Review Summary: The wind of nature howls slowly, and perhaps, a bit to repetitively.
Eldamar is an up-and-coming one man atmospheric black metal band from Askim, Norway. Their first record certainly obtains the ambiance, spending the entirety of 14 minute tracks winding through serene keyboards and screams that sound like the howling of wind in the pall of winter. Simply put, it's gorgeous. However, even the most beautiful harmonies can be done to death, which unfortunately Eldamar does. Almost half of both "Spirit of the North" and "Winter Night" are spent dwelling on the same wail and slightly droning keyboard tracks. It begins bordering being a lull rather than just a soothing song. Despite this, however, some variety does eventually save the album.
This begins with the track "Travel in the Woods" with a very mellow acoustic intro and absolutely gorgeous clean female leads about 2 and a half minutes in. They make the whole track flow so peacefully, perhaps to an extent that all black metal roots have been expunged at this point. The entire track is devoid of black metal influences, actually, and sounds more like a track creating as an interlude of strictly ambiance.
That's probably one of the most interesting about the record-the ambiance comes before the black metal influence on the music. The shrieks and powerful riffs simply spice up the mix, creating a balance of heaviness and gracefulness that, will somewhat favoring the latter, still works out very well. It makes the record both a blasting wall of sound and a lullaby at the same time, which, to me, is a feat in it's own right.
Still, even later on the album, the glaring issue remains-the album recycles it sound thorough the entirety of extremely long tracks, so while the album is great for something soothing and simple to listen to, there is a lack of any real substance in the music. At times it almost feels somewhat empty, as if the tracks don't warrant these massive run times. However, the band has undoubtedly still accomplished the goal it has set out to do, which is to create an album that resonates with tranquility.
With this in mind, this is certainly a solid album and an interesting path for the band to take, one that hasn't been trodden on to heavily. Most atmospheric black metal still keeps a firm grasp on it's roots, however for Eldamar it is simply a small flavor to add into what is an almost strictly atmosphere based album.
