Review Summary: Quite simply one of the best black metal albums you'll ever hear.
Every once in a while you'll come across an album that puts you in a trance. An album that is so mindblowing that you'll wonder why you didn't hear of it sooner. One of those albums for me is Coldworld's debut, and so far only, full length album
Melancholie.
As suggested by the album art, this album is a cold, wintry type of black metal. Right from the get go you hear the synthesizers to start Dream of a Dead Sun and you know you're in for it. The production on this album is absolutely perfect for the atmosphere that was trying to be reached here. Fuzzy yet catchy riffs and tremolo picked guitars really give off the cold and desolate feeling that the album was going for. Average song length here is around 7 minutes long so it's more of the type to put you in a daze almost. Take the ambient pieces of a band like Darkspace and the bleak freezing feeling of a band like Paysage d'Hiver and you have the basic sound of
Melancholie. Not saying that Coldworld is a copy cat of either band because that would be an insult. While this isn't the most original brand of black metal, Coldworld certainly puts its own spin on how to make an exceptional ambient black metal album.
The whole premise of this album is based on the atmosphere it gives off and the instruments are more for creating that than trying to show off their technical prowess or anything of that sort. The vocals here are just icing on the cake to a pretty much perfect album. George not only handles all instruments, he hands the vocal duties as well and that just might be his most impressive performance. The shrieks presented here are some of the most well executed you'll hear on any album in the genre. You can hear the emotion in every single snarl that comes out of his mouth. While they may not vary much, the vocals add to an already melancholic sound.
If you're a fan of ambient black metal or black metal in general, there's no reason why
Melancholie shouldn't be in your music library. I can't find a single thing to complain about to be quite honest. Some people might find it a tad repetitive, but that's the whole point. Nice ambient bits are spread throughout the 50 minute run time and offer some nice variation. I highly recommend listening to this if you haven't done so already, do yourself a favor.
