Funeral winds suggest a black metal work, here with the added proviso that this album is a retrospective look towards desolate landscapes. The track titles are wistful, shadowy affairs, starting with “Black Lore of the Fens”. Now this sinister piece is not from Cambridgeshire but Slovakia. Initially I even detected a hint of Burzum in this piece. That was before it bursts into flames with raw drumming, ghoulish and insistent keyboards like early Dimmu Borgir and void-like, echoing, hissing vocals. Yes, it’s black metal of the harshest kind.

“Toward the Duskportals” is like a journey through a dark forest. It has an enigmatic chorus which disappears almost as soon as it came, as a break leads us into more urgent and dramatic territory. It has intensity and black metal energy, but to be truthful I don’t know what it was trying to achieve. “Inexorably Ousted Sente” starts as if there’s a swarm of locusts in the air before manic, chaotic and discordant instrumentals confirm that all is not right – it’s as if the imaginary locusts are being frantically swatted away. Stylistically apart from its extreme experimental face, there is raw death metal in there somewhere. The discordant guitar work has an air of Ephel Duath about it. Gloom descends. Harsh and strident chords are struck. It all suggests a world without mercy or compromise. After the atmospheric and pompous instrumental “Path to the Haunted Ruins”, a reprise from an earlier demo by the same artist, “Unveiled Subterranean Treasures” brings us more raw, old school atmospheric black metal. And that’s what this album basically is. An orchestral type drum beats, accompanying the sound waves momentarily, before the fury returns. In it there is a hint of melancholy. So to the title track “Funeral Winds and Crimson” we go. During its course we are taken once again through uncompromising and haunting landscapes.

It’s old school, it’s atmospheric and it’s black metal. I’ve heard plenty like this and I’m not going to say it’s exceptional. “Funeral Winds & Crimson” is however effective in leading a journey over harsh and desolate lands.

(7/10 Andrew Doherty)

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https://osmoseproductions.bandcamp.com/album/funeral-winds-crimson-sky