Lista de Bandas Atmospheric Black Evergreen Refuge Weminuchia

To be honest I've never even heard of Evergreen Refuge before and my interest was only spiked when I found them on a list detailing what a user on Rate Your Music found to be the high points of 2013 so far. As I'm always actively seeking out new music, Evergreen Refuge seemed like a logical choice.

Evergreen Refuge is another of those bands who mix neofolk in with black metal (Agalloch, Herbst, Petrychor etc), when this combination is done correctly I find it can create some really quite beautiful music as is the case with Pale Folklore. So did Evergreen Refuge fulfil my expectations? Lets find out.

Right from the bat, Evergreen Refuge present us with a long ambient intro that sets the tone for the album nicely, there's some subtle acoustic guitars that are emotional and beautiful, creating a really nice and subtle atmosphere. The atmosphere is serene and tranquil, an atmosphere that is seldom explored within the genre. Even when the black metal elements come into the fray the album remains soothing, with the guitars carrying a lot of melody under the harsh distortion. The guitar work is extraordinary, it's simplistic and minimal with a heavy focus on distortion yet also manages to be incredibly beautiful and emotional. The first track in particular has a really powerful riff starting around the eight minute mark, sounding like the black metal version of post Discouraged Ones. I'm a sucker for emotional and depressing music and this riff is one of the most emotionally naked things I've ever heard, almost rivalling 3 by Animus, it's a wonderful riff and the lead that harmonises over it at around the 10 minute mark is astonishing, adding even more melody and emotion to the already beautiful riff. The following acoustics are a nice addition, I really like how Evergreen Refuge are flawlessly able to mix harsh black metal with neofolk passages, where as Herbst in particular struggled to mix the two genres successfully, Evergreen Refuge present a far more mature and concise mixture of the genres. The black metal elements never feel out of place with the far more subtle folk passages, quite the opposite in fact, they work so well together that it's unbelievable. Like Petrychor, Evergreen Refuge have immaculately mixed raw as sushi black metal with stunning folk passages to create something pure and beautiful.

Worthy of note is that the album is entirely instrumental, I'm not fazed by this at all, it allows the music to speak for itself instead of vocals doing it for it, the music is incredibly emotional and I am really glad this band has decided to remain instrumental. It propels the music to more emotional heights, although I can agree that some Agalloch inspired vocals would have probably worked quite well the lack of vocalisation isn't a hindrance at all. Instrumental black metal time and time again has been proven to work especially well, Forest Of Fog instantly comes to mind. I often find that the atmosphere on instrumental acts can rival and even surpass the music of more conventional acts. In my eyes emotion in music is something that the listeners should interpret themselves, to forge their own meaning from out of the music, instrumental music allows us (the listeners) to do this far more effectively than that of more vocally oriented music.

As well as the very obvious folk influence, there is a sense that Evergreen Refuge was highly influenced by the blackgaze movement, there's certain elements that remind me heavily of shoegaze distortion in terms of how dreamy and ethereal the overall tone of the music is. Evergreen Refuge certainly aren't creating black metal that adheres to the whole idea of revelling in negativity, there's a certain substratum of creativity and new life buried within the music of Evergreen Refuge. It feels organic, pure and earnest, this isn't some manufactured symphonic job that seems to be dominating the mainstream as of late, this is pure music created with a single view in mind. Weminuchia is a highly emotional and beautiful album with some of the most powerful black metal known to man, I really love this album and it's such a shame that this band isn't more well known. Hopefully Evergreen Refuge will be around for a while, keeping the spirit of black metal alive.