renkls If you are familiar with Black Howling, you can basically expect more of the same from this album, a 35 minute undivided track of black metal, messy, noisy, mostly abrasive, but also melodic. Unlike their debut full length, this release feels more structured and thought out, unlike the debut which was fully improvised. The messy and dissonant atmosphere the album weaves throughout is underpinned by a much needed melodic counterpart, which ensures that despite the general abrasiveness of the album, it's not uninvolving. Melodic breaks appear every five minutes or so and add some relief to the black metal dissonance that is thrown at you. A piano (I think) even appears around the 21 minute mark.

Additionally, this time, the lone track has english lyrics, sometimes easy to discern (though mostly not so much), which are quite fascinating to align to the bands philosophy: "This is not the same cold rain that fell here long ago. What used to flow freely and naturally is now chained." Not too poetic, but it gets across exactly what they want to say.

This album comes across less as a DSBM effort, and is much more directly linked to nature and the concern for the lost ways of nature through human hands. I personally find the theme fascinating, having explored it myself through philosophical leanings. Here, Black Howling lends an angry, concerned outlook for the future of the world, having forgotten the ways of nature and gods. That's an interesting paradigm to put across as well, as Black Metal tends to avert from treating gods with any great deal of respect.

But Black Howling is certainly a pretty out there and unconventional band from Portugal, having become rather prolific in their discography. This is niche stuff, but for a select few, well worth investigating. I don't believe they've yet made their opus, but I'll be hanging around for it.