Three years succeeding Forgotten Songs comes Lord Wind's second album, and Rob Darken's transition to pure synthetic pagan ambience initially shocked me. This isn't nearly as minimalistic as say Ildjarn's landscapes or some of the later Burzum material, but the guitars have completely given way and what remains is a late multi-layered medieval soundscape (which I imagine more than a few people are wondering about, since these are supposedly Celtic folk hymns) with choir vocals and tribal drums. Heralds of Fight is sort of like one long (62 minutes long) winding battle hymn, entrenched in ancient times and spawning visions of war, fire, and storming enemy fortresses.

Much of what made Graveland's intros and outros great enhances Lord Wind as well, except there's an extension on the keyboard sound and more of an intentionally hypnotizing repetition. When I say "one long hymn" I'm not implying that there's no variation between the tracks but simply trying to emphasize their thoughtful correspondence and what I feel to be deliberate predictability. Heralds of Fight stays very grim throughout and the darkness is paranormally absorbing and seemingly everlasting; perhaps the reason a lot of people don't get into this is because they're focusing too much on Graveland's chaotic hateful energy and disconcerting emotions rather than accepting this as one of Darken's separate (but related) visions. This isn't being released under the Graveland name, and regardless it's much better than any of the post-Immortal Pride recordings anyway.

Highly recommended, particularly to those of you who do get into the Polish folk bands, but don't expect the electric guitars from Forgotten Songs or the contempt of Graveland. Fudali has never done anything quite like this before.

© 2001 hando