Year: 2026
Label: Zoharum
Where the previous Wieloryb album we reviewed – Ritual (here), also released on CD recently by Zoharum – was a massive affair, God’s Final Breath is much more accessible in just about every way. The least of these not being the fact that its 47 minute running time is a lot more merciful than Ritual’s 80 minute length!
As such, it is with considerably less trepidation we approach God’s Final Breath.
Comparing to Ritual, God’s Final Breath has a couple of things making it easier to tackle beside the more human running time. One, there are prominent vocals. Two, more variation. Three, in general, more hooks to make the music accessible.
On the whole, though, Wieloryb remains Wieloryb: this is all about rhythmic industrial somewhere in the middle ground between rhythmic noise, techno and EBM. The beat still remains at the centre of things. A lot of the tracks feature other layers of sound predominantly as support for the focal point provided by the dominating, powerful industrial beats.
Whilst actual melodies are still a rare commodity, there are more prominent tangible synth layers on here, such as on Break The Chains with a simple but central synth augmenting the beat. This makes God’s Final Breath infinitely more conventionally musical than Ritual, but still recognizable as the same project.
There’s also more variation on here. From the cyberpunk EBM of aforementioned Break The Chains to the rather old school electro-industrial of No Escape, which wouldn’t sound out of place on an old school 80’s industrial album, God’s Final Breath eschews the static album-size massivity of Ritual for a more track-focused approach.
The end result is an album that’s like day to Ritual’s night (or the other way around). One is a massive slab of static, jarring industrial beats. The other has something actually approaching songs. It’s catchy. It’s danceable in an entirely different fashion.
Best of all, both sides of the coin work. Whilst we had some reservations about Ritual, we did ultimately heap more praise than criticism on it. God’s Final Breath isn’t as uncompromising in its approach, but makes up for that by being more accessible and varied. In the end, it’s entirely a matter of taste which one prefers – we like both.
Only Death Is Real 