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/                                                                             \
| Artist..: Winter Eternal                                                    |
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<
| Album...: Realm of the Bleeding Shadows                                     |
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<
| Genre...: Black Metal                | Label...: Azermedoth Records         |
| Year....: 2019                       | Cat.No..:                            |
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<
| R.date..: 2023-07-20                 | S.date..: 2019-06-01                 |
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| Source..: WEB (16bit)                | Encoder.: libFLAC                    |
| Bitrate.: 936 kbps avg.              | F.Rate..: 44.1kHz                    |
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| http://deezer.com/album/99076482                                            |
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<
| Disc 1 / 1                                                                  |
| --------                                                                    |
|                                                                             |
| 01. Futile Quest                                                    4:30    |
| 02. Realm of the Bleeding Shadows                                   5:04    |
| 03. Darkness Guides Me                                              3:48    |
| 04. The Promise                                                     3:01    |
| 05. Embrace the Old Ways                                            4:53    |
| 06. The Secrets of Time                                             4:06    |
| 07. A Tearful Song                                                  4:42    |
| 08. Monument to the Ruined Age                                      2:36    |
|                                                                             |
|                                                                             |
|                                                      ---------------------  |
|                                                      (235.26MB) 00:32:40    |
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| Another fantastic example of Greek music comes from this one-man            |
| band/project called Winter Eternal. Playing a kind of quite traditional     |
| and melodic black metal “Realm of the Bleeding Shadows” is the second full  |
| length by DIY man Soulreaper.                                               |
|                                                                             |
| The typical tremolo picks and the pummeling blasts can be found here as     |
| well and build the basis of Winter Eternal's music. While each black metal  |
| band puts a lot of emphasis on building a sinister atmosphere Soulreaper    |
| has gone even a bit further compared to his peers. I would not go as far    |
| as labelling this album as atmospheric black metal as the main focus is     |
| still on the riffs and the relentless drum attacks but there are a lot of   |
| desperate and haunting harmonies dwelling in the background. Eerie themes   |
| presented by the lead guitar are always present – sometimes more subtle     |
| and in other places as leading elements defining certain parts of the       |
| song.                                                                       |
|                                                                             |
| The drumming is tight and precise without being pushed too much into the    |
| foreground. The instrumentation is flawless without ever turning into       |
| redundant wankery. The songs are written in a very stringent and (for that  |
| kind of music) accessible way making them immediately enjoyable for the     |
| consumer despite their sheer brutality and grimness. The single parts of    |
| the songs are woven together in a way to make each song stand on its own    |
| feet and the technical complexity is used as additional tool to underline   |
| certain sections.                                                           |
|                                                                             |
| One issue I often have with black metal is that a lot of bands seem to      |
| think it is enough to play and look as evil as possible. This is not the    |
| case here as Soulreaper perfectly knows how to piece together all the       |
| elements to weave intricate yet highly enjoyable soundscapes. The listener  |
| will get hypnotized by dark and powerful themes and melodies. There is a    |
| great amount of melancholy defined by the guitar harmonies in each of the   |
| songs and by repeating similar trademark lines in later sections the whole  |
| album gains a lot when being consumed in one go. The songs are              |
| professionally constructed and while there is a lot going on there are      |
| enough hooks and clear song structures to make the music pretty easy to     |
| get into.                                                                   |
|                                                                             |
| The vocals are desperate sounding like an ancient demon or a desperate      |
| soul lost in eternal darkness. The spot-on and intense delivery highlights  |
| the rawness of the music. The same can be said about the production which   |
| is filthy and natural-sounding yet clear and powerful and the fitting       |
| cover artwork. All in all “Realm of the Bleeding Shadows” is a great        |
| example of traditional black metal slightly adopted for present times and   |
| one of my favorites in this genre for 2019.                                 |
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                                                                      ixxu!imp