Review by Vinny for Winterfylleth - The Unyielding Season (2026)
Manchester’s Winterfylleth have had a mostly “off” relationship with me (as opposed to an “on/off” relationship that is). Their most enjoyable release for me has always been their acoustic folk record The Harrowing of Heirdom which I thought was fantastic in a kind of underground Fleet Foxes kind of a way, not too commercialised or harmonised either. Fact is that most of their outright black metal records have left me cold, and not in the desired black metal experience kind of “cold” either. I cannot deny that they are a talented bunch of lads, and that they do have a well-established following of loyal fans. The music is never bad when I experience it, yet nor does it come across as being particularly memorable either.
The Unyielding Season caught me off guard therefore. Soon after hearing it through a couple of times, I found myself able to predict songs on subsequent visits. Opening track, ‘Heroes of a Hundred Fields’ has a fantastic section (which I heard called a “breakdown” the other day) after about two thirds of the way through. Likewise, the title track has etched its flow into my memory banks also, much quicker than expected. As with my favourite album of theirs, the two acoustic tracks are probably still my two preferred ones. That favouritism has more to it than nostalgia for the previous release though, the band do have a genuine talent for writing beautiful acoustic pieces I feel and again it is these two moments that stay with me as the most positive experiences of the album.
It is not that the rest of the album is awful, more that these other tracks do seem to blur into one another. This is a trait that only seems to get worse with repeated listens sadly. Even on purely critical listens, it is hard to discern vast quantities of the album as having much in the way of individuality. By far the greatest problem I have though is the poor choice of a cover track that sits right at the end of the album. I am not Paradise Lost’s biggest fan, regardless of the fact that ‘Enchantment’ is one of my least favourite songs of their’s. It was bad enough hearing Nick sing it but the vocalist for Winterfylleth somehow makes the experience worse. Maybe I have overplayed this album in trying to settle on some reasonable understanding of it. Looking at the score I have applied to the rating now, I would have thought it a shade higher upon initial discovery listens. However, the reality over time has proven a different outcome is necessary.