Band:	Untamed Land
Album:	Between The Winds
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	February 21, 2018
A review by:	RaduP

01. Sunrise Hymn
02. In Darkness Awakened
03. Ride Of Prophecy
04. At The Village
05. A Voice Of Might
06. Glowing Shadows
07. Sundown

If you really wanted to hear what it would sound like if Sergio Leone directed a Summoning album, you're in luck.

Replace all the frost, forest, swords, and Tolkien with heat, deserts, guns, and cowboys. Instead of taking you to Middle-Earth or the frosty mountains of Norway, Untamed Land takes us to the frontier, the ol' wild west. Or rather to Almeria, Spain, where most of the Dollars trilogy was filmed. Why do I tie this western feel mostly to Leone's films and not some other director like John Ford? Because Ennio Morricone, of course! And also because the cover art is reminiscent of that era.

Between The Winds is epic, needless to say. The more spaghetti western parts hit closer to cuts like "The Ecstasy Of Gold", thus always keeping the album more reliant on action and awe rather than boring stuff like character development. And the more metal parts thus feel a lot warmer than the atmosphere a Summoning record would put, despite not being very far away compositionally. The western influences don't always seep through, and at points the epicness might remind you more of the mines of Moria until you get hit by a acoustic melody or a wind instrument and suddenly you're in a Mexican standoff.

My main issue with the album is the subpar production. But then again this is a bandcampcore debut album by a one-man band so I wouldn't put much blame on Untamed Land for sounding so MIDI-ish at times. Hell, this is the best and most convincing bad production I've heard and it doesn't take away too much from the awe-inspiring and exciting feel of the music.

Whatever the album may lose in a slightly amateurish production, it gains in originality, replayability, and a very convincing mixture, likely to be approved by both Clint Eastwood and Viggo Mortensen. I really wish someone would direct a movie based on this and have Untamed Land do the score.

Saddle your horse, put on your poncho, light your cigar, and embark on an adventure in search of gold in the untamed lands between the winds.