The band Winterus formerly known as The Ancient are a Michigan band that seems to be wishing it was from the coldest regions of Norway. That is to say they traffic in a cleaned up version of what tends to be called blackened death metal. The band does not rely on keyboards to make their songs interesting which is a nice change of pace.
The record starts strong with a calm atmospheric instrumental this allows the listener to feel the cold tone the band is going for right from the start. The record gets nasty from there. "Reborn" starts with a cough and a riff. The band adds layers of guitars that lean toward melodic riffs. This helps to create a somewhat atmospheric sound without being spacey or otherworldly. The drums stay interesting straying away from the blast beat heavy repertoire of most black metal style bands. This allows the song to breathe and the drummer to prove what he is capable of within the context of the disc. The vocals remain gruff and throaty throughout not doing too much to diversify within the songs. This is the first big complaint. While i certainly don't anticipate pig squeals or any singing in the album some vocals changes could create a nice counterpoint in the song structures and make for a more fulfilling listen overall.
The biggest complaint is the production choices for the record. The recording plays in a way that makes the whole thing feel very distant to the listener. While when speaking of black metal sometimes any clarity is better than none this helps the record fall short. This is because each instrument is recorded with immense clarity while it is shrugged into the background of the listener rather than being fully embraced in the recording. While they may be doing this in a effort to sound more evil or stay brutal it only makes for a more frustrating listen.
Overall the band do a decent job of combing black metal and death metal into their little musical paradigm there is still some ways to go to make them truly stick out amongst the pack of bands in that genre.
The final note is related to the choice to tack on 3 live tracks to the end of the disc. I am uncertain if this was an EP and the label wanted it to be a full length or the band didn't get to record the last 3 in a studio. All this really does is add 3 under produced and shifty sounding songs to the end of a rather intriguing debut EP.
