Vintersorg
Visions From The Spiral Generation

The latest album from the Swedish genius Vintersorg lasts a mere 47 minutes, but in my opinion, the twenty seconds within "Spegelspaeren" are worth more than all the other 46 minutes and 40 seconds of the CD.
It is a very simple black riff enriched by sporadic keyboard interventions and with Mr. Di Giorgio's bass, who must have recently acquired the gift of ubiquity, appearing on any metal record and breaking record after record held by giants like Gene Hoglan, Hellhammer, or Garm from Ulver.

A very simple black riff, as we were saying, with the keyboard sneaking in only on the last notes of each bar, and everything is ruled by the screaming of our Vintersorg (it might mean winter's sorrow, but I wouldn't be so sure).
If it's so simple, you'll say, how can these mere 20 seconds be worth the purchase price? Simple, I say, because in my opinion in these 20 seconds lies much of the music Vintersorg delivers, a bit old style, a bit innovative, and vaguely psychedelic. From the black metal of the beginnings, the Swedish one-man band has managed to evolve into something unparalleled by any of the entities that populate the Scandinavian underground.
Always in Spegelspaeren, try listening to the intro. Yes, you haven't put in the wrong CD: what you're hearing is indeed Vintersorg, not one of your mother's relics from the '70s. And the Hammond? Yes, Hammond—what black metal album contains the Hammond organ? Probably none.
Vintersorg manages to bring a breath of fresh air into an environment where the stagnant stench of years of stylistic flattening was beginning to claim more and more victims. He is helped in this delicate task by Steve Di Giorgio, the true strength of the album, where, of course, the bass is perfectly audible and in some cases even dominant over the guitars (ahh... sacrilege).

Visions From The Spiral Generation is an album in which multiple souls coexist even within the same song, the symphonic black and viking metal from the Swede's beginnings, and the latest '70s influences that, as in The Explorer, have a strong Opeth flavor, most likely brought by Steve himself, all topped off by Vintersorg's splendid vocal performance. Adapting to very different styles, he moves from a technical and never coarse screaming to a decent growl up to splendid clean vocals (not coincidentally he's been recently called by Borknagar), epic and evocative.

Final note: The album is a concept revolving around the geometric shapes and symmetries that can be found in nature around us. Original even in themes, our Viking is. Buy it.