Winterhorde - Underwatermoon

September 26, 2010

Progressive, symphonic black metal is a genre that can grate on my last nerve just as easily as it can impress me immensely, but rarely am I indifferent to it.  That happens to be the case with Winterhorde’s newest album, Underwatermoon.  When the progressiveness gets out of hand and the songs just meander aimlessly, I lose interest quickly, but when the songs are well thought-out and crafted with a purpose and direction, I can fall in love just as quickly.  Underwatermoon is somewhere in between as I never wanted to turn it off, yet nothing of worth ever implanted itself into my memory.  Clocking in at almost seventy minutes, my limits were certainly pushed, but each song seemed to have just enough strength to make me think that something great was just around the corner.

Underwatermoon is a mostly symphonic and keyboard-laden melodic black metal album with moments of real aggression that are at times interrupted by pretentious piano intervals that segment the longer songs on the album.  The drums blast, the guitars roar and the symphonics sweep through giving a very grandiose atmosphere to the album while in a tightly packaged framework.  That’s the first half of the album.  After the fifth track, another instrumental interlude is followed by the first nine-plus minute song, “The Curse of Gypsy” and this is where the album begins to fall apart or at the very least, just become background music.  Underwatermoon is a concept album and like most concept albums, they become a victim of their own rules.  Since a story needs to be told, concept albums are generally too long for their own good and the songs suffer as they’re stuck in a certain frame of mind for that particular part of the story.  Once these elongated songs become the focus of the second half of the album, the song writing takes a back seat to the story itself and that’s how concept albums fail.  After the lively and catchy nature of the first half of the album, Underwatermoon drags down considerably and you’re left trying to cling to any memorable section you can find.

Winterhorde is certainly talented and are very capable musicians who get an A for effort and a C for song writing.  It’s like they went in to the writing of this album with a preconceived idea of wanting to make an “epic” album and tried to force that notion into a certain amount of the songs.  It comes off as a try-hard effort that they just about pulled off, but nothing about it registers more than a blip on the saturated radar that is the epic prog black metal genre.  It’s too long and becomes too much of a chore to absorb all at once, especially when the level of memorable moments are riding on empty.  So when I say that I’m indifferent to Underwatermoon, that doesn’t mean that I would never listen to it again (and I probably will), but it seems like this was an opportunity lost for Winterhorde.  There just really isn’t anything special about this album despite the knee-jerk obligation you might feel when observing the physical aspects of it i.e. the length, the cover art and the genre itself.  I’m giving it a rating of 3 because I honestly think that people who listen to this will become intrigued at what they might do in the future and that’s almost as good as making new fans.

Release Date: July 30th, 2010
Label: Twilight-Vertrieb

TRACK LISTING

1.  The Shell
2.  Wreckages Ghost
3.  Underwatermoon
4.  Hunting the Human
5.  Execution
6.  And Flames Wept to Heaven
7.  The Curse of Gypsy
8.  Delirium
9.  Tenth Wave
10.  Smoke Figures
11.  The Martyr and Deliverance
12.  Farewell

Total playing time:  1:07:08

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*Comments:

Reviewer: Jesse