I reviewed Old Wainds’s 2008 album “Death Kult Nord”. It was as good an example of relentless old school Black Metal as you will get. “Where the Snows are Never Gone …” is a 1997 album which has been re-released by the band from Murmansk in Russia. I couldn’t imagine that it was going to be anything less than a brutal experience.
Whistling winds and murky sounds open up this album. The murkiness is matched by total clarity of violence and force. The constant drone and primitive drums give “Unholy Norland Fire” a unique quality, but most unique of all are the painfully spat out croaking vocals which could cut through trees. “Winter Warriors” is more upbeat. The drums hammer away. It’s fast and furious There’s no subtlety in this Black wall of sound. Those vocals now seem to be stripping paint off walls. Ringing rhythms of darkness typically act as the foil for unspeakably dark and violent utterances. So it is with “Gods Gazing from Beyond”. The dual-layered approach continues on “Eternal Wanderer of Winter Nights”. The start is majestic. The guitars and drums thunder on before it slows down. We hear the bells like a diatribe but it is interminably and infernally dark. There’s nothing new on the techniques but the output is frost-bitten and unrelenting. The all-out assault continues on the title track. Here the progression is like a train hurtling towards disaster. The drums provide the definition. The guitars run up and down the scale meanwhile.
Relentless hatred and warmongering are everywhere. There’s no time for fancy stuff. “At the Gates of Frosty Mountains” continues the trend. Grim, venomous vocals and incendiary instrumentals leave no room for breath or mercy. “Guardian of the Icy Kingdom” follows. The ringing guitars are the backdrop for the violent battery and unending evil images of Northern frost and emptiness. The only change in tempo appears on the final track “Cold Mourning of the Pale Moon”. Largely instrumental, it has a deliberate, creeping rhythm. For the first time there’s a hint of the band Mayhem in the style. We hear ghostly wailings. The vocalist enters the bleak proceedings and tells us of the loneliness and cold. The track is more atmospheric and melancholic than the others. A section of distorted vocals and an acceleration of pace with the bleak sound disappearing into the cold night ensure that the album finishes in fearsome fashion.
I’ve often read statements that true Black Metal, with its hatred and venom, is something that is natural and from within. It cannot be manufactured. There’s nothing manufactured about “Where the Snows are Never Gone ..”. It’s just grim, raw, dark and violent. If an “Essential Black Metal” was ever compiled, I’d argue that this album should be part of it.
http://www.myspace.com/oldwainds
http://www.negative-existence.com
Andrew Doherty
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