Honing a familiar craft…
You probably should not expect the most original, genre-bending, unique record when you’re about to deep-dive into a Winter’s Breath release. There will be many similarities to earlier, well-established acts – very much akin to the sound of second-wave black metal stalwarts – and you will not find this band going to any extremes in terms of speed, ferocity, heaviness, or experimentation. There will be a drum machine doing all of the percussion parts. It’s a one-man band. Acoustic intros, samples, and what have you. Red flags for some listeners, but does ticking off clichèd boxes really matter when the sum of all these parts still yields a pretty strong record?
It…depends.
Eine Düstre Winternacht is already the third offering of the Viennese project established by Burkhard Lettner. The lyrics are once again (well-)written and delivered in German, and they work just fine within this traditional, yet ominous atmosphere, which is greatly enhanced by clean vocals, settled somewhere between spoken word and choir reminiscence. I actually prefer these over the classic, croakier exhibits, as the Urfaust-isms work well with the wide range of (plenty harmonized) tremolo-picked melodies, frequently emitting a form of epicness that feels most welcome to my set of ears.
While the most traditional blasting doesn’t wow me as it did two decades earlier, the melodic sections, often accented by piano, synth, or simplistic clean guitars, let the album breathe and add the necessary emotional depth to make Eine Düstre Winternacht a sustainable experience. While “Kalter Schrei” blasts away with neither much of an impact nor true memorability, songs like “Der Fall” and “Befreiung” are the best examples of both worlds merging together well, with the latter offering a surprising textbook-The Sisters of Mercy-bass line that somehow injects “This Corrosion” into a black metal context for a bit – more of that, please! Actually, “Befreiung” manages to be the longest, yet most interesting song on the album, with none of its running time wasted, feeling like a supreme summary of the album’s most exciting and important ingredients.
Burkhard released another album under the Fallaness moniker last year, which I praised for its doom metal influx and strong instrumental storytelling, further removed from the traditions of Scandinavian black metal and embracing a more experimental approach that was creating a different and ultimately more rewarding world without leaving the black metal space entirely; Eine Düstre Winternacht is not quite on the same level. It’s competently executed, and a worthy addition to this project’s catalog, but its satisfactory competence depends greatly on your candidness for another 50 minutes of modern-day second-wave black metal that might just not tread on enough new ground to truly set itself apart from the subgenre’s classics and the sturdiest latter-day contenders.
It’s actually rather simple – listen to “Befreiung” and if this track sticks with you, chances are that you will get some more proper enjoyment out of Winter’s Breath‘s latest work.
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76/100
Total Score
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