The Tale of Vlad Țepeș part 1 by Days ov Yore | Review

The Tale of Vlad Țepeș part 1 introduces Days ov Yore, a new project from Josam, the Finnish multi-instrumentalist behind Trébuchet SDG, an artist we here at Blacforje already know and adore. Where Trébuchet focuses mainly on capturing the vibe of a medieval gothic cathedral, theology and all, with some more Neoclassical black metal, Days ov Yore turns that same craft loose on 15th-century history. 

The opener, "The Tale of Vlad Țepeș," sets the table with gothic bells and an unsettling Latin invocation as Josam writes himself into the story. "I, Josam, sit before this page," he intones, then refuses the role of judge, promising to render Vlad "through time's cold veil, neither demon nor saint, just flesh and frail." It is a Christian lens that doesn’t sanctify or condemn, and it signals right away that this will be a somewhat complicated portrait of an often under-nuanced figure. You’ll notice, too, how the heavy medieval flavor of Trébuchet recedes here. Days ov Yore leans harder into blackened riffing and even a thrash-metal groove, but the shell of the medieval influence remains. 

"Born to War" makes good on that snap. Tumultuous riffery rolls over blast beats and crashing cymbals, and the song keeps ebbing between medieval grandeur and groovy thrash. "Sultan's Hostage" marches in next with steady clangs framing a boy raised with a saber at his throat, until the track erupts into sudden chaos and settles into a grand, doom-heavy breakdown. The writing earns the drama it wants to evoke: "His life was young, but his soul grew old, trapped in the presence of the enemy so cruel and cold."

"Betrayed by the Boyars" is the fork in the road in the album’s narrative journey. The tidal wave of atmospheric black metal carries the tension of the track before it, but now it turns inward, to a man torn between two masters. The tremolos hit like a collapsing wall, and the mix, credit to Josam again, keeps every layer legible inside the chaos.

The album’s peak for me is "The Exile.” It opens somber, a lone harp and echoing choirs mourning Vlad's wandering years, before the fire catches and the earlier motifs come thundering back on galloping, horse-like riffage. Frantic cymbals, sky-wide tremolos, marching breakdowns dissolving into blast-beat frenzies: it is the whole record in miniature, and its finest four minutes. From there, the album gathers toward home with  "Rise of Mehmed the Conqueror" threading Middle-Eastern guitar and clean vocals through an ominous narration, and "Transylvanian Voyage" howling with cold synth and phantom horses before Vlad finally rides back to Wallachia.

Place Days ov Yore alongside the epic historical sweep of acts like Véhémence, and the faith-grounded underground of Vials of Wrath and Within Thy Wounds. What sets this record apart, other than its highly impressive compositions, is its refusal of easy myth: a rigorously historical narrative, thrash-fed and grand, carried by a Christian conscience that grants its subject his full and tragic humanity.

This is black metal as history done right. It’s the story of a man forged in fire and betrayal, rendered with real moral care rather than cheesy, cheap darkness. For devotees of epic atmospheric black metal and for anyone who has ever wondered about the human being buried beneath the Dracula myth, The Tale of Vlad Țepeș part 1 is a gripping first chapter. Now comes the hard part: waiting for part 2.