Vinterriket



2007 - Kaelte, Schnee Und Eis - Rekapitulation Der Winterszeit

Maelstrom Zine
issue #62 June/July, 2008
(5,5/10)

Vinterriket is at its best when doing minimal, evocative soundscapes. Nothing more than minimal keyboards and the sounds of Nature, wind, waves, snowstorms... the man behind Vinterriket is probably able to go outside and record darkness itself if he wanted. Unfortunately, on Kaelte, Schnee und Eis, there is too much Vinterriket.

The keyboards are still here. The ambient sounds are as great as always. If they were the only two things, one second would be enough to sweep away whatever ambient the listener was in, instill solitude, and take him away to places that he didn't know existed, touching some primeval instincts... enter the percussion. Wrong choice.

With pure ambient, as, for example, on Lichtschleier (2006), it didn't matter what track you were listening to, or in what order. It wasn't about the notes, or the way they sounded, it was about the experience. Play any song from Kaelte, Schnee und Eis, and admittedly they all sound the same, but for the wrong reason. Christoph Ziegler has programmed the percussion in such a way that it just sounds repetitive, thin, synthetic and cheap. The patterns are complicated enough, yet it doesn't matter — each and every one sounds the same. Like he used the default rhythm accompaniment from whatever type of synthesizer he used, looped it and only bothered to change a couple of beats here and there. And used it for an hour. Some people might get mesmerized, but only if they don't start thinking of jingle bells or Chinese water torture.

This time, there are also vocals — more precisely, whispers. Those weren't necessary, either. It would have been better if the listener's imagination was allowed to come up with those, instead of serving them ready-made. Aside from those two bringers of distraction, the keyboards still sound great. But, now that the rhythm is provided, it's hard to get yourself lost in what they are doing.

Kaelte, Schnee und Eis is not a completely new album — it is a collection of re-recorded material from between 2002 and 2004. Although we wouldn't want Ziegler to always make his music in one and the same style, in this case, still, less could have been much more. Bearing in mind the man's productivity, maybe already the next one will get all the things perfectly right.


Reviewed by: Chaim Drishner

Harm.us
(february 2008)

Vinterriket is the most famous underground ambient/black metal band. Of course "famous" and "underground" are very weird to be used in the same sentence but in this occassion they fit perfect to the description of the band.

This one man's band has many releases in many different formats and editions. "Kaelte, Schnee Und Eis - Rekapitulation Der Winterszeit" is a collection of acoustic re-recordings of previously released songs from the era 2004-2006 if i'm not wrong. Vinterriket is a band with a very unique atmosphere. I don't like them that much in their black metal parts but i adore their ambient sounds. And this cd is full of them. I also have to mention the excellent artwork once again. I have the standard edition in my hands which includes a booklet of 16 pages in black/gray colors with all lyrics but i know there is and a digibook edition out.

If you know the band then you will buy this very good collection. If you are not familiar with them then this is a very good way to begin especially if you like dark ambient sounds. Vinterriket managed to amaze us once again


Reviewed by: Bleeding

Metal Reviews
(march 2008)

For all the atmospheric effect that keyboards can have if used well in Black Metal, it can be spoiled immediately if the band in question uses programmed rather than real drums. Vinterriket, a highly prolific one-man project from Germany, does that on this release, and this makes it that much harder to get into. There are approximately three Metal bands that are or were capable of using programmed drums without damaging the music as a result, and Vinterriket is not one of them. Considering all that’s required is the lightest of percussion to carry the surface keyboard swirls, you’d think the artist in question wouldn’t mind reaching into his pocket for enough to hire a drumkit. This is even more damning when you realise that the average Dark Ambient or Darkwave (whichever term is in vogue these days…) band’s percussive elements make Varg Vikernes sound like Flo Mounier in comparison.

Having said that, the music on this release (my introduction to Vinterriket) is actually rather good. If you can close your eyes and let the melodies carry you away, you’ll find that there’s a strong atmospheric element to the music, a depressive journey that eschews the usual Black Metal trudge over icy mountains in favour of an aerial flyover. The whispered vocals and occasional nature samples work wonders, giving you something to focus on and letting the keyboards work their magick in the background. Of course, in case you haven’t realised already, the keyboards drive the music – there are no guitars whatsoever to be found here.

Looking at the band’s discography, it’s hard to repress a cynical voice that wonders exactly how different each of Vinterriket’s releases are from each other. There’s an average six releases a year, of which at least one will be a full-length album. 2002 alone saw seventeen releases, and although sole member Christoph Ziegler hasn’t been able to replicate that since, there’s already a compilation, an EP and a full-length out this far in 2008. Of course, if you fall in love with this music from the outset this won’t be a problem, and the only restrictions on you will be the amount of time that you can spend on eBay hunting them down. Personally, although a little Vinterriket is fine, too much can become boring very quickly, and so this recommendation comes with a caution.


Reviewed by: Zadok

Antichrist Zine
(february 2008)
(4/5)

Next release on BMMM. This time we have CD which contains 4 early works of this German project. To correct, here are next works: “Winterschatten” – 2003, “Aura” – 2003, “Im Ambivalenten Zwielicht Der Dunkelheit” – 2004 and “Kaelte” – 2002. As you can see, here's something like compilation of early stuff. Well, I think all of fans which are into ambient music knows VINTERRIKET very well, so I suppose here's all clear by istelf. VINTERRIKET plays kind of ambient music, which main ideology turning around nature, correctly around winter one. Music is interesteng, melancholic and have great truly winter atmosphere of solitude and despair... For sure we can speak about suck records more and more, but in this case I think it isn't necessary, ‘coz all of you already knows these records. Those who didn't heard to VINERRIKET before but with ambient in it's hearts – for sure this release is the musthave exaclty! ‘coz this German guy made very decent job and have great respect worldwide also. All in all we have 8 long compositions on 56 minutes of winter noises over here. + great done booklet, consisting with the pictures of winter nature!

Reviewed by: Alex Maximov