Promising a twilight rendered gaze into the Eldritch unknown yet delivering a kicking howl into the familiar abyss of extreme heavy rock Manchester, England-based troupe WODE return for a memorable fourth full-length outing. Their angle upon extreme metal once again siphons the hideous miasma of black metal noise away from its chaotic furor down into 70’s and 80’s build hard rock structures which collectively lends ‘Uncrossing the Keys‘ both foreboding and entirely welcoming traits in tandem. This time around their handle upon ulterior melodic black metal now transforms into something potentially more song and/or hook oriented while retaining most of the ear-scraping clangor they’d brought in the past. The result is perhaps even more noticeably lax in its extremist instrumentation overall but this is a fair trade for a better, or at least more readable heavy metal album.

Wode have been around since 2011 or so, starting out as an atmospheric and raw black metal band on their first demo tape (‘Demo MMXI‘, 2011) before cutting back to a trio and taking on less of a rocking swing on their debut LP (‘Wode‘, 2016) a few years later. While I didn’t find this early era of the band all that captivating you’ll find their performative side was ‘ready loaded on songs like “Cloaked in Ruin” which’d presented more than pagan black rhythmic melodicism and colder slashed scalar movements. Over the course of their second and third LPs the band’s line-up shifted a bit (incl. folks from Aggressive Perfector, Heavy Sentence) and their style evolved into blackened death metal with prominent heavy metal inspiration. This’d probably found broadest appeal with their 2021 release LP ‘Burn in Many Mirrors‘. I’d been a fan of that third LP, rating it highly for the sake of its flow and their own treatment of what I think I’d described as ‘The Somberlain‘-type extreme heavy metal ideal with some additional reference to pre-2015 Tribulation and Venenum as well. I’d point folks to a song like “Sulphuric Glow” from that album to emphasize the transformation and refinement of their work up ’til that point. This leads us directly into what we find on ‘Uncrossing the Keys‘ today.

Though we start with a thrashing step into ‘Uncrossing the Keys‘ the gallop that rolls forthright into opener “Two Crossed Keys” finds its snarling fanfare and hollowed, chasm-shook timbre quickly as the cacophonic howl of Wode‘s work manifests a death n’ roll beat in backing the forlorn anthemic movement at hand. There is a distant, miasmic quality to these movements and stylistic abandon which is both characteristic of their discography and still at least somewhat referential here and there. Around ~2:15 minutes in the song an Amorphis-esque run sparks up only to release around the ~2:47 minute mark, an easy point of interest for 90’s European melodic/dark metal attuned ears and serves as some presage for the sometimes fast-moving focal shifts found on this album. While I wouldn’t consider this opening piece a bold shift beyond the two albums prior it does set the right manic and necromantic tone for this otherwise modestly dark/gothic metal tinged record.

A cavernous, downward-shot snarling roar brings pained declaration as Wode‘s heavy rock tippled “Under Lanternlight” makes room for a bigger-clanking bass guitar tone at the centre of its bop and much as I like this piece and its placement it brings one of the louder thumps of the black n’ roll on the album with its swinging movement in the first half and Lizzy-worthy comedown in the second. While this suits the band’s meld of extreme metal and heavy rock/NWOBHM it all clashes tonally, ringing wildly with surprisingly unpredictable impact. With this in mind a few of the songs on ‘Uncrossing the Keys‘ kinda hit with an ‘Amok‘-era Sentenced type of growl n’ groove, starting with “Saturn Shadow” and “Transmutation”, but sans any sort of alt-rocking croon that reference might suggest. While these are fine enough pieces only the former does anything for me in terms of bringing in lead guitars that command some manner of order within the unique production values retained. Fans of the original mix/master of ‘Gothic‘ should appreciate the drench of the atmosphere available though these folks are certainly more extreme in their growling cacophonic touch.

Within its uglied-up, noisome reverberation and gnashed-out vocal delivery ‘Uncrossing the Keys‘ builds a sort of swaggering black n’ rolled push as Side A rides out, eventually meeting up with Side B where the black-thrashing movement and circa ’97 Rotting Christ-tipped hooks of “Fiery End” produced the loudest heat of the whole event for my own taste. Wode‘s collective fracas reaches peak cohesion between “Fiery End” and “Last of the Tyrant” per my own experience via an intoxicating clash of otherwise naturally suited elemental forms. Despite this second half being less catchy than anything found on the first half of the LP I’d still argue all the pieces “go” together best therein. I’m not sure I’d enjoyed, or, understood my first ride through the full listen until connecting with those two pieces back-to-back and I’m still not convinced it all works as a full listen as ordered but it yet strikes me as a fine “extreme” heavy metal record overall. A moderately high recommendation.

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