The Howling Wind

Another album that featured my Best Of 2010 was "Into The Cryosphere" by The Howling Wind. This band features members from bands that i also love, Unearthly Trance and Aldebaran. Although their sludge/doom background, The Howling Winds consists on a black metal act. Well, not trve black metal as we know it, it is more atmospheric, slow and mid-paced kind of black metal, if you would like a comparison well, the first band that comes to my mind is something in the likes of Altar Of Plagues.

Being its fourth release, it seems that these guys are getting better as time passes by, well just take a look: Unearthly Trance's "V" album is awesome, it earned its place in my Best Of 2010, and Aldebaran's "Buried Beneath Aeons" happens to be as awesome too and will surely be featured in many Best Of 2011, i know in mine it will.

Back to "Into The Cryosphere, there seems to be a more genuine sense of darkness and chaos to this record, the songs have a pretty consistent feel to them, but at the same time the material is more varied than most bands dabbling in black metal would dare to write. There are plenty of parts with the Darkthrone-esque Satan-blast drumming; there's some mid-tempo rocking that evokes old Celtic Frost attitude and almost reminds me of Craft stuff; and there are crushingly slow doom parts with riffs Neurosis wish they wrote. While comparisons can be made with these other bands, this record never sounds like a lame rip-off of those bands. At the same time, while the material is diverse, it doesn't sound like a thrown-together conglomeration of different styles. Everything fits together as a cohesive whole. This is a strong release, and I recommend it to anyone into dark sounding metal. A perfect album to hear in Winter time.  Meanwhile these guys are moving and we'll hope to have new stuff soon.

band blog | cold winds blazing