Album Review: Wreche – Wreche (Fragile Branch)

Wreche (Old English) – Affliction or calamity; deep distress, misery. (OED)

The old piano wire creaks and whines as the hammer turns, wrenching the pin from the rotted maple. Steel clinks and piles upon the concrete while the wires twist and fall, knotting like weeds. As the spirit is pruned, it protests gently, plying the old songs—a final ghostly stride through the mind’s quiet gramophone.

Wreche’s self titled debut is out on May 26th 2017 via Fragile Branch.

Marrying the drama of classical piano with just the thrash of metal percussion and screams of traditional black metal. Opening with one of the strangest intros heard this year, Wreche’s self-titled debut is an odd experience.

Odd because Wreche seems to care very little for rhythm & structure. Angel City is an absolute mess at first. Everything hitting as hard as possible with very distant sounding black metal vocals & a piano that is just wild sounding. It’s utterly chaotic but not without a charm & as the track continues on it all starts to make sense.

More importantly it all starts to sound…good, really good.

Fata Morgana continues this chaos but really starts to sound like an actual song. The intrusive piano actually enhances the thumping black metal percussion with some stunning flourishes. It’s quite amazing just how uniquely used it is throughout let alone here.

The thing is, this is an album that really isn’t going to do much for many people. It’s very unique in style but also very difficult to really enjoy. It takes several listens at least to really start to understand the frantic nature of the music. Only then can the subtle beauty of it really be taken in.

Wreche’s self-titled ends with the intense Vessel, high tempo music but the most structurally sound song on the album. The final few minutes that build in speed are quite something, very unique & very memorable.

Like the album as a whole, it’s not one that’s going to be forgotten anytime soon. An utter mess at times, stunning at others…Wreche have created something that will get metal fans talking no matter what.

Wreche – Wreche Full Track Listing:

1. Pruning the Spirit
2. Angel City
3. Fata Morgana
4. Petals
5. Vessel

Wreche is out on May 26th 2017 via Fragile Branch. You can find out more about Wreche on Facebook & Fragile Branch here as well as on Twitter.