Manchester's WINTERFYLLETH have long been the standard bearers of what they themselves call "Heritage Black Metal" — a label that speaks to their deep reverence for Anglo-Saxon history, English landscapes, and ancient lore. For this reviewer however, "Epic Black Metal" feels equally fitting: this is black metal that doesn't just pummel, it tells stories — grand, heroic, deeply rooted tales of a people and a land. With The Unyielding Season, released March 27, 2026, the band marks a significant new chapter: their ninth studio album, their first on Napalm Records after a long tenure with Candlelight, and a record that introduces new bassist Mark Doyle following the departure of long-serving Nick Wallwork. Twenty years into their existence, WINTERFYLLETH sound anything but comfortable. They sound alive, urgent, and furious.
To understand The Unyielding Season, you must understand its predecessor. The Imperious Horizon (2024) was a cold, calculated, and masterful record — its artwork a snow-capped mountain, its mood that of a dark force gathering just beyond sight. That album described the threat. This one is the threat arriving. The new artwork says it all: a forest engulfed in flames, a visceral image that mirrors our turbulent present. Where The Imperious Horizon was ice, The Unyielding Season is fire. The world is not alright, and WINTERFYLLETH know it.
The album opens with "Heroes of a Hundred Fields" — a powerful, fierce, and fast black metal assault driven by an interesting rhythmic complexity. Crucially, as the song draws to a close, the tempo slows, as if the battle itself is winding down after an intense and bloody clash. It is a masterstroke of dynamics and an immediate statement of intent. The same energy carries the music video, which visually echoes the burning forest of the album cover — flames, chaos, and defiance.
"Echoes In The After" carries remarkable emotional weight. Written as a reaction to the felling of the iconic Sycamore Gap tree on Hadrian's Wall in Northern England, the lyrics are crafted as a lament from nature to itself, condemning the loss of an iconic symbol. The connection runs deeper still — that very tree was the inspiration for the cover artwork of the band's 2018 album The Hallowing of Heirdom, making this song a deeply personal tribute within the band's own mythology.
"A Hollow Existence" opens and closes at a slower, brooding pace with a ferocious blast of fast black metal at its core, conjuring epic Anglo-Saxon heroic battle imagery. "Perdition's Flame" and "Towards Elysium" lean closer to classic, old-school black metal, the latter in particular channeling that raw, primal energy of the genre's roots. The title track is the album's centrepiece — a towering 7 minutes and 55 seconds of epic, atmospheric black metal that encapsulates the album's entire concept: the weight of the world, the silence of the oppressed, and the rage of the resistance.
Two acoustic pieces provide moments of breath and reflection. "Unspoken Elegy," featuring cellist Arthur Thompson, evokes the spirit of a traditional English ballad — haunting, graceful, and deeply felt. "Where Dreams Once Grew" takes a different but equally beautiful path, its classical guitar playing lending the album an almost meditative quality. These two tracks are not interludes to be skipped — they are essential to the album's emotional architecture.
"In Ashen Wake" opens with a cool, atmospheric ambient passage that draws the listener into its world before the storm returns. It is one of the album's most immersive moments.
The album closes with a cover of "Enchantment" by fellow English legends PARADISE LOST, originally from their 1995 classic Draconian Times. If you expected WINTERFYLLETH to deliver a black metal reimagining of a doom metal classic, think again. They made it even doomier, culminating in a beautiful and unexpected piano outro that lingers long after the album ends. It is a moment that perfectly showcases the band's diverse musical background and their fearlessness as artists.
The Unyielding Season is a bold, fiery, and deeply human record. It is angrier and more ferocious than its predecessor, yet no less atmospheric or thoughtful. WINTERFYLLETH have delivered a worthy successor to The Imperious Horizon — and a strong contender for the best black metal album of the year.
Official Music Video — "Heroes of a Hundred Fields"