ASPERA HIEMS SYMFONIA

Aspera Hiems Symfonia is Arcturus's first full length album, and by all accounts it's a good album, blending black metal with symphonic keyboard orchestration, and thus creating a very symphonic type of metal. On this album the style isn't fully developed yet, but the first signs of great musicianship are already apparent.

Arcturus takes the time to develop the tunes, and the created atmosphere is far more important than individual solo's. I think the keyboards really make a difference for this band. The songs are generally structured around a symphonic classical sounding keyboard line, and background atmospherics, and developed from that. Filled with dirty vocal growls, which really makes me smile, don't take the vocals too seriously.

Alternating dark metal music, with some lighter shades, Heavy guitar sounds, and rather simple drumming, few solo's, but the ones played are generally quite good, and in service of the music. Like the title suggests, it's rather a symphonic album. I'm inclined to reward this album with four stars, but i think i'll leave it at three and reserve the four stars for The Sham Mirrors and La Masquerade Infernale.