At the Heart of Winter
Occupation
- Olve " Abbath Doom Occulta " Eikemo - guitar, bass, synthesizer, vocals
- Reidar " Horgh " Horghagen - drums
- Harald " Demonaz Doom Occulta " Nævdal - lyrics
At the Heart of Winter is the fifth studio album by the Norwegian extreme metal band Immortal. It is the first album without guitarist Demonaz, of an incurable tendonitis suffered in 1997. It is also the first release with the new Immortal logo. Some music CDs have mistakenly printed with At the Heat of winter.
Formation
After Demonaz ' tendonitis had made it impossible for him to continue to play guitar, Abbath took over the guitar and bass tracks for the album. Demonaz but continued writing the lyrics and also took care of the management. Abbath wrote the music and looked after with Horgh to their arrangement. At the Heart of Winter was recorded in November 1998 in Sweden to Peter Tägtgren's Abyss Studio.
Style and content
Compared to the almost exclusively based on blast beats previous Blizzard Beasts At the Heart of Winter is a " move away from pure-bred rage to more compact and more complex compositions" with increased influences from classic heavy metal and better production. Stylistically, the album has so little in common with Norwegian Black Metal.
Reception
Wolf -Rüdiger Mühlmann from Rock Hard described the album as "a perfectly balanced blend of ICE - tempo [ ... ] and muscular mid-tempo crushers " and as " a much-needed disk, an impressive lesson for the elemental force of Norwegian Black Metal. This album is pure, dark force. "