Search - Immortal :: At the Heart of Winter

Stunning!.

Puzzle box | Kuwait | 04/14/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Immortal is a truly unique and great Norwegian black metal group, the lyrics in their songs have been inspired by occult themes and the Norwegian forests with its bitter cold climate and heavy winter. If you can look beyond the gimmicky face paint (they do look ridiculous almost like satanic members of Kiss) you'll realise what a great album this is, At The Heart Of Winter has great production value and a fantastic epic sound unlike their previous albums which were underproduced, the album also has some intricate guitar riffing and tempo changes while still retaining the blastbeats thats found in other Black Metal groups, the album was also produced by Peter Tagtgren who also produced for groups like Hypocrisy and Satyricon so if you liked those two then your going to love this.



There are songs like Solarfall and Tragedies blows at horizon which showcases the creative arrangements while singer and lead guitarist Abbath screeches like a beast, the songs still have a hint of melody but manage to sound heavy. The song Where dark and light don't differ sounds like the group might be preparing for battle or something and the drummer Horg comes up with some amazing drum patterns along with Abbath's great riffs which makes this one of the best black metal songs I've ever heard and The title track At The Heart Of Winter which starts of with a melodic intro and a synthesizer is quite bizarre and sounds very atmospheric in fact I just got a chill listening to it then the song starts blasting off with its heavy and cascading riffs and I must say that it was one of the best black metal tracks I've heard so far then the album closes off with the epic song Years of silent sorrow.



Immortal has definitely been influenced by Bathory especially on this album where you can tell that they experimented a little, anyway At The Heart Of Winter was absolutely perfect and it doesn't have a single bad song on it so if you like extreme or black metal music then you should definitely check it out, like I said Immortal are one of the best black metal groups out there."

An epic journey through the land of frozen blackened thrash

Mike | Here and There | 11/26/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Let's start with the drama that happened before this recording. Abbath and Demonaz found their new drummer Horgh and released Blizzard Beats, which didn't fare as well as the group hoped. Well, the band regrouped to start working on this album when Demonaz suffered career-ending tendinitis. With the future of Immortal in doubt, the group forged ahead with Demonaz writing the lyrics, Horgh playing drums, and Abbath having to sing, play guitar, and play bass on the recording. The recording process was tedious and frustrating. All and all, Immortal needed to come out with that magnum opus just to stay sane...



... well, they did it, and this is that album.



You wouldn't think of it due to the 6-track length, but the album is over 45 minutes long. I can't single out a single track on this album as to which is more superior than the other because the album tells like a story. "Withstand the Fall of Time" is the perfect opening track because of how grandiose the opening of the song is; while "Years of Silent Sorrow" have the perfect ending because it brings down the house just like any live metal show. Remarkable riffs and some of the most intense drumming put to tape is all found here and everything that's right about metal is demonstrated on this album. The only way it could be more metal is if it started rusting, but then you couldn't listen to the CD so that's probably a good thing.



I recommend this album to all metal fans and all fans of music. I also recommend getting the CD as opposed to Amazon/iTunes download because while these guys made one of the best metal albums ever, they also shot some of the most unintentionally hilarious promo photos ever too and those can be found in the liner notes!"