ColdWorld - Melancholie² (2008)^{Release ID: 2839}

Coldworld is the solo black metal project of reclusive German, Georg Börner, Melancholie² is his first full-length under that name and is a release that he will find it extremely difficult to better. This is an album of frigid, lo-fi atmospheric black metal, with tremolo-picked riffs and harsh, distant vocals that perfectly evoke the frostiness of the cover's snowbound landscape. And yet it is also much more than that, with a morose and melancholy air, provided mainly by the keys, that gives the album an additional layer of contrasting, yet complementary, atmosphere over the icy blasting of the guitar and vocals.

This melding of two very distinctive and differing styles of metal is not unique in itself, but has produced a uniquely bleak, yet reflective, album of unexpected subtlety that goes beyond the norms of nature-themed black metal to a more inward-looking place.