While I can't recall that fellow guitarist I played with, who asserted that the most powerful tool for any genre is a keyboard, no other genre proves it close to the ambient Black Metal.  As playing one of the most versatile instruments with a wide sphere of action, a keyboardist has indeed the kingdom key: VARG VIKERNES of BURZUM wrote -on his own- Metal music without any ounce of Metal in.

HAATE, the one-man project from Italy has adopted a similar path on the steps of bands like the prominent ULVER, crafting their third release "...As The Moon Painted Her Grief" in the format of longer and fewer tracks, thus stretching borders for the hypnosis-inducing reiteration of a single main riff, the same way repeating a mantra may lead to blind belief. Generating more from less, "As The Moon Painted Her Grief: Part One" leans on gloomy synthetic ambient sounds and choirs, all taking part in an odyssey within and out of oneself as the unprocessed riff gets progressively layered like an onion peel notably by pipes intervening and transforming (or rather better exhibiting an cultivating the pre-existing atmosphere), ultra subtle piano high notes nearly inaudible  ,harsh vocals piercing from afar but in the second plan, same case for the marginal/quasi absent percussions in a plausible aversion to the traditional Metal trinity of guitar-bass-drums in favor of the experimental avant-garde where the artist, absorbed into his own realm, offers us an inside glimpse. It's genuinely sweet, romantic, feminine and mournful, and though at first I was skeptical about another set of n-times forcible collage, this was quite beautifully linked and structured into a pause from traditional Metal to help recuperate your eardrums meanwhile!

The second part of "...As The Moon Painted Her Grief" outsets with a 80s si-fi keyboard effect (better heard with earphones) for a skeleton before the gradual adjunction of coating layer by layer yet with no palpable connection in between, all while the surge of the double bass drum beats announces and reinforces the black Metal nature of the record. Absolutely novice on a technical level, yet this is not the point of the concept. Think less, care less, feel more!

Like a world of steamy glass on which water drops roll drawing longitudinal figures, "Crystal" bears loads of interpretations as it's up to anybody to envision what crosses his mind at the moment. Not delving into Zen traditions, yet the conception is pretty much similar: stillness speaks. This litany submerges you till the point that the tiniest drum crash seems to abruptly change the course of the flow of your ideas. "Crystal" takes a more monobloc form than the other two tracks, less varied and more focal with enhanced percussions this time but in discordance between the serenity of water which contends not, seems "her" grief has fortunately come to an end!

Owing to a concise album displaying what it takes to understand the genre, "...As The Moon Painted Her Grief" is Metal in its most vulnerable state. No power show or struggle, but aligning with nature in non-resistance. It would be the suitable buy of the day for metalheads past their Metal phase and who are longing to experiment. Their reward is this tandem of Metal and its direct antithesis.