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Wuthering Heights > Salt > Reviews > BloodIronBeer
Wuthering Heights - Salt

Yes, I do hear the waves, in fact! - 91%

BloodIronBeer, June 20th, 2010

Stylistically Wuthering Heights is a unique hodge-podge of influences, and they are not ashamed of letting those influences shine through when most bands would keep to the conventional. A progressive metal skeleton houses folk, power metal and traditional metal with a hint of 80’s rock. On Salt, there’s a noticeable shift to the power metal side (Gamma Ray influence especially)

But what has always been my favorite attribute of this band is their whimsical song writing. The structure of the songs is such that it is interesting and unique. The songs will make sudden tempo changes or style changes with the least foreshadowing. If it was any other band, I might be left questioning their ability to put together a song, but the majority of the time they pull it off well. And it’s what makes Wuthering Heights so fun to listen to.

An example of this: in the song Tears, after a solo, an acoustic passage develops, it builds for a second, after a few measures, out of the clear blue sky, a tempo change into power metal fury! Then back into another lead. You just can’t see that acoustic part ending there, but it does. And they make it work.

When Nils sings in Astral Doors, the mediocrity of the band weighs him down. But in Wuthering Heights? There is no denying this guy’s excellence. He’s genuine. He’s powerful. He’s versatile. His voice isn’t thin and annoying like some power metal vocalists. His voice is full and commanding.

The awesomeness of these lyrics cannot be overstated. The abundant metaphors never cease in hitting the mark. I don’t find myself relating to and feeling so connected to lyrics often, but song after song on this album, I feel like I might as well have written them. The Mad Sailor paints a picture of someone accepting a tragic fate (be it personal fate, or the fate of the world), with a laugh and a drink!

“I will dance on the gunwale, as the ship’s going down, I will write no solemn epitaph for a world that’s gone insane.”

Weather the Storm, conversely, seems to speak to persevering through strife.

“Let that be the hope that we cling to, let that be the rope we hold on to, and when the Sun comes over the hills, I suspect we will be here still.”

The lyrics can really be seen as personal, or applied to all that’s going on in the world right now. The band has always had a lightheartedness about them, but ulterior to this is a profoundness that few bands achieve. This is epitomized in The Mad Sailor both in terms of the bleakness of the beginning of the song, and the upbeat chorus; and in terms of the dichotomy depicted in the lyrics.

The few negatives I see on this album, are the couple times where the sporadic song writing doesn’t seem to work. This essentially ruins Water of Life which upon it's beginning sounds of a classic Irish jig. But then it breaks very, very abruptly into a chorus which is just garbage. Absolute style and tempo change again, and it doesn’t work. It fails. And it fails bad.

The only other draw back I see, is some of the leads and solos are uninspired. Running through the scales, filling some space. The runs just aren’t as clean or as memorable as the last couple releases.

That said, the good outweighs the bad in spades. Right now, this is the most relevant album in the universe. To me personally, and for all the happenings in the world in general. This album provides a lot of catchy, intelligent, and genuine songs, and the theme helps to make the entire album feel relevant and cohesive. This is a band that I thought might have been passing their prime, but I stand corrected.