{"id":705448,"date":"2026-07-22T15:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/705448\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T15:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:26:09","slug":"illwind-the-unfolding-at-the-end-of-light-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/705448\/","title":{"rendered":"Illwind – The Unfolding at the End of Light Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Sometimes a new band starts up and chooses a godawful name\u2014like Illwind. I\u2019m not just referring to associations with flatulence either\u2014though that certainly doesn\u2019t help. It\u2019s just a difficult name to research, especially for a band with such a small web presence. Google will direct you to the Radiohead song, \u201cIll Wind,\u201d or a 1960s psychedelic band from Boston called Ill Wind, among other surprisingly numerous use cases for the term \u201cill wind.\u201d In fact, I began to have some doubts the band was real, but further research shows they do have a label (Personal Records) as well as a list of band members who have a history in Peruvian bands like Arcada, Argul, and Cobra. Having established this as a legitimate act with some experienced musicians, the final piece of the puzzle to solve is whether Illwind\u2019s debut album, The Unfolding at the End of Light, is any good.<\/p>\n

Illwind is a stoner doom outfit that creatively blends genres in some pretty groovy ways. Epic opener \u201cCrimson Skies\u201d gives you the first hint that things aren\u2019t what they seem on the surface. After the song opens with the slow, plodding pace of funeral doom, vocalist Marcos Coifman\u2019s baritone upends expectations by calling to mind the epic tones of Sorcerer and Visigoth. The funeral doom transforms into classic stoner doom with hints of Black Sabbath before ending on a series of elaborate guitar solos that have the spirit of \u201970s rock acts like Lynyrd Skynyrd and the psychedelia of Pink Floyd and Blood Incantation. That The Unfolding at the End of Light ends on a cover by The Stooges, \u201cI Wanna Be Your Dog,\u201d tells us that Illwind doesn\u2019t exactly have modernity in mind, and yet what they have crafted sounds fresh and sometimes exciting.<\/p>\n

\ufeffThe Unfolding At the End Of Light by ILLWIND<\/a><\/p>\n

At heart, this is a work of stoner doom, with a plodding, relaxed pace and enough reverb on the guitar to give off the genre\u2019s usual chill vibes. Illwind aims for exploration, falling securely in the school of Windhand, YOB, and Black Sabbath. They\u2019re in no hurry, but they also don\u2019t hold back the hooks. The guitars from Mauricio Guerrero hit all the right notes, providing distinctive stoner riffs from one song to another. And just when the tracks are about to hit their quota of stoner, he and fellow guitarist Andr\u00e9s Rhor get creative with solos that transport you to another time and place like Bill and Ted stepping into a magic phone booth. It\u2019s no hallucination if you see their solos come to life\u2014they breathe and grow and take over a tune in a way that can be exhilarating.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

How much you enjoy this depends on your level of tolerance of the stoner doom genre itself. Illwind are at their best when they go off the stoner script. The main issue is their stoner stuff can be a bit generic. This is especially true of some of the longer songs, like \u201cGod of Sleep\u201d and the thirteen-minute \u201cLucifer\u2019s Mule,\u201d which grow repetitive. It works best in smaller doses: \u201cPortal\u201d and \u201cWanderer,\u201d both around five minutes, provide the perfect amount of stoner riffs before breaking into the classic-sounding solos. Coifman\u2019s voice, similarly, is good in doses, but over time his monotonous delivery adds to a feeling of stagnancy. Admittedly, though, when he opens up \u201cLucifer\u2019s Mule\u201d by singing \u201cTell me Lucifer\u201d in his best impression of Ozzy, it\u2019s a highlight of the record.<\/p>\n

The Unfolding at the End of Light proves a good debut for a band whose members have experience in a mix of genres, from black metal to heavy metal to stoner doom. As innovative as Illwind proves to be in blending several old school genres, they\u2019re not quite so innovative in their base genre of stoner doom. They write and play some good stuff, and with some refined songwriting, they could perfect their blend of genres or even give their stoner riffs a little more pizzazz. In the end, though, I think Illwind achieve success. This is a chill record with some outstanding moments that will have you stop and just say, \u201cWhoa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rating: 3.0\/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Personal Records<\/a>
Website: Bandcamp<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: July 3rd 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sometimes a new band starts up and chooses a godawful name\u2014like Illwind. I\u2019m not just referring to associations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[47816,6446,233962,233963,2775,127113,68981,6448,96,187028,233964,233965,223241,69021,128,233966,233967,15742,27498,263,129,22293,19648,6456,9656,233968,56,54,55,170338,233969,233970],"class_list":["post-705448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-47816","tag-3-0","tag-arcada","tag-argul","tag-black-sabbath","tag-blood-incantation","tag-cobra","tag-doom-metal","tag-entertainment","tag-epic-metal","tag-ill-wind","tag-illwind","tag-jul26","tag-lynyrd-skynyrd","tag-music","tag-personal-records","tag-peruvian-metal","tag-pink-floyd","tag-radiohead","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-sorcerer","tag-stoner-doom","tag-stoner-metal","tag-the-stooges","tag-the-unfolding-at-the-end-of-light","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-visigoth","tag-windhand","tag-yob"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}