WAPENTAKE Remembrances CD

The 2022 compilation Remembrances by the British project Wapentake, released as a professional CD digipak by the Portuguese label Nekrogoat Heresy Productions, is a comprehensive retrospective that preserves the early and unreleased history of this unique musical entity. Hailing from Hampshire, Wapentake is the creative vessel of the musician known as S., who masterfully blends Acoustic Dark Folk with Atmospheric Black Metal in a style often referred to as British Rural Black Folk. This specific release serves as a definitive archive, gathering several long-out-of-print sessions into a single high-quality physical document limited to only 200 copies, featuring cover art illustrated by the artist's great-great-grandfather, the 19th-century landscape painter Albert Bowers. The compilation brings together a wealth of material including the Saxon Pastoral demo from 2015, the Harbinger session from 2018, the previously unreleased Perennial EP from 2019, and three additional rare demo tracks. Across fourteen compositions, the record navigates through seasonal themes and historical narratives, beginning with the quartet of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, followed by evocative pieces such as Ancestors, Inheritance, Harbinger, and Threshold. The journey continues with Fallow, Longitude, and Warp & Weft, eventually concluding with the early foundational tracks Saxon Pastoral, The Rufus Stone, and To Tame The Sea. By uniting these disparate recordings, the label has provided a vital perspective on the project’s evolution from pastoral acoustic melancholy to surging extreme metal, all deeply rooted in the ancient landscapes and rural traditions of the English countryside.