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Vinsta wiads – it gets dark. On its debut album, VINSTA leads us into the mountains of the Salzburg Alps.

The seven dramatic compositions allure with sceneries rich in contrast and with vocals sung in the regional dialects of the home lands of band founder Christian Höll.

Thus, the music might sound familiar and eclectic at once: While some influences obviously shine through, VINSTA undoubtedly develops its own approach, blending grim melodic death metal with folk inspired acoustic arrangements (performed a.o. on violin and hammered dulcimer).

Christian realizes his stirring compositions with the help of talented musicians who share his passionate approach to creating music.

“Vinsta Wiads” explores dark aspects of challenges which might bring you to your knees – and finally let you grow. In Christian’s own words: “It's passionate music which takes the listener on a journey through darksome, yet beautiful emotions.”

Thy Darkened Shade's third full length album, Liber Lvcifer II-Mahapralaya, coming as Gatefold Double LP, with printed inner sleeves & 20 pages booklet.

Gold/Black Splatter

FIDES INVERSA strike with their second album, Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans. Classicist yet paying no lip service to tradition, FIDES INVERSA invested their very souls in the creation of this second opus: exhaustive spiritual research and a total immersion inside the darkest manifestations of what the German theologist Rudolf Otto called "the numinous." The divine, in its most terrifying forms, takes life from chaotic sounds and revealed words whose intent is to represent the mystic terror and the undefeatable fascination of Death, the human nullification, in favor of a complete prostration to the One whose light is spread out of the darkest vacuum. Ascend and descend with FIDES INVERSA's Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans...

 

New Album
 

Norway's ILDFAR are something of an enigma. The band formed all the way back in 1994, by vocalist / multi-instrumentalist Favn, but left behind only one demo in 2003. However, upon reactivating in 2018, ILDFAR began blazing a trail of ancient-days Norse black metal with a quick succession of albums. So pure, so cold, this trio of records landed on such esteemed labels as Northern Silence and Wolfspell, but now under the banner of PURITY THROUGH FIRE, ILDFAR are prepared to blaze a new "old" trail.

Witness Der ligger et land. Immediately, ILDFAR's fourth album distinguishes itself with the much-more-measured mid-tempo pace and, most strikingly, largely clean vocals. However, before any worries of a slackening of black metal ethos arise, one need only listen to Der ligger et land to understand that Favn is picking up the torch left behind by Isengard's Høstmørke and expanding the (old, icy) canvas in compellingly new ways. To be sure, there's plenty of ILDFAR's previous, strictly-Norse fire here - just the recording alone evokes a solemn nostalgia for those forgotten realms - but Favn is stretching apart those sensations in a manner that's mystical, mesmerizing, and AMAZING. ​Also to be sure, there've been other sympatico souls who've likewise reinvigorated Isengard's template - ​namely, the axis of LIK, Lönndom, and Ehlder as well as Sweden's stalwart Grift - but ILDFAR's songwriting here is noticeably more melodic, utilizing clean(er) guitars to stunning effect, and overall textures that suggest stargazing rather than forest-roaming. 

Whatever way you arrive at Der ligger et land, it's guaranteed you'll be possessed to press "play" over and over again, luxuriating deeper into those textures and finding ever more new details with each spin. In short, ILDFAR have delivered an unsuspecting masterpiece.