SMOULDER - Violent Creed Of Vengeance LP (Black Vinyl)

It has been kind of interesting to see a "behind the scenes" aspect of Smoulder develop since their debut album dropped pretty loudly in 2019. Given that it emerged from the Canadian neo-trad metal environment, it was probably destined to attract some attention, but the praise that followed - while not unanimous - certainly backed up their position in the country's growing metal movement. The "behind the scenes" stuff I refer to gives a lot of perspective to Violent Creed of Vengeance, since I feel that a lot of the changes, or perhaps development to use a better word, can be understood by considering what else the band has been doing. Vocalist Sarah Ann and guitarist Shon Vincent married and moved to Finland, leaving the band with members across 3 different countries, while the couple both take the time to engage with music in other ways, namely Sarah as a journalist and Shon through other projects and exciting updates on rare albums through his Facebook. If you know how obscure some of the items he picked up were (I remember Tales Of Medusa being among them), you'll also know that the influences leaking into Smoulder's sound have little to do with mainstream metal, nor even the generally recognized inspirations for the trad metal renaissance.