Wuthering Heights – Salt (2010)

Four years have passed since the release of the acclaimed “The Shadow Cabinet” and finally we have Wuthering Heights returning with another Power Metal masterpiece. The Danish sextet has managed not only to equal their impressive last album, but greatly improve over it with “Salt”.

With a brilliant combination of Power, Progressive Metal, and some minor Folk Metal influences. Wuthering Heights has released a very impressive set of albums since “Within”, and have been improving constantly over time making them one of the premiere European Power Metal bands in our opinion.

“Salt” starts with the traditional expectation-builder intro song and then it explodes into the brilliant Power Metal anthem “The Desperate Poet”. This first real song will blow you away from start to end and it sets the bar for how good this release is going to be. The album features a wide variety of different sounding songs, ranging from Power Metal anthems to Hard Rock ballads, that will surely appeal every fan of the genre an the band.

If you heard Wuthering Heights before, or any other of Nils Johansson’s projects, you should know that he does a great job in portraying emotions on his vocals, making them sound just right for any type of occasion. “Salt” features another one of Nils great vocal performances as you will notice how the lyrics are brought to life by his versatile pipes.

Musically, Wuthering Height’s does a great job at writing catchy songs with epic choruses that will stay on your head once this album has ended. And this is for us one of the most important things a Power Metal band should do. The guitar work is excellent, courtesy of Erik Ravn, Teddy Möller, and Andreas Lindahl, featuring some blistering guitar solos and an overall quality that only a few bands come close to. Rounding the mix is a very tight and consistent drum track that holds the music together brilliantly.

The hard rock anthem “Water Of Life” is a perfect example of how versatile Withering Heights is. The song has both a folk and a hard rock edge to it, the vocals are just excellent and sound like something that either Rod Stewart of The Moody Blues would have composed. The same goes for the song “The Last Tribe” that features a brilliant high caliber chorus section, especially tailored for all the metalhead tree-huggers out there.

“Salt” in our book is the best Power Metal album released so far in 2010, so if you are a fan of the genre or the band check this one out.

Release: April 27th, 2010

Country: Denmark