The Tale of Vlad Țepeș part 2 by Days ov Yore | Review

Say what you will, but I think it’s great when metal is fun. How dare I say such a thing? Because three months after part 1 left Vlad III riding home to Wallachia, Days ov Yore finishes the duology, following the voivode from 1456 through his second and third reigns to his death. The promise holds: "no fantasy or vampire tales here." What changes is the scale of the album and sound, as Days ov Yore pushes the whole production toward full-blown epic theater.

The title track opens "in the year of Our Lord, 1456," over catchy riffs and stomping breakdowns. Then the narrator steps into the frame again. On part 1, he sat before the page and declined to judge. Here he prays: "Lord, grant me wisdom that I could keep this story going in a just way." A storyteller asking God for the humility to tell a brutal story truthfully is about as P4LEHORSE as an intro gets.

"Poenari Rises" is the most spacious and cavernous track on the record, its melodies sweeping like wind through a mountain keep. The genre blending of part 1 runs deeper here, fitting for a song about traitorous boyars marched from their Easter feast up the cliffs to raise Vlad's fortress by hand, "their expensive clothes are turning into shreds and their jewelry into stones."

"Sultan's Tax" starts in classic melodic black metal territory before sliding into an almost gothic, surf-rock groove, then sitar-like plucks that curdle into genuine unease. The Middle Eastern color of part 1's "Rise of Mehmed the Conqueror" returns, this time as a threat. Mehmed wants gold, and he wants Wallachia's boys for his janissary ranks. Vlad refuses both. Whatever else history says about the man, this song finds him refusing to trade children for peace, and that refusal is the moral center of the record.

Then comes "Voivoide's Song," my favorite track here. Hurdy-gurdy drones plunge into a Middle Ages groove, and shanty-like chants rise like a tavern full of bards singing the very story we're hearing. Then the floor drops out into a monumental black metal anthem. The lyrics hold both verdicts at once: "the Turks called him a demon and a man without soul, to others a hero, bold, just and strong." The song lets the tavern argue, and, in turn, allows us to argue this within ourselves.

"Legend of the Golden Chalice" turns eerie and gritty for the folk tale of a gold cup at Târgoviște's well that nobody dared steal, and of the one man found impaled outside the gates for trying. Josam doesn't soften it. "Escape from Poenari" answers with howling wind that gives way to a thunderous blast-beat assault, carrying the grief of Radu's betrayal and the loss of Vlad's wife to the Argeș.

"The Battle of Târgoviște" is feel-good, feel-epic melodic black metal about medieval battles. The good stuff. "In the Dungeons of Corvinus" stays in that lane, too, and that's no complaint. It's thirteen years of prison that end with Vlad "a victim of false accusations that cost him his nation and made him a monster in Europe's eyes," a line that points straight at the Dracula myth this duology exists to undo. "The Final Reign" opens on the last clank of a chain, and frost-bitten tremolos build toward a monumental close. In Snagov's woods, "he clenched his old crucifix for the last time in his fist." 

Taken together, these two albums ask what a Christian storyteller owes a man remembered mostly for cruelty. Days ov Yore’s answer is the truth, told with a humble heart. The darkness here is real, from the impaled thief to the castle that still bleeds, and he never pretends otherwise. Against it, the albums set a ruler who refused to hand over his people's children and a crucifix held in a dying hand. It’s an excellent exploration of how we explore history and cast judgment upon it and its people, which allows us to explore how we cast those same judgments on our present moment. Both albums have been an excellent and insightful journey. I highly recommend you check them out.