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By Killjoy

The contrast of opposites is fundamentally important in art, and Sylvanshine is an apt name to illustrate this principle. As I just learned from Wikipedia, “Sylvanshine is an optical phenomenon in which dew-covered foliage with wax-coated leaves retroreflect beams of light, as from a vehicle’s headlights. This effect sometimes makes trees appear snow-covered at night during summer.” Fittingly, Ion Ureche’s blackgaze project from Bucharest, Romania, deals with opposing themes, specifically “love and loss, hope and desperation.” Not exactly uncommon themes in blackgaze, but how clearly does Sylvanshine’s debut full-length album portray them?

The Offering oscillates fluidly between the “black” and the “gaze” at a moment’s notice. Crystalline post-black tremolo riffs shimmer and dance to and fro, intertwined with distorted guitar chords and blast beats. The dreamier guitarwork is not unlike that of Alcest’s debut Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde, with plenty of Shelter-era influence also thrown in the mix. What sets Sylvanshine apart from many of its blackgaze peers is the heavy reliance on delicate acoustic guitar plucking and strumming in the vein of early Slowdive. There are three tracks entirely dedicated to this instrument, and it features prominently in the bridges of several others to counterbalance the moody aggression with an intimate touch.

It’s clear that Ureche is a guitarist first and foremost.1 The Offering’s crisp, clear, and poignant lead guitar lines are where the emotional duality alluded to in the promo material shines. The ringing, sorrowful melodies in “Cri de Coeur” and “Rebirth” grow more hopeful as the songs progress, like sunlight breaking through cloudy fissures. If the vocals were similarly expressive, Sylvanshine would be onto something special. They remind me of Sergio Catalán’s deep growls in Winds of Tragedy, but, unfortunately, with more croak than roar. At best, they sound flat (“The Moon and Stars Above,” “Cri de Coeur”) and, at worst, they clash with the guitars (“The Offering”). To his credit, Ureche plays to his strengths by allocating the majority—if not entirety—of each song to instrumental performances.

However, this songwriting decision could have benefited from further refinement in execution. This is particularly true of the tracks that are solely instrumental. It would have been fine to start the album with one acoustic track (“Dirge for a Love”), but the placement of another (“Nothing Will Ever Be the Same”) immediately after the first proper song, “Cri de Coeur,” causes a major pacing stumble. The acoustic guitar bouquet “Reverie” that later follows is gorgeous, but repeats for too long and should have either been fleshed out or trimmed. By the time 5-minute closer “Rebirth” rolls around, instrumental fatigue has set in. Some of the other short songs, “Running from Myself” and “The Offering,” show promise but feel disjointed and underdeveloped. The latter briefly dips into gothic territory midway through, with darker riffs and a haunting organ which sounds slightly out of context here, but the style could fit Sylvanshine very well given more time and attention.

Sylvanshine has all the makings of a young artist in the process of finding his voice, both figuratively and literally. Ion Ureche has a natural talent for composing and performing guitar melodies that mirror the ever-changing spectrum of human emotion. That said, further vocal training—or the addition of a more practiced vocalist—would do wonders for the project. He also has room to grow as a songwriter, and I get the sense that his skill ceiling is high. The Offering is a respectable debut album, but improvement in these main areas will help Sylvanshine to truly stand out amongst the crowd.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Self-Release
Websites: sylvanshine.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/sylvanshineMusic
Releases Worldwide: May 23rd, 2025

#25 #2025 #Alcest #BlackMetal #Blackgaze #May25 #PostBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #RomanianMetal #SelfRelease #Shoegaze #Slowdive #Sylvanshine #TheOffering #WindsOfTragedy

Winds of Tragedy – Death Wash Over Me Review

By Twelve

Since its inception in 2022, Winds of Tragedy has put out one full-length per year, and I was starting to wonder if it wouldn’t happen this time. Maybe, I thought, running a record label has finally taken up enough of his time that Chilean mastermind Sergio Catalán will have to dial back on his usual creative outlets. More fool I—Catalán seemingly never stops, and Winds of Tragedy is back with its third full-length release, Death Wash Over Me. In the past, I’ve commented that the rapid cadence of these releases leads to too little change or shift between them, and so with every release, I look for the changes, the progress, the forward momentum that signals a new direction on the horizon. It’s a fascinating way to review new music, but Winds of Tragedy is an interesting project. How does the new one hold up?

Death Wash Over Me is a bleak album—the cover art should give that much away—but not in the doom-heavy way that Hating Life and As Life Drifts Away were. Death Wash Over Me sees Winds of Tragedy experimenting more with sound than Catalán arguably ever has. The album is filled with thrash-y riffs and snarling vocals, and pulls back on the mournful leads, heavy keys, and guttural roars that have been Catalán’s hallmarks for several years now. In fact, the vocal style is so different from previous Winds of Tragedy and Rise to the Sky releases that I had to double-check that there was no new vocalist—the rasps and snarls that dominate Death Wash Over Me are impressive, very well-suited to the music, and a huge step up from the previous two albums.

The other notable thing about Death Wash Over Me is that, as it progresses, it moves increasingly into depressive black metal territory. “I Am No One” is standard Winds of Tragedy fare, with a slow strings start and a gradual build over a solid riff. “My Feet Don’t Touch the Floor,” on the other hand, even apart from the title, is significantly more desperate, with guest vocals from Void in the form of manic shrieking that evokes Ezkaton in a darkly depressive duo with Catalán’s snarls. “I Built My House to Suffer” leans further into the depressive side, with more shrieks from Void and strong riffing infused with emotional keys. There is a lot of this depressive imagery in use across the album—even in the song titles (“I’m Fine But Not Really,” “Giving Up on Life”) it’s hard to avoid the dismay and depression that dominates the forty-minute runtime.

That aspect of Death Wash Over Me is likely to be its make-or-break element for many listeners, with the extreme vocals and imagery enhancing or damaging the album’s flow depending on whether or not you like them. It’s always a risk for an artist to experiment with extreme elements like this. For me, the best moments on the album don’t make use of them; “I’m Fine but Not Really” and “Giving Up on Life” have great acoustic moments and electric leads that add so much emotional depth that I wish Winds of Tragedy had utilized them more. The vocal samples in “Blood Will Wash All That’s Left of Me” don’t quite add that same depth, and Void’s guest spots feel awkward in a few places. Fortunately, the album is rooted in a fair, if slightly loud mix that does a good job of balancing these many elements into a cohesive whole.

These elements make Death Wash Over Me a tough album for me to rate. In some ways, it is the strongest Winds of Tragedy release for me, with some of the best vocals Catalán has ever done and superb instrumental moments. On the other hand, it demonstrates a potential departure from familiar territory into a side of music that I usually don’t turn to. I’d try to be objective, but that’s obviously impossible, so I’ll just go with my gut and say it’s a good album that shows untapped potential. Winds of Tragedy could go in several directions from here—I’ll be very interested to see which one Catalán treads next.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Tragedy Productions
Websites: windsoftragedy.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/WindsofTragedy
Releases Worldwide: December 13th, 2024

#2024 #30 #BlackMetal #ChileanMetal #DeathWashOverMe #Dec24 #DepressiveBlackMetal #Ezkaton #Review #Reviews #RiseToTheSky #TragedyProductions #WindsOfTragedy

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Winds of Tragedy – Hating Life Review | Angry Metal Guy
A review of Hating Life by Winds of Tragedy, available worldwide February 17 via Tragedy Productions.