WINTER ETERNAL "Land Of Darkness" CD

WINTER ETERNAL's highly anticipated third album!
Thrillingly chilling yet breathtakingly emotional, Land of Darkness absolutely bristles with an ancient-days mysticism and melodicism that bring black metal's majestic past into the present. So authentic is WINTER ETERNAL's understanding of classic songcraft as well as sympathetic production, agonized and effervescent in equal measure, you'd be forgiven for thinking Land of Darkness was some lost relic released in 1997. However, again like its full-length predecessor but more so here, WINTER ETERNAL poignantly taps into that wellspring of creation the aforementioned legends did and feeds his own lifeforce into it, flexing fluid chops along the way - always in service of The Song, of course - and returns with a nine-song/40-minute document of dreams both dark and beautiful. Nodding to his forebears, Soulreaper reverentially concludes the album with a cover of Gates of Ishtar's "Dawn of Flames.".