An excellent pagan black metal is what is offered by Nydvind, a French band in circulation since the early years of the century and arrived with Tetramental I – Seas Of Oblivion to the third full length of a career from releases rather sparse, as well as valuable quality. In this trio, however, we find characters quite well known in the transalpine scene, starting from the founder of the band Richard Loudin, here under the pseudonym of Hingard, vocalist that doom fans know very well for his militancy first in Despond and then in Monolithe, and then Olivier Sans (Nesh, guitarist also in the excellent Azziard) and Eric Tabourier (Stig, drummer, ex-Temple Of Baal). With these premises, the work of Nydvind could only be the result of the work of competent musicians and able to collect and with good personality the dictates of one of the Nordic genres par excellence. The result is, therefore, a work of great thickness, involving and epic as the albums of pagan matrix must be, with stylistic references that bring back to the champions of the genre as Primordial; it’s good to note, however, as the history of the Parisian band originates from the previous militancy of Hingard and Nesh in another band dedicated to folk and celtic sounds as Bran Barr, just to demonstrate how this inclination towards certain sounds is not the result of a sudden thunderbolt but comes from far away. Beyond these premises, the work of Nydvind speaks through the music contained in this splendid work for intensity and capacity of involvement, which are very close to the best of the production of the aforementioned Irish band; in this regard it should be noted that this reference is a general indication useful to understand what to expect who will listen to the album, since the sound of the French has its own stylistic peculiarity that is expressed through a strong sense of melody developed in a direction more epic than solemn. Composed and played and produced as well as it could not be better, Tetramental I – Seas Of Oblivion stands right now as one of the probable top albums of the genre in recent times: the stormy sea that welcomes us since the cover is the natural environment along which the story unfolds, with the band that always keeps alive this imaginary starting from the fatigue of the rowers evoked in the opener Plying The Oars, until the lapping of the waves or the verses of the seagulls that often occur during the work. Nydvind do not spare themselves, offering over an hour of pagan black metal at its highest level, intense and robust at the same time and without dead spots, with the four long tracks longer than ten minutes (Sailing Towards The Unknown, Till The Moon Drowns, Through Primeval Waters, Unveiling A New Earth) that are the backbone of a truly inspired work, which lacks nothing to gain the favor of those who love this sound full of charm and emotion. The fact that Richard Loudin is no longer part of Monolithe, with whom he has been involved in a rather intense way in this decade, makes us reasonably think and hope that it will probably not be necessary to wait another seven years before listening to a new Nydvind album.

2018 – Malpermesita Records