Rating: 6.5

Country: Germany

Genre: Dark Ambient

Record Label: Solitude / Badmoonman Music

Release Date: 2007

Track list:
1. Winterschatten
2. Verloren in den Tiefen des Waldes
3. Aura II
4. Der Schrei der Leere
5. Schneesturm / Einbruch der weißen Dunkelheit
6. Aura I
7. Monumentale Schwärze
8. Züngelnde Winterflammen

Band Website: Vinterriket

Vinterriket - Kälte, Schnee Und Eis - Rekapitulation Der Winterszeit 

Christoph Ziegler - all instruments & vocals

First, I'd like to say Mr. Ziegler should be the National Recycling Coalition's spokesperson. To say he recycles ideas is to say the Sun is warm. All his music is practically identical, and his discography reads like the track list of a Nasum compilation. Using that fact as ammunition against this individual release rather than judging it on the basis of its own merits would be cowardly as a writer, but bear in mind, discerning readers: if you've heard one Vinterriket release, you've essentially heard them all.

Burzum is obviously the primary influence of the bulk of Vinterriket's discography, but being billed as an acoustic album, the order of the day here is flat winter soundscapes. The formula is quite simple: acoustic strumming gently converses with a glassy wash of synthesized strings over the superfluous pabulum of programmed percussion; the melodic development is uniformly mournful, looping in low-key repetition alongside wind samples, gentle ambient flourishes and that sorta thing in order to evoke images of dreary glacial snowscapes. Not a fellow of ostensibly powerful vocal presence, Ziegler tends to either whisper or scream and distort the result, then mix it into a background fuzz; here he opts for the former, so as not to intrude upon the album's air of refrained melancholy.

This is fine music in a superficial sense. If you select any song from the track list to the left, download it and listen to it, you will be moved -- perhaps you will recognize the emotional manipulation inherent in its delicate songwriting and grandma-friendly nature samples, but you'll be moved nonetheless. The problem is, this formula is bereft of lasting power; listen to another song, the two tracks will bleed into eachother, and the sheen of the overall listening experience will suddenly seem a little less vibrant. Listen to yet another, and you probably won't remember how many songs you just heard. Rather than an album of self-contained songs, Kälte, Schnee Und Eis - Rekapitulation Der Winterszeit is a holistic exercise in sonic landscape-painting; as pretty as it may be, it's fairly one-dimensional, and doesn't warrant many listens from someone with taste more transient than that of a rock.

Overall, this is just some pretty good dark ambient from an artist notorious for releasing a shitload of pretty good dark ambient. It's nice, easy listening when you're in the mood, but sometimes a reverent awe of nature isn't enough. The guy behind Vinterriket is not a man without ideas, but he'd better start capitalizing on some of them if he wishes to maintain fans.

August 25th, 2008