Band:	Immortal
Album:	At The Heart Of Winter
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	February 22, 1999
Guest review by:	wormdrink414

01. Withstand The Fall Of Time
02. Solarfall
03. Tragedies Blows At Horizon
04. Where Dark And Light Don't Differ
05. At The Heart Of Winter
06. Years Of Silent Sorrow

I'm afraid I lack the linguistic resources to clearly explain what makes the album the work of genius that it is, so I will be brief and remain vague. Luckily there is very little that needs to be written about this album. It has been around for a decade and has developed a sufficient following to articulate its greatness. Any fan of black metal, or indeed metal in general, should find this album, buy it or steal it, and worship it.

Regardless if it is black metal or not, Immortal 's At the Heart of Winter marked the end of an era and the beginning of a new and greatly improved one. Immortal distinguished themselves as more than a generic act and as one of the most creative metal bands around with this album. It is nothing short of brilliant and arguably Immortal 's masterpiece.

Unlike most of the other major black metal acts (of old and new), Immortal clearly emphasizes their music over their ideology. Swept up by what one assumes was artistic integrity, At the Heart of Winter is, if anything, a statement against the second wave of black metal which kindly sheltered Immortal during their early years of traditional black sound and funny music videos. The album abandons the punk-rock-like disregard for talent that early black metal acts harnessed for their statement, boasting riffs paralleled only by some of the more famous thrash metal acts of the late eighties and early nineties. It takes a relentless thrash metal / early death metal riff formula and mixes it with black metal grime, occasionally pausing for chillingly atmospheric (without a gratuitous amount of synthesizer) clean guitar parts which break powerfully back into a metal energy with Abbath's outstanding voice at the helm.

Each song takes the listener on a more brutal magical mystery tour than a band like The Beatles could have imagined, conquering cold atmospheres with the friction of distortion played fast. Whatever tragic element that might exist in the slow minor parts is quickly fought by relentless speed and Abbath's inhuman black metal growls. Nonetheless, each tour (if you will) merges with the other, making the decision to listen to tracks separately or the whole album at once an important and relevant one.

The fact that the album does not sound like the black metal releases that came before should be irrelevant. I realize genre distinction is important, to some more than others, and the rather obvious thrash influence that permeates itself in At the Heart of Winter is frowned upon by some so-called black metal die-hards, but nothing should work toward the detriment of what is a beautiful collection of music. At the Heart of Winter should be a testament to what a metal band can create should it leave the box of genre (I do not encourage all bands to do this; Immolation shouldn't release a nu-metal album or anything).

At the Heart of Winter transcends the sometimes constraining labels of genre, weaving in and out of nostalgic looks at metal's past while (since it has been 10 years since the albums release, it seems safe to state) building a bridge for black metal into the 21st century. At the Heart of Winter is a fucking symphony of the highest order.