Wildernessking is a four-piece band from South Africa whose atmospheric black metal, combined with strong post rock aesthetics, has earned them comparisons to Cascadian black metal, Swedish black metal, the Brooklyn sound and "blackgaze", so it's safe to say their sound is complex, progressive and entitled to the prefix "post-" before any other description.
2016 has been very productive for Wildernessking. Earlier this year they released their second full length, Mystical Future, with Deafheaven producer, Jack Shirley, on mixing and mastering duties, an excellent release which should be on every forward-thinking metalhead's radar. The EP Levitate came next, as well as the brilliant split (with themselves) release, featuring two of the band's early EPs, 2012's ...And The Night Swept Us Away and The Devil Within from 2014, enhanced with bonus material.
Playing all the 2016 Wildernessking releases one after the other, the recordings of which in fact span a four-year time period, it's not hard to notice how the band has evolved from a progressive, Enslaved-resembling skillful band to an avant-garde black metal force that constantly moves away from its comfort zone. Even if you come into the sound of Wildernessking with high expectations, it's quite unlikely that you'll be disappointed. While the band merges their traditional black metal foundation with ambience and post rock, continuing and in a way restoring the somewhat worn out notoriety of the "post-black metal" tag, Wildernessking sound like one of the top most ambitious acts in contemporary metal right now and they're pretty much the biggest reason why South Africa has a voice in black metal today.
Mystical Future Vinyl
Split EPs Vinyl
Both Vinyl
ZR