Black metal, heavily influenced by German thrash, but not sounding like one of those crappy "retro" bands. Production is OK except when the drummer goes nuts on his snare, and if you're a fan of black metal . . you know that is often. There is an annoying ring after each snare hit which kind of drowns out the other instruments unless you consciously tune it out. Perhaps they did that on purpose . . you know, to be ultra evil and annoy the listener. Riffs range from speedily strummed chords which remind of Behemoth at times to single string quasi-melodies that bring to mind Enslaved all the while being quite thrashy. A nice surprise. Oh one more thing, I hate most color photos of corpsepainted band members. Few have done it succesfully, and Pagan Winter, while quite a rocking band, don't.

© 2000 j. mcintyre