Wivre – Wivre I

Today we delve into the sonic depths of Wivre, a French band that has digitally released their first full-length album through their Bandcamp account. There is no information about Wivre’s history and founding year on Metal Archives. The only available information is that the main artist is a certain Romain Savina, about whom there is no other information regarding his other projects or whether he plays all the instruments on the album.

After the inquisitive preamble and the halo of mystery surrounding its performer, I stood contemplating the good banner or shield presented as cover art. This encouraged me to break down the work point by point. The album’s opening introduction could be an eligible track for a remake of Conan the Barbarian or some role-playing game. The next track, ‘II (Frost’s Dominion)’, shows its fangs with a proud folk tune in tremolo picking, accompanied by a powerful rhythm and changes of pace. These tunes will be interchanged throughout the track. In some passages, they will march with the verse and in other passages they will serve as a bridge or echelon. The voice is raspy but not too high, and it doesn’t stand out from the whole. Halfway through, a clean voice comes in that prepares us for a break in acoustic guitars. The title of the track is raised, giving the sensation that the pent-up anger projected in the music has been released until it falls into the shackles of the acoustic guitars. The following track is a quite pleasant interlude, leaving the red carpet prepared for ‘IV (Enemies at the Gates)’. Here the saying “the calm before the storm” is fulfilled. I think it could be deduced that the song that bears the name of the album would come to destroy the calm acoustic guitars with its intensity and crushing rhythm.

I’ll open a parenthesis here to say there is something I do not like and that is the programmed drums. They are more audible in this track due to the type of composition. But something that I do like is that they at least try to inject naturalness into the digital instrument. Since it is audible, some arrangements were programmed in the ride and some syncopated rhythms that are diluted together with the melodic but at the same time folkloric tunes. These are in themselves the outstanding stealth of the album. With another interlude, the door opens for ‘VIII (Under a Moonlit Sky)’, where the same formula is repeated but with other tunes that swim between changed times. Being an open theme, the voices give the sensation that they are more present. The first guitar solo of the entire work comes in the middle of the track. It is a quite melodic solo but full of nostalgia. Now, Romain’s strong point is the guitar and obviously the composition, but I think that his way of creating is in the old way; that is, he composes from the acoustic guitar. These guitars have plagued the entire album and ‘VIII…’ was not going to be the exception. Being the track with the most guitar variations, good riffs, rhythmic accompaniment, solos, tremolo picking tunes, and acoustic guitars, he played all his cards on this track. Mr. troubadour, and in order not to break with custom, another interlude rises to join the introduction of the closing track called ‘X (Sanctuary)’. This is a very appropriate name since from what can be made out, the album is moving like a saga in the best style of medieval sagas. By the way, in the music there are also medieval nuances hidden among the shadows of the melodies and the atmospheres created.

Returning to the track, it has unwittingly climbed onto my podium of favorites. With its 10 minutes on its back and its melodic melodies full of melancholy, it reminds me of old Nargaroth for its emotional mid-tempo discharge adorned with riffs that stick in the memory. It mixes acoustic guitars with rhythmic ones and octave tones, adding powerful and higher voices. It’s a rather special way of saying goodbye with the instrumentation dying in the lap of the fade out and an outro that, like a guardian, closes the heavy door behind it. In short, it is a good album with several elements of which, as I said above, the mastery of the guitars is absolute. The good way of uniting all the pieces is what makes the album flow like a ship at sea, at times with calm waters and at other times fighting against the storm.