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Track Listing: Rated: Total Play Time:  |
I knew this was going to be a black metal album as soon as I laid eyes
on it. At first I thought it'd be an Endstille CD. See... Endstille
does the same black-and-white thing on its website. I was a little
excited about that because for a while an online acquaintance played
guitar for Endstille and I thought that may be a chance to hear his
playing. Then terror set in - it was Vinterriket; someone I've never
heard of. Self doubt ensued - I am not a fan of Black Metal. The
screeching vocals have made me stay away. Will I be able to review
this? Will I be able to understand how it fits within the style? Angel
even offered to have someone else review it, but instead I decided to
grab the bull by the horns (will I ever stop using cliches?) and give
it a try myself.
Initially I decided to leaf through the booklet. Beautiful atmospheric
back and white photographs comprise the layout. The epitome of grim
and frostbitten. ;) Well chosen images, though. They match the music
well. Then through some conversations with my fellow Coven reviewers I
discovered that this one-man project is quite prolific. What struck me
as impressive, though, is that the reviewers agreed that every album
is different from the previous ones. This made me pay more attention.
I like creativity and growth.
This is a long album. Clocks in at over an hour. For something I
expected to dislike and a sound I was afraid of encountering and
sitting through, I was pleasantly surprised to discover I did not
experience an adverse reaction. There was a lot to like about Der
letze Winter and I was able to let go of a lot of my prejudices.
Apparently Vinterriket is known for very few guitars. Der letze Winter
does use those somewhat sparingly, but they are a lot more prominent
than is customary for him. Those are heavily distorted, though. I
would have appreciated a cleaner sound, probably because a clean sound
is what I normally look for in a record. What is on this record is
strangely fitting. The heavily distorted vocals over keyboards on the
other hand detract from the overall dreamy feel.
The listener gets used to it after a while and it is not as grating on
the ears as I may have expected initially. The strongest point of the
album are the very nice keyboard passages - the beginning of
Winternacht - Kalte Schwärze Im Bann Der Silbernen Sonne is what
I would call exquisite.
There are also some nice melodies, but the hissing sound takes away
from it. I do know it was meant to be this way and it is part of the
genre's sound, however, it is one of the reasons why it is not my
preferred style of Metal.
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