Black Lava come to us from Australia and although they exist only since 2021, they release their second full-length after their debut “Soul Furnace” of 2022. Looking at the information about the band, what immediately caught my attention was the name of Daniel Presland on drums, who also plays in the excellent and beloved extreme prog metallers Ne Obliviscaris and in 2006 was a finalist for his country in the World’s Fastest Drummer competition.
After listening to “The Savage Winds To Wisdom” though, that was the most interesting aspect of the album as I can’t say it managed to win me over. Black Lava play blackened death metal in a way that is not so common. And I say that because of the work done on the guitars, as they have a disharmonious character for most of the album. A peculiarity that I personally never liked and it sounds quite strange to my ears. In the parts for example where they use more “traditional” extreme riffs, the result is much better but unfortunately these are few and far between.
The speeds are more mid-tempo, but there are also the faster parts where Presland shows his potential. Unfortunately, even these are often combined with disharmonious guitars, which personally sounds very out of place to me since they don’t fit together. Another negative point is the vocals. Not when they are extreme, there they sound fine. There are too many recitations that just don’t fit with the rest of the music, especially when blast beats are heard from behind for example. Unfortunately, after almost fifty minutes of listening, there’s nothing left that makes me want to listen to the album again.
Not to be misunderstood, though, “The Savage Winds To Wisdom” doesn’t suck. The band’s musicians are experienced, they have a specific plan for how they want their music to sound and the production by the amazing Fredrik Nordström is ideal as everything sounds perfect. It’s just that the specific techniques they use don’t go with my tastes. There are many people who will find this much more interesting than I do.
