Album Of The Week : The Howling Wind - Into The Cryosphere

The Howling Wind are the brainchild of Unearthly Trance's frontman Ryan Lipynsky, and Into The Cryosphere,released last year, is the act's second album, following on from the promising but patchy debut Pestilence and Peril. ITC is a vast improvement.

The awesome opening track, "The Seething Wrath Of A Frigid Soul" , sets the tone for the rest of the record, full of hyperborean atmospherics and sything black metal riffage. There's enough variety to keep the listener interested through the whole record - the instrumental "Impossible Eternity" is melodic and graceful, while the middle riff from "Will Is The Only Fire Under An Avalanche" is probably the most chillingly epic one on the whole album. Props to Lipynsky - the man not only displays marvelous fretboard pyrotechnics (with some tasteful yet dexterous soloing), he handles the bass and vocals, which for me are one of the highlights of this band. You may have noticed the epic nature of the songtitles - this is complimented by the majestic, if a little clichéd album artwork.

Highly recommended if you like your metal to be like a soundtrack to being lost in the icy tundra with little hope of salvation.

7.5/10

Highlights : "The Seething Wrath Of A Frigid Soul", "Will Is The Only Fire Under An Avalanche"

See also - Emperor, Mayhem, Bathory, Darkthrone, Unearthly Trance

Album Of The Week : Winter - Into Darkness

After five months in Brazil it seemed appropriate that my return to the UK would best be accompanied with some music filthy and dirgy enough to suit the current bout of weather affecting the country. Not to mention the fact that the temperature is 30 degrees colder here than the midsummer in Rio - how are you supposed to fully appreciate dark grim music whilst basking on a beach beneath a cloudless sky? So I ordered a copy of New York doomsters Winter's first and only full length, "Into Darkness", now in it's 20th year of existence. Despite a short career, the band left their mark on extreme metal, and this has finally been recognised with the reuniting of the band for Roadburn 2011.

The album, along with Autopsy's classic "Mental Funeral", released a year after, is considered a pioneer of the death/doom genre. Whereas the Floridian legends work was characterised by the more technical guitar playing influence of drummer Chris Reifert's previous band, Death, Winter is pure, utter, unadulterated doom. The cover art sets the scene - of what looks like the remenants of a settlement after a nuclear holocaust with two blackened ghostly figures standing by. The music rarely picks up from a funeral pace, and you find yourself following the drum patterns more than the very basic but effective guitar work, which makes for an interesting listen. The vocals painfully accompany the apocalyptic miasma, sounding like a dying man coughing up the last energy left in him. All in all, definately recommended if you like your music slow, dark and raw.

7.5/10

Highlights : "Freedom Opression", "Eternal Frost"

See also - Black Sabbath - "Black Sabbath", Cathedral - "Night Of The Seagulls", Autopsy - "Torn From The Womb"