The black metal spectrum is a curious thing.
It stretches from the lobotomized shrieking of the primitive nihilist to the cerebral proselyting of the mercurial intellectual, covering all points of intrigue and ignominy in between.
Both extremes have their value, of course, but when it comes to making records that will stay with you forever, WINTERFYLLETH's status as noble guardians of black metal as a refined and rapacious art form sets them apart from everyone else, irrespective of intent or execution.
WINTERFYLLETH have released their latest album "The Unyielding Season", which showcases the band's ability to create epic and grandiose tracks like "Heroes of a Hundred Fields".
This song is another instant highlight in the band's catalogue, with all the viciousness and virulence that extreme metal demands, but delivered with such expansive, soulful flair that comparisons with other bands, contemporary or otherwise, simply fizzle out and fade away.
The album also features tracks like "Echoes In The After" and "A Hollow Existence", which scorch the earth with a remorseless avalanche of great riffs and spellbinding melody.
"Perdition's Flame" is a coruscating, pagan metal punch to the gut, as the ghostly specter of some forest-razing inferno casts its incendiary spell across a heathen landscape.
The title track is more measured and melancholier, with a somnambulant gait that drifts with eerie purpose, and an underlying sense of ageless dignity that thrives amid delicate, downbeat interludes and sudden eruptions of scornful aggression and stately vastness.
Not for the first time, WINTERFYLLETH are conjuring music that surrounds the listener like a spiritual shield, while still exuding the kind of grim fortitude that so often defines the best black metal.
The album concludes with a cover of PARADISE LOST's "Enchantment", which gleefully expands the original's gloomy charisma, drawing even more exquisite sorrow from its lethal, melodic austerity.
A beautiful tribute to another UK band with a fiercely original formula, it is an utterly classy period point at the end of another unequivocal triumph.