Hungary is not only a mysterious country with many secrets, but also a country whose local black metal scene hardly gets any attention from abroad. Only Sear Bliss from Szombathely (Western Hungary) got some fame outside the Hungarian borders through decades of hard work. On the other hand, there are still interesting black metal bands and projects to be found on the Hungarian horizon. Realm Of Wolves is such a symphonic black metal project that was founded in 2018.
Because the band members are very active in so many other projects and experimenting with several music genres, Hegemon Of Cold Seas is merely the second album of Realm Of Wolves after all these years. The eight powerful songs are constructed around the touching and melodic guitar work of songwriter Stvannyr (István Csarnogurszky) who is also active with the post-rock and guitar ambient projects Musicformessier, Black Hill, Silent Island, Whitecube and the instrumental doom black metal act Stvannyr.
Vocalist and lyricist Dániel Szöllősi (Eclipse of the Sun, Elfsong, The Betrayed Kingdom) replaces Vvildr (Vvilderness) on Hegemon Of Cold Seas and is also responsible for the mixing and mastering of this impassioned and creative album. Stvannyr’s Silent Island companion Ghöul (Gábor Károlyi) is back on bass guitar. Markó Ádám (Cloud 9+, Special Providence) is the session prog drummer on this album. His organic (sometimes) shallow and raw produced) drum sound is a fusion of experiences in various styles like hip-hop, pop, rock and metal.
Hegemon Of Cold Seas is by all means a fine barrel filled with wonderful and emotionally loaded solo guitar, catchy melodies, brutal vocals and relaxing Black Hill and Musicformessier-like intermezzos supported by an impeccable rhythm section. Realm Of Wolves embraces quality without blinking and leaves quantity for what it’s worth. This tasty release that reminds us a bit of Swedish melodic death metal band Dark Tranquillity, is unfortunately only digitally available on the band’s Bandcamp page.
