Wazzara ‘Arbor’ – out now!
Five years is a long time between full-lengths, but Wazzara have clearly used the wait wisely. Arbor arrives like a storm rolling across a darkened forest: atmospheric, imposing and occasionally breathtaking. The Swiss project bring together atmospheric black metal, doom and blackgaze without allowing any one genre to dictate the rules, moving effortlessly from crushing guitar weight to passages of shimmering beauty. There is a real sense of adventure here, with tracks such as “9 Confines,” “Hollow” and “Her Ashes Down The River” constantly shifting the light and temperature around the listener. It is heavy music, certainly, but it is also wonderfully cinematic and surprisingly inviting.
The performances give Arbor plenty of muscle. Andrei Jumuga’s drumming provides a powerful backbone, pushing the songs forward while leaving plenty of room for the guitars to bloom into expansive walls of sound. Barbara Brawand’s vocals add another dimension, bringing an expressive and human quality to music that could otherwise become lost in its own grandeur. The production is equally impressive, with the work of Jumuga, Andy Roscyk and mastering engineer Martin Korth helping Wazzara achieve a sound that is huge without becoming cluttered. There is always another texture lurking somewhere in the mix, rewarding repeated listens.
Most importantly, Arbor feels alive. Its themes of buried forces, untamed growth and voices returning from silence aren’t simply lyrical ideas — they seem to be embedded in the music itself. “zessa (reborn),” a transformed version of the song from Wazzara’s 2019 debut EP, is the perfect example: reshaped through years of live performance, it sounds like the past returning with considerably more experience behind it. After a decade of evolution, Wazzara have produced an album that is dark without being dour, powerful without being predictable and atmospheric without losing its grip. Arbor doesn’t merely invite you into the woods; it hands you a torch, points towards the darkness and suggests you follow
