Of Shadows... and the Dark Things You Fear

When one thinks of German extreme metal, notably black metal, Cryptic Wintermoon is not a band that garners a lot of mention, praise, or attention. This is actually very unfortunate as this band, especially with this album "Of Shadows... and the Dark Things You Fear", embody a very high-quality sound and need to be exposed to a larger audience. With a sound in a similar vein to Dissection, Naglfar, Catamenia, and Lord Belial, Cryptic Wintermoon is able to craft an extremely melodic style of black metal and inject it with some hints of melodic death metal here and there for a very satisfying end result.

This is an album that, for many, would likely seem like a rip-off of any of the aforementioned bands in the first paragraph. Certain bands do tend to rip off Dissection openly (looking at you, Thulcandra, no matter how awesome you may be) but Cryptic Wintermoon does not seem to exist just as a tribute band. For me, when I hear this album, I don't think of Dissection. I only think of Cryptic Wintermoon, and that's completely fine with me. Stylistically, this album here is a solid mix of melodic black and death metal with hints of thrash thrown in here and there for good measure. This isn't an album that falls specifically into just one of these genres. Songs like "Bonegrinder 1916" are more of a standard Gothenburg-influenced melodic death sound, while "Thrashomatic Overdrive" actually does have a thrash-esque sound. The guitar work here is superb and extremely melodic, as well as catchy, but in a positive way.

"Portals of Nightfall" is my favorite track on this album. It has the best guitar work and sounds extremely influenced by the Gothenburg sound which, if done right, is absolutely wonderful. Just like it is here. My problem with some of these songs is that the black metal does seem to be turned down a bit. If they would have injected more of that sound that they had with their two previous albums, this could have been so much better. It's definitely still a great listen but really, it doesn't live up to its 100% full potential. But I digress, my apologies. One song that really works the black metal influence is "Synthetic God". This song is another of the album's highlights and after a sweet melodic death intro, blast beats come in and a superb blackened riff soars over everything. This song alternates between melodic death and black metal seamlessly and has some solid guitar soloing. "Grave Without a Name" is a song that really works the Dissection influence with the clean guitar moments and has some sick keyboard segments. This was actually the first song I heard from this band about six or seven years ago. The following track "Once.. in the Windblasted North" follows a very similar sound but is a bit longer and more epic in some ways.

This is not an album that deserves to go unnoticed. It still baffles me that Cryptic Wintermoon has been around since 1993, with their debut full-length coming out in 1999, and hardly anyone knows of their existence. Frankly, if it hadn't been for someone showing me this band, I probably never would have came across them on my own. They hardly ever get any mention on the internet anywhere. Regardless, I definitely recommend this record for anyone who is into a hyper-melodic mixture of black and death metal.

Current and third release from the rather unknown German band "Cryptic Wintermoon" and also the second album I bought from them. The first time I saw this in a record store, I was grasped by the great artwork, depicting a landscape with a distorted picture of a city in the background. Hills, futuristic looking towers and a mob of what appear to be citizens marching through fog towards the city. Now normally, I wouldn't begin a review describing the artwork, but this one is one of the better CD artworks out there and fits the music excellently. The booklet filled with lyrics for the songs was by contrast a little sparce and without much variation, depicting the same picture over and over again. But this is of course a minor aspect and should not affect the musical madness the CD itself contains.

Cryptic Wintermoon have turned the page and moved on from their "melodic" black metal influenced sound to a more melodic death metal style that can be compared to their Gothenburg counterparts. Not being from Gothenburg doesn't mean you can't mimic the musical style. Their themes are typical for this kind of music, ranging from abstract interpretations of god and war to paranoia. The solid riffing here is also very catchy and decent. The song structures are easy to overview, as they always follow a certain pattern, not very difficult to perceive. Compared to their other releases the guitar tone on this record is the most mature and the best processed. Highlights on this matter are to be found on almost every song on the LP. The year may be 2005, which can lead to the conclusion that the album is overproduced, as much of the Scandinavian acts today are; dry and cheesy. Not here. The drumming sounds authentic and even if it sounds triggered, for a non-drummer-listener, it isn't of much importance. We are speaking about modern day metal, but this is a double-edged blade for some. Now, for the most part, another very annoying aspect of the cheesy-overproduce-syndrome are overamplified keyboards, which surely most of us loathe (I know I do).

Apart from the production, the songs themselves, are before mentioned, pretty straightforward, so fans of progressive or linear structures should be aware to this. This is the kind of record that you put in your CD-player and listen to it not so intense as one may be accustomed to, a kind of "easy-listening" if you want (without meaning to degrade it in any way). This surely is a solid piece of work, something you should certainly check out if you are a fan of Dark Tranquillity, old-In Flames or Dark Age.