Artist......: Wode
Album.......: Uncrossing the Keys
Year........: 2025
Genre.......: Black Metal

Type........: Album
Label.......: 20 Buck Spin
Language....: English

Source......: FLAC/WEB (24bit)
Encoder.....: libFLAC
Quality.....: 3046kbps avg. / 96.0kHz / 2 channels

Tracks......: 9
Playtime....: 00:42:54
Size........: 985.09MB

R.Date......: 2025-10-03
S.Date......: 2025-10-03
Url.........: https://open.qobuz.com/album/lk5wxlpaaejja

01. Two Crossed Keys                                4:16
02. Under Lanternlight                              4:55
03. Saturn Shadow                                   5:27
04. Transmutation                                   4:43
05. Prisoner of the Moon                            4:32
06. Fiery End                                       4:36
07. Lash of the Tyrant                              6:09
08. Phantom                                         2:20
09. Dashed on the Rocks                             5:56

Manchester's savage sons Wode return with their fourth
album, 'Uncrossing The Keys', marking a confident
expansion of their already formidable sound built upon
a shadowy foundation of feral black metal and ironclad
heavy metal heft. Having evolved from the more
straightforward methodology of the debut album, Wode
has continuously added elements from various dark
corners of the underground across its discography,
with songwriting that has grown leaner yet more
intricate, focused and melodic than ever.

'Uncrossing The Keys' hasn't softened Wode's music,
the sound remains steeped in flame and fury, but
they've embraced a wider spectrum of moods, painting
with blacker, richer hues than ever before. Jagged
post-punk / goth leanings bleakly shine on new tracks
like 'Saturn Shadow' and the dreamy trance of
atmospheric instrumental 'Phantom'. The doomier pace
and majestically pensive mood of single
'Transmutation' recalls both Paradise Lost and
Amorphis with its somber undercurrent, while the
morosely anthemic 'Under Lanternlight' is suffused
with dynamic melodies in its Sentenced-like
composition style. Guitars carry a mournful shimmer at
times, their hooks laced with both melancholy and
menace, drifting above the carnage with moments of
elegiac beauty and dark lamentation. The hellish rasp
of the vocals rise like ritual chants from another
age.

Conjuring visions of a world perpetually on the edge
of twilight Wode casts a long, cold silhouette over
the course of 'Uncrossing The Keys' nine tracks.
There's a sense of both grandeur and decay, as though
the band opened a gateway to a realm where cursed
cities smolder under blood-red skies, their walls
echoing forsaken hymns eternally. The result of a
constant evolutionary process Wode has crafted a truly
haunted and commanding blackened heavy metal that
raises a dark banner high over a vast and desolate
kingdom.