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| Artwork by Adrian Cox. |
Wilderun's sophomore album Sleep at the Edge of the Earth garnered a grassroots cult following with its unlikely mix of Appalachia-tinged Americana and epic progressive melodic death metal. Four years later they're back with Veil of Imagination, an album that's both a departure and a refinement of their last.
Sleep at the Edge of the Earth’s centrepiece was the four-part "Ash Memory". It used leitmotifs to create a majestic folk metal suite moving from acoustic Americana to grandiose symphonic metal and back. Veil of Imagination’s fourteen minute album opener “The Unimaginable Zero Summer” plays out much the same way, starting acoustic and building through movements but it merely opens the album, rather than being a self-contained suite. Throughout the album it’s apparent that Wilderun have improved both their composition and performance chops. Fading transitions are all-but gone, replaced with dramatic stop time, smooth transitions between passages, and meaningful builds into sections.
Veil of Imagination partly accomplishes cohesion by digging into bombastic metal while eschewing most of the Americana making for tighter and still grandiose songs. There’s still a folky vein running through the album, but the resonator guitar, dulcimer, banjo (frailing on the intro aside), and mandolin are all but gone leaving only symphonic metal with a tinge of folk. Much as I’m loathe to admit it makes for a more focused if less unique album.
The orchestral parts are gorgeous and the metal parts have more bite, with more tremolo leads and dissonant chords underpinning the dramatic orchestrations. Vocals are improved as well with more variety on display. Cleans range from low, soft accompaniment for quiet passages to belted choruses and chorale vocals the most grandiloquent this side of the Red Army Choir. The growls have more bite as well, sometimes raspy, sometimes more guttural shifting from Akerfeldt inspired to Swanö. Though not a concept album the lyrics are thematic and focused. Wrapped in the trappings of fantasy the album grapples with the dichotomy of action versus inaction, the desire for control pitted against the fear of inaction. The lyrical focus adds another layer holding the album together as a whole, rather than a collection of songs.
The one pitfall is Jens Bogren's crushing master (DR 6) of Dan Swanö’s excellent production, especially compared to Sleep at the Edge of the Earth which sounded more dynamic than it’s DR 7 mastering score. Veil of Imagination is more dramatic and overblown with layer upon layer as pieces build and when blasts, tremolo picking, chorale vocals, and symphonic elements all come in these parts feel flat and the low end gets lost. It’s especially evident against more sparse sections where the bass and drums are clearly audible. It’s nowhere near many other albums in terms of loudness with no audible clipping and it sounds quite good overall, but an album so lush and detailed cries for more dynamic range to maximize all the different components of the music.
Veil of Imagination's move away from Americana, in some ways makes Sleep at the Edge of the Earth more special but it shows undeniable growth from the band and for 68 minutes of progressive metal to be this cohesive, dramatic, immediate, and layered is truly wonderful. Those prone to deriding epic, dramatic metal as overblown may come away unmoved but Wilderun, by dialing up the bombast, are clearly unconcerned and invite everyone else to pierce the veil of their imaginations.