I have made jokes in the past about black metal’s obsession with nature sounds and landscape arrangements. This sort of joke never gets old as long as bands keep putting in field music into their records. Case in point, Eichenwald’s debut demo/album opens with an honest to goodness, all hands on deck, wind/rainscape that extends into a 12 minute meditation. I feel the desire to lampoon things like this would be so much greater if the artist was more well known as well as if things like Eichenwald’s debut were anything less than exquisite and interesting.

Eichenwald’s self titled debut surpasses the mimicry of a genre and becomes something unique. With a greyscaled cover and two bookeded minimal pieces, the bulk of the Eichenwald release appears to be another release in service of things like Paysage D’Hiver and Lunar Aurora. While Eichenwald certainly bows to the masters of minimal black metal, his release is successful because of a relentless spirit of both subtlety and ferocity. The vocal level is hidden within a bank of fog where songs like “Arcane Forest” are ferocious just at a 50 foot distance. The addition of a near 20 minute dungeon synth track captures the hearts of anyone who sat through the majority of this release. Eichenwald knows its audience and for those who are here for this sort of thing, then I cant imagine they will be dissapointed.