With The Unyielding Season, out on March 27th, Winterfylleth feels more focused and aggressive than ever. This record isn’t just about atmosphere or heaviness — it feels personal, reflective, and oddly powerful. There’s that familiar cold, windswept sound the British quintet does so well, but it carries a deeper sense of endurance, like standing firm through difficult times. It’s the kind of album that unfolds slowly, drawing you in with its honesty and emotional weight, and reminding you why Winterfylleth has remained such a respected voice in atmospheric black metal.
M.I. - It’s your ninth album. Have you ever considered reaching this far as a black metal musician?
I don’t think I’ve ever considered thinking about ending our reaching a stop. It’s such a strange thing being in a band, but if you are a musician, as I am, the urge to do something new never goes away.
You make a new record, you spend a year promoting it, and then one year later that same urge starts to come back again. I believe it’s very hard to think about that. I think each of us has a little voice inside us saying that we have to make something year.
Yet we find ourselves, 20 years later, with nine albums. We also have various side projects, where we are involved too. It’s an interesting question, but I always have to keep challenging myself, in order to leave something in the world that matters.
M.I. - A change from Candlelight Records to Napalm Records, which holds a great roster of bands. How was the recording process with them?
With Napalm Records, the recording process was really good. It’s interesting for us to change label after so many years, since we’ve been with Candlelight Records almost our whole discography.
We wanted to move somewhere else. We found Napalm Records, and it’s been really great. They really care about us, very proactive, supportive, they want to hear the demos and so on. Rather being a solo artist or band, we have now a great support that is interested in you. They also released different colors for vinyls, the videos were also amazing.
Sometimes, it’s very difficult for people reaching us and our albums, especially when we’re coming from the UK. Napalm is based in Austria, and it turned out to be easier for our fans to get shipping throughout Europe via this label.
M.I. - The Unyielding Season kicks off with “Heroes of a Hundred Fields”. Sound wise speaking, it blends that ancient second wave black metal with some modern aspects.
Yes! At the core, Winterfylleth is an atmospheric black metal band, but you have to do things that are interesting to yourself, and that means including new things sometimes.
That particular track has more keyboards, the different end section too, hence we try to do new things for us, but always maintaining the roots of our band. Perhaps some of that comes from the second wave of black metal, especially Enslaved and Ulver, combining it with an organic sound instead of that pure raw black metal.
I think people appreciate this more, plus in my opinion this is more of an aggressive album. It has a bit more of that fire inside of it.
M.I. - You also draw inspiration from literature, especially in “Echoes in the After”. Who came up with the idea of blending Medieval/ Renaissance literature with music?
We always used literature in the band, and it’s not uncommon for black metal bands to use elements of folklore, mythology and literature. The thing is, people are used seeing this more in the Norwegian culture.
Now, talking about a band that comes from England, the mythology is different, the writing quite distinct, and the course of history is also different in my country. For example, the UK has some interesting aspects and lore of pastoral poetry, where the track “Echoes in the After” comes from. It concerns a sacred tree, located in northern England, and we also use the painting of that same tree in our 2018 album.
Basically, all the UK history kind of resonates within the whole band, and even there was recent news about this tree being cut down, which upset everyone. Hence, writing a song about it with pastoral poetry, combined with nature. I really think this was a nice way to bring that old and evocative literature with black metal.
M.I. - On the other hand, “Unspoken Elegy” and “Where Dreams Once Grew” brings a different and more acoustic theme, which is quite different from that raw black metal. Should we say that Winterfylleth isn’t afraid of taking their sound into the next level and merging with other music genres?
Depending on the music history of the band anyone knows, there’s always been this vein in Winterfylleth albuns, where there’s a few acoustic tracks. It’s a connection between history and folklore, and in Europe there’s always been a tradition with folk music.
I don’t believe that Winterfylleth is specifically a folk band. I think we are a black metal band that has acoustic elements in it. The idea of folk music being the way that people use it to communicate stories has come from long ago and it’s very strong. This is always something that we wanted to include on the albums, and those couple of songs fit into it.
The first one you mentioned uses the cello and makes you feel sad, even though it’s a very beautiful song. The second one, the title, comes from the lyrics of early songs, but it’s a sorrowful and at the same time reflective track. It’s about how the world is changing for the worse, different from when we were younger. I believe these acoustic moments give you a feeling of pause, embrace sorrow and melancholic aspects of life.
M.I. - The Unyielding Season ends with a cover, from your home country brothers, Paradise Lost. The song “Enchantment” seems to fit like a glove to end such a powerful album. However, why cover a gothic/ doom metal band and not a black metal band, like you did with Emperor?
It’s a good question! On the previous three albums we did a cover of bands that really inspired us. The last album we did a cover of “The Majesty of the Nightsky”, from Emperor, and before that we did “Woden”, by Enslaved and even “Led Astray in the Forest Dark”, by Ulver.
I guess we did quite a few covers of band that we really like. So, what sort of sits around is I grew up in Huddersfield, in the UK, not far from Peaceville Records is from. Places like bandmates such as My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost are also not far from my hometown. Plus, I’m also on a project named Atavist, a death/ doom band where I play, and Winterfylleth’s keyboard player, Mark Deeks, is also in a melodic doom metal band name Ard. Even though we’re all in a black metal band, I guess all of us started as doom metal guys. Perhaps not everyone knows our history 20 years ago, but we evolved from doom metal a long time ago. Hence, Paradise Lost coming up as a big influence for us. The original one is quite gothic rock, but we wanted to do something more death/ doom metal and I hope people like it when they hear it.
M.I. - You will be touring the new album around the UK & Ireland, France, Poland, Germany, and what are your next shows?
At the moment we’re going to tour with Blackbraid in America, starting in April. We have a few festivals coming up such as the Mystic Festival, in Poland; Hellfest, in France; Netherland and even Germany.
We have few shows already announced until the end of the year. We’re trying to organize another tour in central Europe for the end of the year, but a lot of things are happening, we have our 20th anniversary coming up in the next year, and we want to do some touring around.
We just moved to a new agent, so we’re figuring out how this new guy will book our shows. I’m hopefully we’ll be around a lot and be in many places we can in the next year Keep an eye for us, because we’ll be back!
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Questions by André Neves
