Fourth album for Winter Eternal project.
Born in 2001 as Unveiled Nightsky in Greece from the mind of Soulreaper (guitar/vocals/bass, Without Guidance, ex-Nightbreed), the band changed its name in 2011 and relocated to Scotland in 2018. In 2024, accompanied by V.Nuctemeron (drums, Burial Hordes, Necrovorous…), Matthew Dakoutros (violin, Art of Simplicity) and Hildr Valkyrie (vocals, Folkearth, Folkodia…), the band unveils Echoes of Primordial Gnosis on Hells Headbangers Records.
First track Echoes of Primordial Gnosis immediately envelops us in a veil of cold darkness with Old School influences, while airy tones mingle with raw violence. The clean voice lends the composition an eerie tinge, which joins the haunting Two Heavens as One, where the two voices answer each other and carry us through to the clean break, adding a melancholic touch that lets us breathe before saturation returns. Battle Cry also starts out slow and soothing, but the rhythm obviously explodes and welcomes heady harmonics that float easily through the air, reminiscent of Pagan tones, just as on The Serpent’s Curse where female choirs and violins appear, giving the track its majestic atmosphere before violence reigns once again. Voices offers us a relaxing but relatively morose instrumental interlude before giving way to Bending the Fabric of Reality, where blast and saturation reappear to transform the track into a hellish lament punctuated by furious howls. The album continues with Sacrifice for Glory, whose razor-sharp melodies are perfectly in tune with the ambient rage, although they are sometimes shaded by Hildr Valkyrie‘s voice, which is very different from Soulreaper‘s one. But the album is already coming to an end with The Keeper of Sorrows, which first charges forward at full speed before slowing down and becoming gentler, only picking up again to distill its sorrow until the final moments.
Winter Eternal remains attached to its melancholy Old School roots, offering impure but gripping Black Metal. Echoes of Primordial Gnosis honors the legacy of the ’90s while adding a new fix of darkness.
85/100
