Review by Rexorcist for In the Woods... - HEart of the Ages (1995)
Since one of my assignments for completing the prog metal challenge on Metal Academy is the In the Woods album Omnio, I decided to start with their debut and then finish it off with their third album. This might be a black metal album, but it's part of another clan challenge for black metal, and even though I'm not part of that clan, I want to get through at least one for each clan anyway. So here we go.
Now this is ATMO-BLACK, and it starts off with a nice, albeit generic, bit of dungeon synth to kick of the atmospheres. This is the 12 minute Yearning the Seeds of a New Dimension. Afterwards, it turns into a standard post / doom metal riff with a deeper voice that seems a little more fit for atmo-viking metal (heh, if such a thing exists... which it probably does) rather than black, but we hadn't even gotten to the black yet, and it finally kicks in at minute seven of twelve. So while this was a nice, pretty and mutative track, don't expect anything standard. While the production and atmospheres need A LITTLE tuning for that perfect presence, the composition is perfectly fine Next comes the title track. The effects are lo-fi and need a real professional, but these effects only last a few seconds before the blackened assault drowns us in the cold. The same melodic deep vocals of Jan Kenneth "Transit" Transeth have returned, but I think they need a backing reverb for the effects to work their full magic, like Bergtatt or even anything by My Bloody Valentine. Without the production, his voice is more suited towards the doomier parts of the album.
And now for the band's titular track. So this is basically how we're doing this: dungeon synth, post / doom riff, atmo-black metal riff, post / doom riff, atmo-black riff, lather, rinse, repeat. While we get a lot of nice vibes here, not only does the simple production keep every clear sound from maximazing the atmospheres, but we largely know what's happening next. Little surprises like female vocals in the next track really don't mean as much as they should in the grander scheme of the album. Thankfully, we get a little mix once the longest song on the album comes. Wotan's Return is largely based in black's ability to thrash like mad, and these guys aren't afraid to crank it up so high they break the dial. Of course, this doesn't generally mean the actual rhythmic composition is at a high point. There are some great moments here with some nice rhythms, but the time they take to simply thrash and scream can easily be drawn out. It goes into a lot of weird and quiet effects halfway through, like it's suddenly an Autechre album. This happens for a couple minutes until we're brought back to a less monstrous but still atmospheric breand of the black metal that took up the first half. Still, the composition itself isn't really anything groundbreaking, especially since we go right back to the thrashing immediately afterwards. Then there's Pigeon... which is just three minutes of decent piano.
Finally, we have The Divinity of Wisdom. The synths are used as a violin instrument to back up the slower tempos of the black metal guitars for roughly a minute before the singing begins. But I can't hear them very well on this track, which is further proof that the album shouldn't have been produced by Trond Breen. It's probably the best tune on the track for its composition, though.
I was hoping for something a bit more interesting considering that some consider this a unique album, but it feels like HEart of the Ages is one of those albums that delivers an idea without perfect delivery, which leaves all those influenced by the album to expand on plus perfect the idea, much like the Blasphemy debut did with war metal. This isn't halfbad because it's still a nice and unique idea that rarely drags, and it's quite enjoyable, but it certainly needs a little work in places.
On that note, a viking metal album about winter aesthetics, now I KNOW it's a thing.