"Firienholt sound pretty much exactly as you’d expect based solely on this album art. Falling somewhere in the center of a Venn diagram split between atmospheric black metal, symphonic folk-ish metal, and dungeonsynth, By the Waters of Awakening offers an experience that not only relaxes and soothes, but also evokes a desire for bone-chilling winter to return forthwith. Tambourines, flutes, strings, trumpets and French horns, and glistening synths decorate a light dusting of blackened frost across a wondrous landscape of mournful melodies and heartfelt verses. This is not an album for headbanging. It is not an album for The Pit™. It is not an album for pillaging, bloodshed, or gleeful bodily mutilation.1 You listen to By the Waters of Awakening to be transported and calmed, to reflect and contemplate in peaceful serenity."
"A dungeon synth orientated sound starts off the album and also mixes in with the heavier sections of the songs at times. All of the drum beats are programmed while the riffs also add in a decent amount of melody along with the vocals being mostly grim sounding black metal screams and the riffs also add in a decent amount of melody. [...] Firienholt plays a musical style that takes a very epic and atmospheric form of black metal and mixes it with dungeon synth to create a sound of their own. The production sounds very professional while the lyrics cover fantasy themes."
