’Rating: 7.5/10
Release: 31 May 2024
Label: Black Lodge Records

Wormwood is a Swedish melodic black metal band and The Star is their fifth album. I love melo-death and its genre brethren, and this has all the hallmarks: atmosphere, distorted guitars and vocals, and that instantly-recognizable syncopated drum beat. Wormwood’s “The Star” checks all the boxes of the genre and marries with them a theme that resonates with me, personally, and that’s space. The first two tracks are about light, then we venture into darker and more abstract places, and we end with a ten minute colossus in “Ro”.

Wormwood has been around since 2015 and is familiar with their genre. The Star doesn’t deviate too far from the path they’ve been traveling. Unfortunately, tracks like “A Distant Glow”, “Galactic Blood”, and “Thousand Doorless Rooms”, despite their evocative names (“Galactic Blood” is gold– it got me really excited for the album), don’t bring much to the table. I had to listen a few times to really focus and get the spirit of the songs. They’re well-made, and formidable examples of their genre, but the magic of the album is elsewhere.

Wormwood has always excelled at creating sweet spots and changes in their songs. The good ones transcend the genre and take the listeners places. “Stjarnfall” (“Shooting Star” in English) starts off with an organ, jumps into the melo-death, trips into a prog break, changes languages twice, and is a most epic start to the album. “Liminal” starts off at a decent clip but slows down to explore its space, too. I really like the instrumentation in Liminal, too; it’s got some extra grittiness that makes the track stick out, and a power-metal-style arpeggiated ending. It’s the best track.

“Suffer Existence” and “Ro” end the album and include a female clean vocalist, and the former is the stronger track. “Ro” is a gentle send-off while “Suffer Existence” has, despite the shorter length, a lot more happening with some neat vocal chorus effects and a memorable melodic ending.

The Star, with its galaxy-sized motifs and liminal spaces, is more hits than misses. There are high-quality sweet spots… the sort that make you want to mash your face into a speaker at a live show to experience the dark, vast ambience of the stars. If you like melo-death or melo-black metal even remotely, it’s worth giving this a spin.

Tracklist

1. Stjärnfall
2. A Distant Glow
3. Liminal
4. Galactic Blood
5. Thousand Doorless Rooms
6. Suffer Existence
7. Ro