Downwind - Thy Children

Hailing from the Ukraine, this is melodic extreme metal, a very busy sub-genre to be a part of as there are plenty of bands engaging in this style. The focus for this band is their Nordic feeling which puts them in the slightly more extreme form. Although, the violins, well, they just make me feel a touch uncomfortable as I don’t care for such inclusions. So with my first impression based on the first few minutes of ‘The Anchorite’ then I move swiftly onto ‘Beyond the Gate’. This has drum intro slightly like Megadeth’s ‘Trust’ but musically has more than a few similarities to a vocally harsher Amon Amarth, there’s certainly a warrior feel to the delivery. So far, this is well removed from the usual death thrash encounters I am used too, I especially like the audible inclusion of the bass guitar here. The warmth of the guitar parts around the four minute mark are especially pleasing.

‘Agni’ starts more melo-death, again the bass guitar is audible and chunky in the mix, then the tirade begins, the Trojan’s are out of their hiding place. The riffs and tempo is much more death thrash, but in keeping with the quality of the previous tracks the sound is fresh and exciting, clearly audible and controlled in a manner that makes the arrangements flow with effortless ease, an easy battle is won here. ‘Witches’ follows a similar pattern but includes more musicianship as it’s over seven minutes long. This sounds like the longboats are coming into to land and the natives are running for their lives, a real sense of epic rather than just labelled so by the length of the track. The two parts of ‘Land of Thousand Towers’ I feel are actually the weaker songs on the EP, well part II in fact, Part I follows a similar style to the rest of this EP.

Downwind have perhaps been labelled incorrectly in some quarters, there is a warrior metal feel like some of the death metal bands. Downside mix that with emotive acoustic sections, time signatures that flow into each other without a chink in their armour and the sense of battle I feel with this album tends to lean you over to the dark side of the human mind. It’s an interesting release, I may be on the wrong path compared to others, but my path I am enjoying quite well. The sound is fresh, the songs are strong and as a unit, the band are very much an inclusive collective making meaningful tunes that hold their own in a cluster of bands engaging in this style, even though this was actually released a couple of years ago.


  1. The Anchorite  
  2. Beyond The Gate 
  3. Agni  
  4. The Land Of Thousand Towers Pt.1  
  5. Witches  
  6. The Land Of Thousand Towers Pt.2

Reviewer: twansibon
Sep 21, 2015

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