From Bandcamp, “Alas, a new TINE album is upon us. The creation of this album is both a testament to hard work and perseverance, and a dedication to all the TINE fans that continue to support this project. Without you all, this project would surely dwindle. Like the albums before it, this album was inspired by things that have deep meaning for me. Whether a more personal meaning, or perhaps stories harkening back to my childhood, such as with the wintry themes in many of the other songs, this album is truly very special. I hope every listener gleans something unique from this album. It is with your experience, I draw strength, inspiration, and creativity.”

The album has eight songs, and “Winter Comes” is first. It’s a brief, and very solemn instrumental that features frail piano notes and strings. The mood they set is seeing the first soft snowfall in December. “A Feather from Lucifer’s Wing” is deeply aggressive out of the gates, and the production is a bit muted, even low, to keep the song sounding as heavy as possible. The vocals vary, at times there are cleans, mixed with gutturals underneath, and at other times, they are hasty screams. “A Path Through Frozen Woods” centers on the subject of the title…someone trying desperately to make a path through the snow. The air is frigid, and the winds whip. “Only in snow will I be free,” and “an endless web of branches and snow” he declares.

“Ex Cathedra” begins with angry spoken words, and it slows to a crawl of thick, meaty bass notes and backing orchestration. There are some light phasing issues every now and again, but they are hard to catch, and the song is presented with an ominous feeling. “Return to the Black Forest in Winter” is a shorter song that provided some relief to the deep aggression of earlier tracks. Paino, strings, and other instruments create somber but at times hopeful tones, and it’s the first real sense of hope we encounter. “The Scathing Blizzard” hears the subject trying to navigate his way through a blizzard, and quickly realizing the futility of that. “The blizzard speaks to me, it screams my name” he cries out in anger. “No way to escape this blizzard,” he concludes.

“Triumph at Nineveh” has a very hardened and weighted sound. The riffs are aggressive, and the vocals earnest. There are also plenty of orchestral elements, but they don’t take over the sound, they smartly support it. “Winter’s Horrorscope” is the final song, and you can feel the cold winds whipping up along with deep bass notes that sound like heavy footsteps in the snow. It culminates in layers before the landscape eventually swallows you. For the band’s style, winter is as good a subject to base an album around as anything else. It’s cold…dark…depressing at times, and brutal at others, just like the music. I enjoyed the album, as I believe any extreme Metal fan will.