Immortal - At the Heart of Winter

Listen Here

        You might notice that I'm trying out a new format for my posts, based on suggestions I received. Instead of putting the album art and link at the bottom of the review, I'm putting them at the top so you can easily look at the art and listen to the album while you read the review. I haven't decided if I like this new format yet, so I might change back in a few weeks, I don't know, we'll see. Anyway, lets get to the review.

        Immortal is what I'd call an important band: they aren't necessarily the best, the founding, or even the most famous band of the genre, but they without a doubt had a lasting impact on it and music in general. Immortal is a Norwegian black metal band, which stands out due to their good recording quality, relatively accessible sound, and unusual melodies. Immortal's early albums were still in the style of traditional, second wave black metal, but At the Heart of Winter marked a turning point for the band. Immortal adopted a new sound inspired by thrash metal bands, such as Metallica, and classic metal bands, such as Iron Maiden. This new sound was unusually melodic for black metal and approached blackened death metal at some points. Sadly, Immortal broke up 2003, although they reformed in 2014 and released a reunion album this year, 2018. Due to a disagreement, the frontman, singer, and person largely responsible for their unique sound, Abbath Doom Occulta, quit the band before its release to form his own solo band, and the lead guitarist, Demonaz Doom Occulta, sang instead of him for the album.
        I really like the cover of At the Heart of Winter it looks cool, and is the first of their three albums which don't have a picture of the band for the cover. Some people may like a picture of the band on the cover, but I don't like it. It's like the cover is my first impression of the album, I want it to not only give me an idea what the music will sound like, but also draw me in and tell me the album's story. A picture of the band can be cool, but it does none of those things. Anyway, this album shows an awesome evil looking fortress located in a challenging frozen landscape. When I look at this, I feel like I'm about to go on a fantasy adventure, to fight monsters and battle whatever evil lurks in that castle. The result is an amazing power metal album cover. Unfortunately this is black metal, not power metal, so this cover doesn't seem too appropriate, maybe if the image was in black and white, it would of been more black metal. Despite this, I give them a partial pass because of how cool it looks.
        As I said earlier, At the Heart of Winter was a turning point album for Immortal. Even though this album marked the band's stray from strictly traditional black metal, it still is blacker than some of their later albums (not to say that any of their albums aren't black). This album still features a lot of distorted drony guitar riffs, fast beating drums, and snarled vocals, but is often missing the snowstorms of sound, the bad recording quality, and the muffled melodies commonly commonly found in black metal. The songs on the album instead have headbanging, almost thrashy melodies that make the songs a lot more accessible and catchy. The vocals on this album are also surprisingly intelligible, much more so than most black metal, you can even understand the lyrics a good amount of the time. This album doesn't have too may songs, so I will only pick my top two: "Withstand the Fall of Time" and "Where Dark and Light Don't Differ."
        The first track on the album, "Withstand the Fall of Time," is definitely the best. The song starts out with drony riffs followed by a noisy melody which sounds like it could be found in traditional black metal. Suddenly, about two minutes into the song, the melody changes to be much more thrashy with Metallica-esque riffs. One thing about Immortal is that a lot of their songs are about the same things: the cold, the darkness, Norway and how cold it is there, and/or Satan. This song is no different, it is about being cold at night in the Norwegian tundra, and how it isn't affected by the passing of time.
        "Where Dark and Light Don't Differ" is a song on the edge between black metal and blackened death metal. It has a very thrashy and melodic sound that pushes it into death metal territory. Towards the end of this song there is even a sweet guitar solo, which is something you never see in black metal. That guitar solo by its self could even be enough to make this song blackened death metal. This song is about an army which is going to war and traveling to conquer foreign lands. They mindlessly fight under the flag of their nation to conquer and spread wrath. Also, of course, it is cold and the war takes place during the winter.
        This is a great album by one of my favorite black metal bands, so I definitely recommend it. However, if you are the kind of person who demands true kvlt black metal, this album is probably not for you. A black metal album that has melodic songs, good recording quality, and guitar solos? Blasphemy! (Blasphemy against Satan of course)

 Track List:

1.)  Withstand the Fall of Time

2.)  Solarfall
3.)  Tragedies Blows at Horizon

4.)  Where Dark and Light Don't Differ
5.)  At the Heart of Winter
6.)  Years of Silent Sorrow