''The Mercian Sphere'' is the second studio album by the English

black metal Black metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include Tempo#Beats per minute, fast tempos, a Screaming (music)#Black metal, shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted Electric guitar, guitars played with tr ...

band

Winterfylleth Winterfylleth (Ƿinterfylleþ) was the Anglo-Saxon or Old English name for the month of October. It marked and celebrated the beginning of winter. The name of the month was recorded by Bede thus: See also * Anglo-Saxon * Germanic calendar * ...

, released on 12 July 2010 through

Candlelight Records Candlelight Records is a British record label based in London, founded by former Extreme Noise Terror bass guitarist Lee Barrett in 1993. The record label originally specialized in black metal, but quickly expanded to various other forms of hea ...

. It was made after Winterfylleth regrouped in 2009 and was the band's first collaboration with Candlelight Records. It contains

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

lyrical subjects and influences from

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

Background

The

band

formed in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

in 2007 by the drummer Simon Lucas and vocalist and guitarist Chris Naughton. The band released its debut album '' The Ghost of Heritage'' through

Profound Lore Records Profound Lore Records is a Canadian independent record label founded in May 2004. The label primarily focuses on releasing extreme metal and experimental albums. It "began as the 'hobby-like venture' of a few friends but, over the past six year ...

in 2008. Between the first and second album, the band replaced its bass guitarist, who attracted attention from

antifascists Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were op ...

for posts on his

Myspace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

page where he used the phrases "wpww"—short for "

White Pride White pride and white power are expressions primarily used by white separatist, white nationalist, fascist, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist organizations in order to signal racist or racialist viewpoints. It is also a slogan used by the pro ...

World Wide"—and "14w"—referring to the

Fourteen Words "The Fourteen Words" (also abbreviated 14 or 1488) is a reference to two slogans originated by the American domestic terrorist David Eden Lane, one of nine founding members of the defunct white supremacist terrorist organization The Order (white ...

slogan of the American neo-Nazi David Lane. This prompted a festival in Manchester to cancel a Winterfylleth performance and the band to change its line-up. Regrouped in 2009, the band consisted of Naughton on guitar and vocals, Lucas on drums, Nick Wallwork on bass and Mark Wood on guitar.

Music and recording

Winterfylleth signed with the bigger label

to release its second album ''The Mercian Sphere''. ''The Mercian Sphere'' was the first Winterfylleth album to feature Caroline Lucas on violin, on the instrumental track "Children of the Stones". The album features a trilogy of songs called "The Wayfarer", which were inspired by the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

poem " The Wanderer", preserved in the 10th-century

Exeter Book The Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis or Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, is a large codex of Old English poetry, believed to have been produced in the late tenth century AD. It is one of the four major manuscripts of Old Englis ...

. The album was recorded at Foel Studios and produced by Chris Fielding.

Release

Candlelight Records released ''The Mercian Sphere'' on 12 July 2010. The

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or cassette j-cards. Origin Liner notes are descended from the prog ...

say the album is "dedicated to all those who are actively involved with the preservation of our great ancestral heritage, history, folklore and rich national culture". Winterfylleth was featured on the cover of the music magazine ''

Zero Tolerance A zero-tolerance policy is one which imposes a punishment for every infraction of a stated rule.zero tolerance, n.' (under ''zero, n.''). The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Ed. 1989. Retrieved 10 November 2009. Italy, Japan, Singapore China, I ...

'' in conjunction with the release. In 2020, Candlelight Records released a tenth-anniversary edition with new cover art and a booklet with extended liner notes. Winterfylleth released a

lyric video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to promote the sale of m ...

for the song "A Valley Thick with Oaks" for this occasion.

Reception

Comparing ''The Mercian Sphere'' to ''The Ghost of Heritage'', the scholar Karl Spracklen says it is "more ambiguous in its lyrics about race and nation, though it is still mainly about

men fighting for England". Alex Henderson of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

says the album succeeds in combining melody and harmony with the aggression expected from the black metal genre. He says it incorporates elements of European

without becoming

folk metal Folk metal is a fusion genre of heavy metal music and traditional folk music that developed in Europe during the 1990s. It is characterised by the widespread use of folk instruments and, to a lesser extent, traditional singing styles (for example ...

, although is likely to be dismissed by "black metal purists", who consider melodic black metal to be watered down rather than nuanced.

Metal.de Metal.de is a German-language online magazine launched in 1996. The magazine focuses on the subgenres of heavy metal and hard rock, but also reports on similar styles. ''Metal.de'' foundation in 1996 makes it one of the longest-running heavy me ...

's Yannick says Winterfylleth stands out within its genre due to its less martial and more serious image, reflected in a musical seriousness on ''The Mercian Sphere'', and highlights the passages inspired by folk music, which provide atmosphere to the songs.

Track listing

Adapted from ''The Mercian Sphere''s

Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online music distribution platform founded in 2008 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with an office and record store in Oakland, California. Acquired by Epic ...

page.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mercian Sphere 2010 albums Candlelight Records albums Winterfylleth albums