Black metal in its purest form, which I associate with the Norwegian, second
wave mold, is an area that I've never spent a ton of time deep-diving. I've
listened enough to appreciate the contributions its had in metal's evolution,
but aside from
A Blaze in the Northern Sky, the rawness of this
sub-genre's sound has never connected with me on the primal level you often hear
it being touted for. That all changed for me when solo project Paysage d'Hiver
emerged from obscurity last year with his release of
Im Wald. Though one
would understandably think an album with a two hour runtime would be a bit of
slog,
Im Wald managed to cultivate an aura that elevated it from "just" a
black metal album into an all-encompassing journey. It made clear to me that
Paysage d'Hiver's 20+ years worth of demos was something I had to dig into. I
have yet to take that plunge, but the project's second full-length endeavor,
Geister, is here to remind me of how that procrastination is, for lack of
a better word, dumb.
