Immortal
At The Heart of Winter

In 1999, Immortal delighted us with one of the most beautiful black albums of all time. A chilling masterpiece of aggression and traces of musical poetry.

At the Heart of Winter. It almost seems like an anthem to the icy winds of their lands. It's like an anthem to the cold and frost. Not only in the environmental sense, but almost physically. A frost turned into music, turned into pure and simple art. I think no black metal band has ever achieved such a level of expressiveness, sadness, desolation, and bewilderment, of complete frost. It seems that every single note was conceived with a cold snowflake in our ears. Forget the early Immortal, with the outbursts of musical violence and allergy to melody: this album overflows with excellent innovations, with unexpected melodic openings that strengthen the winter I feel every time I listen to them.

But in its apparent and sweet coldness, it reveals itself to be almost as devastating as a storm. Never has a black album been so symbolic for me, to the point of evoking such absurdities. But it's all true, right from the opener "Withstand The Fall Of Time", with that intro that makes you shiver. The glaciality is at its highest levels, even in the vocal parts, where Abbath gives his best. I didn't think that after Demonaz's departure a similar masterpiece could emerge, yet this reality is confirmed already with the second track "Solarfall", which seems almost an omen of an endless winter, just like "Tragedies Blows At Horizon" seems to evoke the descent of snow-covered darkness. Even the titles seem symptomatic of this incredible snow that overwhelms me at the listening of such majesty. I cannot remain objective in front of such frozen and crystallized beauty, and so I continue to venture into the storm with "When Dark & Light Don't Differ" and feel the darkness engulf me. But I really reach the peak of amazement with "At the Heart of Winter". An absolute masterpiece, this song, an anthem to glaciality. There is still room for the last blade of ice in the shoulder, to then turn off the stereo shivering and try to recover from what has been heard.

Cold, glacial, snowy. This album will not fail to move you, amaze you, shock you. And you will see that the winter I felt and that many have felt will captivate you too.