Svart Vinter relates about his coldness.
From Italy, Andrea Maggioni (vocals, Cranial Torment), Luca Gagnoni (guitars, Veil of Conspiracy, ex-Invernoir), Emanuela Marino (guitar, Veil of Conspiracy), Jacopo Simonelli (bass, Kaivs) and Luca Tiraterra (drums, Incantvm) sign with Non Serviam Records for the release of their second album, Isvind.
We start with the chilling Torment, which immediately blends fast-paced, dissonant melodies and tortured vocal parts in a relatively heavy approach of Black Metal. I’m quickly caught up in their violent, melancholy universe, which continues with Frozen Tomb, where touches of fury energize the haunting mix that penetrates our minds and grows in darkness as one riff follows another, before suddenly releasing us on Isvind, the hypnotic self-titled track. While the opening moments are rather slow and airy, there are some welcome blazes that perfectly punctuate the march through the heady harmonics until the sound calms down and finally picks up speed again on Ritual, where the band develops mysterious tones. The hazy sound weaves along at speed, while the vocal parts become more intense and insistent, responding to the piercing leads that turn into quieter but more ominous sounds on the introduction to Abyss, before being propelled by a swift rhythm. The devastating flow allows itself several gear changes while remaining anchored in its rather obvious sadness, then a few occult touches come to tint the slow Where The Shadows Lie, redoubling the power of its apathetic phases as well as the explosions of violence of which the composition is capable. We return to a soothing gentleness with My Last Winter, and even saturation respects this positioning, letting the leads embellish a fairly simple rhythmic pattern, but which allows the vocalist to deliver a performance that is first more plaintive, then as striking as ever. Of Cold And Grief picks up the pace with a solid double pedal to frame the moments when the guitars lead the way with their ghostly harmonics, before blending the two aspects for the finale, before Beneath The Night’s Cold Gaze in turn captures our attention with a distinctly heavier approach reminiscent of Nordic roots and its dark funerary tones.
Although their sound is reminiscent of other countries, Svart Vinter‘s Isvind offers us a journey into the heart of an intense, dark coldness, with compositions that each have their own personality. It’s a no-brainer for me.
85/100