In the Woods… first release; HEart of Ages

In my teens I used to own a number of black metal albums from Cradle of Filth and some other black metal bands.  Although I do appreciate the talent needed to play such genre of music, I never managed to stick to such fast and noisy music while not understanding a word from the lyrics.

But I just listened to Heart of Ages, an album from the Norwegian band In the Woods… This was their first official album, released back in 1995.  Surely they left a good impression and this was their stepping stone to attract a huge number of worldwide fans.  Unlike today’s releases, Heart of Ages has that “not so perfect and polished” sound, which makes it sound more realistic.  Also, this album cannot be classified as black metal.  It’s an interesting and experimental blend of progressive Heathen metal, black metal and a hint of doom metal, and an influence of classical music as well.  The slow and athmospheric parts contain clean guitars, dark atmospheric keyboards, clean male and female vocals, which blends really well with the fast and high pitched guitar riffs and grunts.  Therefore this makes it impossible to label these seven symphonies as one genre type.

Good combination indeed!