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.

renkls There are some albums that really require an open mind and patience when they ask you to sit down and take it all in one sitting. Black Howling's full length debut Alma...uma Floresta de Dor is one such album, and probably for my sake, one I find very difficult to digest in this way.

Playing an improvised style of DSBM (depressive/suicidal black metal), Black Howling achieve their intended effect through use of reverb and feedbacky guitar lines, tosses together with some of the most low-fi production to have ever graced my ear canals. The album itself is one 42 minute track. I read reviews before venturing into this album, that the production is really love it or hate it, because it's really minimal. It could have been recorded in a tin can for all I know. Distorted clips of guitar and drum sound jump in and out as the production reduces the album mostly to a dissonant dark ambient/black metal drone. The vocals however, as howls are effective and well captured.

While an initial listen prompted me to believe the production was the final nail in the coffin, I agree with some reviewers when they say that the production produces an awkward, personal feeling to the work; a piece of authenticity that the album could not achieve without this minimalist production effort. It's not that the music itself is poor at all. The production smoothers the melodic beauty of the piece, which is a mostly instrumental, guitar, bass and drums exercise. At moments the melody lines seep through the feedbacky and dissonant atmosphere, making me feel like the album is examining the beauty of a life struggling to be heard beneath cruelty, depression and/or sadness.

It's a difficult album/song at any time, but if you are a fan of DSBM, this may just be your new favorite album in waiting. For me, once now and then is more then enough.