Vintlechkeit ‎"Evig Og Mork Vinter... / Svarta..." CD

Limited to 133 copies.

There seems to be an undercelebrated subgenre within a subgenre that has a high focus on imitating the natural walls of noise one might hear in the wilderness during a blizzard. Windy Black Metal? Perhaps. Some of the more recognized adherents to this bleak school of ambience are Paysage D'Hiver and Vinterriket. The production is often allowed to maintain a rough, tape-induced sense of fuzziness in service to the bleak and tempestuous feeling of a vast wilderness being wracked by blizzards and gusts of merciless, icy wind. The riffs, while often huge sounding in their own right, tend to be slightly hidden behind this ever present glaze of wind and fuzz. Drums are generally fast and repetitive, lending an undefined but strict pulse to proceedings, and giving some solidity to the ice storm swirling around the listener. Keyboards always play a role, often lending a melody to the moments when the vocals aren't around. Generally the keyboard tones in this type of music are ethereal, glassy and bright, somewhat crystalline synths that remind me of a snowball bouncing off of a diamond. And the vocals will generally be shrieking, buried way behind the rest of this powerful concoction, summoning images of an arcane hermit, standing at the entrance to a cave on a mountain thousands of feet high, spitting his curses against humanity in defiance of the unending blizzard.
If that sounds like your cup of wind, then I have some good news regarding this little gem of a demo... What I described above fits this tape like a glove. It's only one track, but it certainly feels like a multi-part journey through an unforgiving tundra. Beginning with some mood setting wind, you're soon to be blasted into the blizzard with some very aggressive riffage, high-pitcher tremolo guitar that is carried and complimented by some rhythm fuzz broiling beneath, as well as the spinal cacophony of the drums blasting below. When the first vocal mountaintop tirade fades away, the crystal synth appears to shine anew with a complimentary melody, bringing a little beauty amidst the chaotic storm.
After several minutes of this havoc, the wind carries us from this brutality into a bit of a reprieve, when the chaos dies down for a couple minutes, and some gentle acoustic guitar becomes the vehicle, calming things down and giving listeners a momentary reflective interlude. This really can help the atmospheric goal, as storms sometimes drop from violence to momentary calm almost instantly.
Of course, mirroring the ups and downs of natural storms, just as instantly as the calm comes it is shattered. The last several minutes play host to a final burst of the swirling, violent blizzard of music, this time with very little in the way of melody. The drums blast relentlessly, the guitar is a tremolo wall of groaning fear, and the arcane hermit shrieks his hateful diatribes with unyielding hate. A momentous climax, very fitting way to end the song, as this chaos eventually blends with the sound of a wall of indifferent wind, until you're left to wonder if you ever heard anything else in the first place. Black Metal? Or just a blizzard? I guess if it's done well, there's really no discernable difference.

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