Published: May 13, 2024

High-energy meloblack from Hypnotic Dirge records. Listening to Wrath, you can tell that Dødsferd have been around for a while. The songwriting blends great melodies in the guitars with emphatic vocal grunts and grumbles to maintain a high level of interest over these six long tracks. The promotional material calls this “raw black metal,” which might be a sticking point for some as Dødsferd sounds cleaner than I’d expect from a raw black metal band.

Dødsferd accomplish a lot with structure and repetition. You’ll hear them play a melody several times, really lean into it, and then switch up the drum pattern or add a vocal flair when it’s about to get stale. This doesn’t always work perfectly. But the larger song structures compliment the riffs and songwriting well enough to make Wrath worth a listen. For how long and straight-to-the-point Dødsferd‘s songs can be on this release, I didn’t get bored listening to them.