Review by ZeroSymbolic7188 for In the Woods... - HEart of the Ages (1995)

The first half of this album is some of the most beautiful and interesting music I have heard in any genre. I was holding my breath thinking to myself "dont screw this up, please don't screw this up." Then of course they did. Still I can not reiterate enough how blissful the first 3 tracks are, it's all that atmosphere and symphonic elements done right. It's when you reach the 4 track that the wheels falloff; soft soprano woman emerges from the shadows like the black angel of death that she is. I tolerate it this time because the beginning was so good, and I am hopeful it will return to form... the next track is 14minutes long where they just give up on everything established in the first half and become a generic black metal band. This is followed by "Pigeon" which would be fine if this was an Enya album, but when you want black metal and all the black metal goes away... kinda sucks. At that point I just felt jerked around. Betrayed even, so I told that last track to kiss my ass.