Ringarë - Thrall of Winter’s Majesty

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The North American Black Metal School is really different, because even inheriting elements from European Black Metal scene, the US bands always comes with some different ideas that don’t fit in the model used. These words can sound a bit weird for some readers, because the clear thought is ‘every country has its own features for Metal’, but still today, many fans can’t see relevant Black Metal names coming from USA. And on the depths of North American underground comes RINGARË, a trio that is releasing its second album, “Thrall of Winter’s Majesty”.

Their musical work could be easily labeled as Atmospheric Black Metal some years in the past. But today it demands an explanation: it’s a form of Black Metal that has funereal and somber ambiences created by keyboards parts, something that ROTTING CHRIST, BURZUM and EMPEROR helped to create on the early years of the 90’s. And here is done in a very good way, with energy and personality, along with a depressive feeling coming from the songs.

The songs were mixed by Esoterica and Swartadauþuz, and the sonority of this release is what anyone could expect from a band on the Old School ways: rusty and crude, in a way that could fit on the organic and handmade sound from the past. It’s not bad at all, but could be better in some ways.

The songs were written between 2003 and 2004 to be a part of the first album of TROGLODYTIC (that never came to see the light of day), a past band of Esoterica, so they were reworked on 2019, and are presented here. On “Witness to Winter’s Lament” (a very long song, based on a simple instrumental work along with nasty shrieks and funereal keyboards’ ambiences) and “Thrall of Winter’s Majesty” (filled with charming and melancholic melodies, and with a solid work on bass guitar and drums, and that could easily be on the early works of DIMMU BORGIR) show the band’s potential. On other hand, “O’er Winters Shroud” and “A Paean for Endless Snow” are instrumental songs based only on keyboards ambiences, what will be hard for those fans that aren’t into such Black Metal genre.

RINGARË has an enormous potential as is shown on “Thrall of Winter’s Majesty”, but they need to work in a better way on the studio. To be real doesn’t mean to be putrid…

Songwriting: 8
Musicianship: 8
Memorability: 6
Production: 5