This band is well-known for it "icy" brand of black metal. This particular album probably strays from the black metal genre because of its regular speed, but many black elements remain, and the six songs on this album are chilling epics. Without using keyboards this band has so much atmosphere and feeling. Despite the lack of variation in the drumming and pace changes, the band has enough song progression to be able to make 7 or 8 minute songs, which they do successfully. There's plenty of definition between songs, where they generally have a few riffs holding the songs together that are repeated a few times and define the song. Each song has its climaxes and excellent continuity between riffs. The vocals aren't ideal for this album; I think they needed to have more body and substance to them with more long notes. This would emphasise better the coldness and harshness of the music. I also didn't like the vocal enhancer that was used throughout Where Dark and Light Don't Differ. It's a beautifully written song, but marred by the vocals. The lighter acoustic sounding intros and passages throughout songs are very well done, and compliment the songs and the atmosphere perfectly. Overall this album is excellent for what it is trying to achieve.

This review is credited to:
Julian Forbes

You know, it's a good thing that metal isn't a superficial genre, because if it were, Immortal wouldn't have a career. I mean, just look at them. Guitarist / Vocalist / Bassist / Keyboardist / Songwriter (whee, lookie here, it's a black metal stereotype!) Abbath looks like the president of the KISS impersonators union (Local 618), and drummer Horgh... Well... Horgh looks like he should be munching on a bamboo shoot and have black and white spotted fur to match his corpsepaint. Luckily, the music on this album is great enough to (almost) atone for the innumerable fashion no-no's these guys commit.

After three consecutive albums of blazingly fast "tr00" Norwegian black metal fury, which, if it weren't for the conservative song and album lengths, would get rather tiresome, Immortal have apparently decided to ease up on the reins of their songwriting steeds a bit and slow them from a rapid sprint to a brisk gallop. The result is the best black metal offering of 1999 by any band ("tr00 Norwegian" or otherwise).

The majority of those who are familiar with the scene have attributed the deceleration of Immortal's barrage to the departure of longtime guitarist Demonaz as a result of acute tendonitis in his picking wrist. I, however, choose to shun such details. At the Heart of Winter is a superbly composed album with epic songwriting, brilliant riffing, and an atmosphere more effective in creating an icy and dark mood than any Mach 7 assault from their previous three offerings ever created (I've never heard the debut, which is said to be more in the style of AtHoW, so I can't comment on that one).

This album's main strength lies in the solidity of the compositions. The riffing is, for the most part, very catchy, but the songs still sound convincingly cold and "blackened." This is a result of what I call "The Dissection Formula." This entails that the most effective black metal songwriting utilizes riffs that are, in essence, fast, melodic, fluid, and (gasp!) catchy, but also very ambient and treble-heavy. The drums are very gallopy, but contain enough creative fills to compensate for rhythmic repetition. And each song has one riff that stands as a climactic point in the song's development.

These elements combine to create what is widely considered to be "epic" black metal, the standard for which was set by none other than Dissection (the best black metal band ever, in my opinion). With this album, however, Immortal manage to pull off the epic black metal sound without coming off as a Dissection clone (despite the fact that Abbath often sounds very similar to Jon Nödtveidt).

Immortal took a drastic step in going to Abyss Studios to record this album. Their first two albums were made infamous by their very lo-fi production that placed a huge emphasis on "grim and frostbitten" (not to mention windy) feel. And while I'm not a fan of Peter Tägtgren's production normally, I must say it works very well on this album. Everything here sounds crisp, bitter and just downright frostbitten (though more majestic than grim). While the electronically-enhanced vocals detract from the organic feel of the album, they're only a small part in the equation.

My only gripes about this album (and they're really minor ones) are that there are a couple of riffs on the album that seem to be too technical for Abbath to handle (one is at the beginning of "Tragedies Blow at the Horizon"), and that a couple of the tracks are a bit too long and therefore grow tiresome in the last couple of minutes. But this is only noticeable if you listen to the album in a dark room with no distractions (as would be the ideal listening environment for an Abigor album).

Basically, if you worshipped Immortal before, don't hesitate to go out and purchase this album - the change in style may shock you, but you will love it. And if you never liked Immortal because of their blistering hyper-speed style, and opted for more melodic black metal before, swallow your pretenses and enter the Heart of Winter.

This review is credited to:
The Havoc Vulture