While resembling none but themselves, Úlfúð succeeded at revealing their blazing guitar hooks with the display of catchy guitar melodies and crushing drums. The album’s opener ‘Where Strange Lights Dance’ makes for an intriguing quality that utilizes dual guitars. Although the songs are somewhat bleak, the vocals create a dark and thrilling experience, all of it together wielding an excellent use of the tremolo-picked riffs and faster percussion which will immediately catch you off guard. Frankly, Úlfúð doesn’t have any common element of modern Icelandic black metal and this is because the outstanding styling really reminds me of some of the Norwegian bands.

The songs aren’t as bleak as Svartidauði or Sinmara, but what we get here is some extraordinarily well-written music. Every single song on this album has plenty of hooks: from the crafty guitar work to the intense drumming. ‘Tears of Terra’ then begins with pummeling drums that go perfectly with the fiery tremolos. Though the guitars on the album are influenced by the second wave of black metal, the atmosphere encloses you with icy cold riffs. Albeit, modern, polished, and aggressive ‘Mockery Theatre’ has some faster tempos than the previous ones, but the guitars give a sense of despair, with the brooding melodies accompanied by the double bass drums and relentless blast beats emerging suddenly.

The drumming on the album is consistently powerful and provides a sturdy backbone for the flawless guitar lines. In this sense Úlfúð shows a distinctive style and manages to bring intensity and aggression erupting with straightforward up-tempos. Slowing down at times the dark passages are saturated with shrilling vocals. “Faceless” then ventures into a mid-pacing tempo yet the guitars and the vocals are equally memorable as the dark rhythm. The resulting music maintains a rhythmic style and is seemingly capable of sounding fully hauntingly dark and the slow passages are quite appealing.

Even without the use of keyboards, Úlfúð‘s muscular riffs define the trademark of modern melodic black metal without sounding too brutal. The guitars have a catchy timbre, like the crash of thunder: always catchy and memorable unleashing fierce riffs. The flashes of the blazing guitars bring a kind of awe and majesty to the track ‘Gods Left Behind’. The guitars are often built on the verse and even with the short melodic parts the band showcases its diverse formula. If grandiosity is the right description, then Úlfúð understands how to make use of these catchy guitar arrangements. The ominous grandiosity of the shrilling vocals is one of the elements that would amuse many fans of black metal. Therefore, the Icelandic quintet displays visceral emotion which extracts great songwriting standards.

In their songwriting refinement and luxurious guitars, hooks run the gamut with slow and bleak guitar melodies, covering the aesthetics of menacing screams. All these remarks make ‘Of Existential Distortion’ dripping with pitch-black tremolos and dramatic lead guitars that contrast perfectly with the drums. ‘An Elegy To A Paradise Out Of Reach’ is the longest track on the album, delivering moments of foreboding darkness and constantly shifting from melodic death metal to black metal. The guitar delivers some crafty melodies in a way that will get you hooked, and Úlfúð attains its peak of grandiosity with the fine combination of atmosphere reflecting the traditional Norwegian style of black metal. This track features repetitive melodies, yet they never sound too boring. Instead they contrast stormy riffs and unsettling tempos with melodic passages of a darker nature.

The final track ‘Leviathan Dreams’ ably recreates layers of chunky guitars with a bleak touch of the cold guitars and drumming adding extra layers of depth to provide a sort of dark backdrop. The guitars are packed full of piercing riffs, exuding infectious hooks and bleak murky melodies.

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