Like their close musical relatives The Meads of Asphodel, English blackened folk metallers The Wolves Of Avalon get a lot of mileage out of obscurantism. Not so carefully curated as The Meads, their main premise – celebrating the English peoples of the Dark Ages through a peculiar mix of reverence, stern-faced nerdery and, at times, simple, earth-shakingly good music – is serviced more than adequately on new album, Y Gododdin, a record which tells it’s tales of valour and antiquity with no little skill and aplomb on epic tracks like Is This How It’s Meant To Be.

But as ever when mainman Metatron is around, the urge to provoke and goad is never far from the surface, and here he enlists the help of Taake‘s Hoest – never a man to worry about ruffling feathers himself – who adds vocals to the otherwise uncontroversial Men of Gododdin. Agitators gonna agitate…

This aside, it must be noted that TWOA have actually delivered just what their long-term fans require of them on Y Gododdin; Nico Millar‘s excellent violin playing augments things nicely – especially on the slightly Killing Jokeish The Shining Company –but it’s really the only ‘folk’ element to be found on what is otherwise a pretty straightforward, melodic metal album. Metatron and fellow Avalonian James Marinos play with pretty straight bats throughout, meaning that surprises are few and far between; Headbanging opportunities aren’t so scarce, however, and it’s easy to see metal fans with no particular interest in The Wolves’ historical obsessions or foibles getting involved in tracks like …Company and Dead Men’s Cloaks.

So there you have it – another take it or leave it release from Metatron; He doesn’t care what you or I think of his work, but I’m pretty sure that when the quality of that work is as high as it is here, the takes are going to far outweigh the leaves.

Y Gododdin releases on November 25th