Graveland
The Celtic Winter
[No Colours]
The CD/LP I am reviewing here is not the first edition of ”The Celtic Winter”,
which was an mCD. This is the full-length which is the one you will currently
find on your local metal store’s shelf unless they are boycotting Graveland for
political reasons.
Some of this stuff is also on ”In the Glare of Burning Churches” CD but at least between these two records I would not make rip-off accusations because it sounds quite different and atmospherically these are different works of art/magic. ”The Celtic Winter” is mentioned by many as the masterwork of Graveland and I see very well where this is coming from, even if personally I would choose ItGoBC or ”Carpathian Wolves” as their best.
This is a cold album, funeral-like, where ItGoBC was fiery and hateful. The material is very well controlled. The drums are surprisingly tight and match the tempo of the guitars and synths, which also have a more polished and clean edge to their performance than maybe could have been expected. They do not sound bland, but there is rather a black monolithic stability and majesty to their execution that gives this a deadly serious sound.
The intro could be the best that Darken ever did (and his intros rule!), a hazy, dreamy medieval vision with a natural ambience well recognized by those who feel themselves embraced by spirits, when away from human population and society. ”Call of the Black Forest” and the songs after build up from this feeling a summons to war, a challenge to stir up and inspire that little power that is still left in man, to create his own life and his own death. It is revolutionary, it is something I see directly connected with historical songs born in slavery, yet not being songs of slavery, but of freedom beyond the freedom of the ”masters” and ”kings” of their time.
Graveland performs it’s black metal here with a hard steel edge, with a coldness of heart, but the keyboards have a sense of grandeur and majesty to them that has been attributed to an Emperor influence. But Emperor was never as war-like and straight-forward as this is. ”The Celtic Winter” is a breakthrough in metal, in terms of composition, pace and mood. It is violent without being loud and crude, it is clear and chill as a celtic winter without lacking emotion or colour.
The fifth track, ”Prolog”, is a tribal-primitive instrumental primarily concentrated on drums, and it leads the way to the last two tracks, ”The Gates to the Kingdom of Darkness” and ”Return of the Funeral Winds”. Those two tracks are vampiric funeral darkness in the way that has been approached by black metal ever since it’s inception, but very rarely has succeeded to capture. This is what vampire metal should be like, with cold brutal church organ-imitating synth, inhuman vocals and riffs that are simply OCCULT in their gloomy force. Classic.
© 1999 black hate
Some of this stuff is also on ”In the Glare of Burning Churches” CD but at least between these two records I would not make rip-off accusations because it sounds quite different and atmospherically these are different works of art/magic. ”The Celtic Winter” is mentioned by many as the masterwork of Graveland and I see very well where this is coming from, even if personally I would choose ItGoBC or ”Carpathian Wolves” as their best.
This is a cold album, funeral-like, where ItGoBC was fiery and hateful. The material is very well controlled. The drums are surprisingly tight and match the tempo of the guitars and synths, which also have a more polished and clean edge to their performance than maybe could have been expected. They do not sound bland, but there is rather a black monolithic stability and majesty to their execution that gives this a deadly serious sound.
The intro could be the best that Darken ever did (and his intros rule!), a hazy, dreamy medieval vision with a natural ambience well recognized by those who feel themselves embraced by spirits, when away from human population and society. ”Call of the Black Forest” and the songs after build up from this feeling a summons to war, a challenge to stir up and inspire that little power that is still left in man, to create his own life and his own death. It is revolutionary, it is something I see directly connected with historical songs born in slavery, yet not being songs of slavery, but of freedom beyond the freedom of the ”masters” and ”kings” of their time.
Graveland performs it’s black metal here with a hard steel edge, with a coldness of heart, but the keyboards have a sense of grandeur and majesty to them that has been attributed to an Emperor influence. But Emperor was never as war-like and straight-forward as this is. ”The Celtic Winter” is a breakthrough in metal, in terms of composition, pace and mood. It is violent without being loud and crude, it is clear and chill as a celtic winter without lacking emotion or colour.
The fifth track, ”Prolog”, is a tribal-primitive instrumental primarily concentrated on drums, and it leads the way to the last two tracks, ”The Gates to the Kingdom of Darkness” and ”Return of the Funeral Winds”. Those two tracks are vampiric funeral darkness in the way that has been approached by black metal ever since it’s inception, but very rarely has succeeded to capture. This is what vampire metal should be like, with cold brutal church organ-imitating synth, inhuman vocals and riffs that are simply OCCULT in their gloomy force. Classic.
© 1999 black hate