Wuthering Heights is a Heavy Metal band from Denmark with what critics describe as a unique sound that comes from blending Power Metal and Folk Metal styles, something only two other bandsnote are known to do. Furthermore, Wuthering Heights was first to blend the two styles when it formed in 1989 under the name Angelica. This has caused them to be labeled under Progressive Metal due to the experimental nature of combining these two subgenres as well. They went through a number of other names as well before arriving at their current one, and a number of different band members as well. Their first demo was released under the name Minas Tirith in 1992, it was called Tales From The Woods. At this time the band consisted of Erik Ravn, Morten Birch, Kenneth Saandvig, and Martin Røpcke with one former member, John Sønder. They released a second demo under the name Vergelmir in 1995, by which time Jannik B. Larsen, Troels Liebgott, Tim Christensen, and Tim Mogensen had joined the band and everyone but Erik Ravn and Kenneth Saandvid had left. It wasn't until their third demo in 1999 titled Within that they got picked up by Locomotive Music under their current name. Their second album called To Travel For Evermore was released in 2002. In 2004 they released their third album Far From The Maddening Crowd. Their fourth album Shadow Cabinet was released in 2006, and their fifth album Salt was released in 2010. Their current label has also changed to Scarlet Records. Erik Ravn also composes most of the band's songsnote in addition to being the only member of the band with it since its inception.
The subject matter of power and folk metal mesh well together. The band further draws from the predecessors to Power Metal; Speed Metal and early Heavy Metal. Wuthering Heights took the fast pace and complex riffs from this and blended in the traditional instruments seen in Folk Metal to create an even more complex sound. In their vocal style they pronounce the lyrics clearly, in the higher registers of typical Heavy Metal ranges. This combined with their lack of swearing in their lyrics is what is refered to as "clean lyrics" and is common to Power Metal, but even here the added Folk Metal influences create a different sound from what would be typical of a Power Metal band.
Albums:
- Within (1999)
- To Travel For Evermore (2002)
- Far From The Maddening Crowd (2003)
- Shadow Cabinet (2006)
- Salt (2010)
The current line up:
- Erik Ravn – guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals
- Teddy Möller – bass, drums, guitar, vocals
- Morten Gade Sørensen – drums, percussion
- Nils Patrik Johansson – vocals
- Martin Arendal – guitar
- Andreas Lindhal – keyboards
Not to be confused with The book or the song
of the same name by Kate Bush. Please.
Wuthering Heights Provides Examples Of:
- Age-Progression Song: A Sinner's Confession.
- Animal Motifs: Birds mostly. Especially notable in The Raven, but eagles and other birds also appear in a few other songs.
- Ascended Extra: Kenneth Saandvig went from guest muscician to full band membernote
- Combat Pragmatist: Carpe Noctem - Seize The Night.
- Cover Version: Of Shadow of The Gypsy by Ache, but only as a Bonus Track for the Japanese release of Shadow Cabinet.
- The Beautiful Elite: Beautifool.
- BSoD Song: I Shall Not Yield starts off as one, never really gets into the morality of the narrator and procceeds to move on through many other themes.
- Creepy Crows: The Raven
- Death Seeker: Reason is basically just one of these guys explaining why he's such a Knight in Sour Armour.
- Death Song: The Mad Sailor and arguably a few others like Sleep and River Oblivion.
- The Dreaded: The Raven.
- Driven by Envy: Envy.
- Driven to Suicide: Sorrow In Memoriam, Snow - Apathy Divine, and I Shall Not Yield have characters contemplating this.
- Epic Instrumental Opener: The first tracks on their second and third albums are instrumentals, and the the case of the former it later has an instrumental song last eight minutes fourty eight seconds about halfway through, plus a number of songs open this way all on their own.
- Epic Rocking: The average song length for the band is about six minutes, their longest single song runs about sixteen-and-a-half minutes long. Far From The Madding Crowd splits 'Longing For The Woods' in three parts.
- Fade Out: This is a common way for their songs to end.
- Fake-Out Fade-Out: So is this.
- Grief Song: Lament for Lorien.
- Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut: Averted in the band, Justified in the band members as they are from Denmark.
- Heavy Mithril: When a band combines elements from Power Metal and Folk Metal, and used to go by the name Minas Tirith, what else do you expect?
- Humans Are Bastards: The last line of A Sinner's Confession.
- "I Am Becoming" Song: Hunter In The Dark
- "I Am" Song: "The Raven"
- I Am the Band: Erik Ravn, only original band member remaining, songwriter, vocalist, guitarist, bassist, keyboardist.
- Implacable Man: I Shall Not Yield
- Lonely Piano Piece: Usually of the violin variety such as in Behind Tearstained Ice and the intro to both Apathy Divine songs.
- ManlyTears/Men Don't Cry: Tears
- Metal Scream: Plenty.
- Miniscule Rocking: Reason is single refrain, 8 lines long, and has no lengthy intros, extros, solos or bridges meaning that it doesn't even last half a minute.
- New Sound Album: Many considered The Shadow Cabinet to be this.
-
No Export for You: On the various bonus tracks in certain countries, except they are all exports. - No Reprise, Please: Unless you the right bonus tack for the third album.
- The Power of Hate: "Even if I'm only holding on by sheer spite itself" - I Shall Not Yield
- Pragmatic Villainy: Carpe Noctem - Sieze the Night
- Properly Paranoid: "I cannot trust in anyone I know/To me my neighbor is my foe/There's poison in the sweets you find" - I Shall Not Yield
- Rage Against the Heavens: Faith - Apathy Divine part 1, I Shall Not Yield indeed.
- Re-release the Song: Roaming Far From Home the US bonus Disc for Shadow Cabinet was a collection of these.
- The Resenter: The narator of Beautifool.
- Sanity Slippage Song: Elements crop up in a lot of their song, chronologically we have Enter The Cave, Hunter In The Dark, Too Great Thy Gift, Sorrow In Memoriam and Dreamwalker from their first album, and The Desperate Poet and the Mad Sailor from the fifth. Tough you could make a case for a few others.
- Screw Destiny: I Shall Not Yield
- Self-Backing Vocalist: Nils Patrick Johanson on their Shadow Cabinet album.
- Seven Deadly Sins: A Sinner's Confession works its way through Greed, Gluttony, Pride, Envy Sloth, Lust and Wrath though not neccissarily all by name, then in Shadow Cabinet we have Demon Desire for Lustnote , Beautifool for Pride, Envy for Envy, Sleep for Sloth, and I Shall Not Yield for Wrath.
- Snow Means Death: Zig Zagged in Snow - Apathy Divine part 2 at different points in the song its imagery is invoked, it is invertednote , averted, subverted, double subverted with an inversionnote , and used as metaphor for the grief of death.
- "Somewhere" Song: Highland Winds and Lament for Lorien from their third Album.
- Song of Courage: The Mad Sailor
- Song Style Shift: Pretty much every riff, often repeatedly, sometimes the lyrics do this too like in Sleep and I Shall Not Yield
- Stop and Go: A number of songs use this.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Carpe Noctem - Sieze the Night
- Walking the Earth: The Wanderer's Farewell, Lost Realm, Through Within To Beyond, The Road Goes On And On, Highland Winds, and The Land Of Olden Glory. You could make a case for a few others as well.
- Wanderlust Song: Chronologically speaking we have The Wanderer's Farewell from their first album, the whole second albumnote especially Lost Realms, See Tomorrow Shine and Through Within To Beyond, The Road Goes Ever On and Land Of Olden Glory from the third album, and Away from the fifth. Though you could make an arguement for a number of others as well.
- The Wild Hunt: Longing For The Woods part 3 - Herne's Prophecy
