Wintaar | concreteweb

Introduction: Wintaar was an enormously productive outfit with tens of albums recorded and released over a period of nearly seven years (the ones under the initial moniker W included). I wrote ‘was’, because the project split-up after the sudden death of frontman Evgeny ‘Winter Vampyr’ Pilnikov aka WV at the end of last year’s Summer. This review deals with the twenty-fifth album or so. It got originally self-released in digital format in very early May 2021, followed some weeks later on tape. Finally, at the very end of Autumn 2021, it got pressed as well on compact-disc.

Content: Tear You Down goes on in the vein of the former Wintaar works, albeit with little more dynamism, authority and intensity. The lengthy tracks (in between 4:30 and 11:30 minutes of duration) still bring a grandiose mixture of melodicism, epicism, aggression and emotion with an effective guitar-based fundament, icy screams and a massive rhythm section. The fast-paced hymns come with hypnotic leads and captivating tremolo-riffage, supported by a megalithic rhythm section, in which the thunderous drum-salvos and merciless percussion-artillery push the whole adventure towards a pit of scorching lava and razor-sharp spikes of Ural ice-peaks (ice and lava, it does result in a hot-steam morphed experience for sure!). as said, the better part is fast, with everything in between energetic up-tempo parts to blasting outbursts. Once in a while, things turn little slower, yet even these mid-tempo excerpts are stringent in atmosphere and uncompromising in execution. Yet despite the overpowering experience, Wintaar still create ‘melodic’ blackened stuff above all. Some of the harmonies and the chilly timbre of the vocals refer to a hint of melancholy and malaise; yet then again seen from a wroth point of view, rather than fading away in self-harm or self-pity. When it comes to the infesting / festering vocals, well, this guy’s vocal chords spit brimstone-drenched bile and incandescent venom. Even in Buried In My Own Sorrow, which might be the most pseudo-melancholic, penitent epic, iniquity and repentance seem inferior to ire and defamation.

Conclusion: because of the really cool sound-quality (roughly and unpolished produced, yet meticulously mixed; fabulous to hear the basses, for example, so eminently as part of the whole enterprise), and the leaving-you-breathless encounter (imagine that this one-hour experience never irritates one single moment!), Tear You Down surprises once more within an enormous catalogue carried by (late) Wintaar…

https://www.satanath.com/releases/item/sat334.html

https://satanath.bandcamp.com/album/sat334-wintaar-tear-you-down-2021

https://svanrenne.bandcamp.com/album/tear-you-down

https://winterblackmetal.bandcamp.com/album/tear-you-down

https://www.instagram.com/inersys32/

Ivan Tibos.