So Wallachia Walks Alone

April 4, 2018

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Monumental Heresy is an intense claim for an album title, especially for a band whose existence dates back to 1992. Black metal in its most classical form is dedicated to heresy, after all. Each album, should the band follow Venom’s claim that “black metal is satanic heavy metal,” would be its own monument to heresy, but the shadow Wallachia casts with their upcoming album goes beyond the sphere of religion.

Though undoubtedly blackened and furious, this long-standing Norwegian (featuring members from across Europe) band’s melodic, pagan swagger looks to a timeline before black metal for inspiration. In short, it is black metal, but it feels much more epic and triumphant, not unlike a classic heavy or power metal band. There is this energy, be it in the bouncing rhythms or melodic bombast, which goes beyond Wallachia’s previous efforts and more adequately represents original member Lars Stavdal’s pagan ideals and thematics. As such, the pagan or anti-christian themes become a little more obscured as the band begins to move further into grandiloquence (as is the case with each release featuring multi-instrumentalist Stefan Traunmüller‘s orchestral hand), but maybe the monumental aspect isn’t meant to be a signifier of Wallachia’s heresy. In this case, though maybe some might follow the “only the old material is better” route, Monumental Heresy physically towers over Wallachia’s back catalog — the band’s strongest and most consistently powerful release.

Monumental Heresy will be released Friday, April 13th, on Debemur Morti Productions (preorder CD, LP, and digital). Listen to “So We Walk Alone” below.

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