About halfway through "The Fate of Souls After Death", a late-album highlight from The Threnody of Triumph, the excellent if excessive new record from Manchester's Winterfylleth, the band slows the black-metal pummel upon which the track has depended. The drums drop into a half-time march, and the guitars relax their harsh roar, riffs etching harmonies against a background wall of distortion. But don't coast into reverie quite yet: Winterfylleth break the séance with fury, panic screams, and united-in-rage guitars that clash with the blurred drums for a perfect, primal burnout. The antiphonal, fast-slow-fast structure is a familiar trick of so-called atmospheric black metal; Winterfylleth just work to ensure that the atmosphere is as damaged as possible.

[The Threnody of Triumph is out September 25 on Candlelight]