Kuolinnaamio" (entirely sang in Finnish) has a truly violent first part while, in its second part, there are also malicious and somehow oriental melodies, but you can find this kind of melodic sense even in other tracks. All this variety is allowed also to the fact that Whitemour, also if they mostly choosed an old-school approach, shows from time to time some modern influences, like in certain riffs of "Voice of the Fallen".

Seeming a sort of mix between Bolt Thrower, Abhorrence (in fact, I believe that the dark sensibility of Whitemour is typical of the Finnish bands) and the '90s black metal, "The Devil Inherits the World" is a remarkable album whose favorite numbers of mine, at least, are surely "The Day I Died", "Malefica" and the titletrack, even though other tracks like "Blackheart Deathride", that is very thrashing in some moments, deserves a lot. Anyway, those 3 mentioned songs, for me, express at its best the sinister death metal of this band while episodes like "Carnal Obsessions of Mind" could be better. Now, if you want to look into this band, I suggest you to watch the lyric video of "Malefica" (above), and also the official video (below) that Whitemour made of "Kuolinnaamio" in 2017, when they were still a quintet with Petri Haarala as main singer.

 

Tracklist:

 

1 - Deathlike Silence

2 - Voice of the Fallen

3 - Wrath

4 - The Day I Died

5 - Aileen

6 - Malefica

7 - The Devil Inherits the World

8 - Blackheart Deathride

9 - Carnal Obsessions of Mind

10 - Kuolinnaamio

 

Line-up:

 

Kristian Nyman - vocals/bass

Juha Kormano - guitars

J. Mӓkinen - guitars/keyboards

Juho Lepistö - drums

 

FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/whitemour

Website: http://www.whitemour.com/

Art Gates Records: http://www.artgatesrecords.com/