At The Heart of Winter

[Slaughterday]

Had this on in the car today. Much as I love early Immortal, this album really feels like the sound they always wanted to play. Into Glory Ride influence is really strong on this one, all for the better if you ask me. I like Blizzard Beasts but rarely find myself reaching for it to be honest - this was a serious step up in many ways after that album.

The album doesn't overstay its welcome either. 6 well written tracks and that's it.

[Pedrito]

That's mad, was thinking of posting about this album today. Flawless, unreal sound on the thing.

[Carnage]

I haven't heard that since it came out, my recollection is that it leant towards a death metal, riff-oriented sound - relative to their previous demonfrostmoonforestblashyrkh sound anyway.

[Slaughterday]

I haven't heard that since it came out, my recollection is that it leant towards a death metal, riff-oriented sound - relative to their previous demonfrostmoonforestblashyrkh sound anyway.

You're probably thinking of Blizzard Beasts. At The Heart of Winter doesn't have much death metal going on.

[Carnage]

Possibly. I associate the cover of ATHOW with the one I'm thinking of, might just have my wires crossed.

[Pedrito]

It's almost classic metal meets BM. Huge, epic sounding songs.

[Blackout]

Much prefer Pure Holocaust and would consider PH to be their definitive sound. ATHOW is probably my least favourite of their 90s output.

[Eoin McLove]

I've never heard At the Heart of Winter by I like the descriptions above so I'll give it a spin later.

[Floss]

Its a dinger, i only had it on last week, very EPIC sounding.

Im a big fan of blizzard beasts too, it seems to get overlooked. Mountains of Might is so cool. Terrible production mind you, but great album.

[open face surgery]

Great album. Mist throw it on. Definitely as much heavy metal as black metal. Had a riff from Solarfall stuck in my head for what seemed like years. Like default music. Ha.

[Mr Barlow]

Savage album. Totally wore it out back in the day.  Sounds absolutely immense ! Great riffs...super atmospheric too. As some have mentioned, it's not pure BM by a long stretch. There's an epic classic metal influence in there. I love Abbath's croak on it !

[Grim Reality]

Got it from the sound cellar back when it came out. Knew COF and Emperor and wanted to try some more BM. Pure blind buy. Just pointed at the thing up behind the glass display as I'd heard of the name but that was all. It was a disappointment at the time. There was none of the keyboard atmospherics I was after and the infamous photos in the inlay were a huge turn off when I was expecting real mystery and evil. Not clowns goofing around.

But when I got a bit more metal experience I grew to love it and there's very few albums I was listening to in the late 90s that I still like now.

It's scarcely a black metal album. A black/heavy riff fest. I've never been too keen on any Immortal but I think they struck a great balance here between the BM aesthetics and accessible but not cheap or corny heavy metal riffing.

[Blackout]

I definitely like my black metal a bit more cold, raw and relentless but I do have exceptions such as Dimmu Borgir.  You need polished production to pull off any keyboards, orchestral backing etc with the exception of Emperor otherwise it just sounds muddy. That's why ATHOW is low down my list of best immortal albums.

[Grim Reality]

You need polished production to pull off any keyboards, orchestral backing etc with the exception of Emperor otherwise it just sounds muddy.

No.

There's tons of raw BM with great keyboard/synth. In fact, polished production is a disaster in BM more often than not.  And polished production plus keyboards is THE GREAT NO NO.

For (an underground) example I've just finished listening to the Kristallnacht discography compilation. Raw as hell with prominent synth. Great stuff.

[Blackout]

You need polished production to pull off any keyboards, orchestral backing etc with the exception of Emperor otherwise it just sounds muddy.

No.

There's tons of raw BM with great keyboard/synth. In fact, polished production is a disaster in BM more often than not.  And polished production plus keyboards is THE GREAT NO NO.

Nah they sound much better with a polished production to my ears and I did say "with exception".  Glad you have your preferences and I have mine though.