WINTER ETERNAL – Unveiled Nightsky

vote
7.5

• Bands:
  WINTER ETERNAL
• Duration: 00:30:58
• Available from: 02/13/2026
• Label:

• Hells Headbangers

Streaming not yet available

Winter Eternal are the band of the Greek multi-instrumentalist Soulreaper, who moved to Scotland in 2018. On this new and fifth album we find other instrumentalists in support, namely V. Nuctemeron (Sacral Rage, Chainsaw and many others), Varvara Tsotra on cello and Dimitris Charisis on violins but, while the excellent contribution of the former is fundamental, the presence of string instruments is completely marginal here.
Winter Eternal proceed quickly with their now tested black metal proposal since the days of the interesting “Land Of Darkness” of 2021: listening to a group like this means taking a dive into the past, into that wonderful past of the mid/late 90s in which a certain way of understanding black metal, accompanied by intriguing melodies, exploded forcefully especially in Sweden, capable of churning out a series of excellent bands (and related albums, obviously) difficult to forget: Sacramentum, Necrophobic, Naglfar, Vinterland, Noctes as well as obviously Dissection.

This time the new “Unveiled Nightsky” establishes a new status for this reality, which is no longer a surprise (especially after the two good past albums): obviously originality is another world, but Soulreaper is an artist who has his own personality and his own style, not to mention a truly enviable inspiration.
For this reason, listening to Winter Eternal is not a nostalgic experience because the new album does not make you rethink and regret those golden years, but on the contrary it makes them relive them in their splendor.
The songs have enough nuances to distinguish them from each other, but they can be experienced as a single journey told through myths and legends of the past, from the Greek myth of Orpheus to that of the Wendigo creature, belonging to Algonquian folklore.
The opener “Born Of Winter's Breath” is a small melodic masterpiece of black metal, tight and biting from start to finish. The subsequent “Omen Of The Cosmic Order” opens with a more airy and commanding main riff, launched at full speed creating great pathos, but it is in the slowdowns that the majesty of the riffing is enhanced, and in this Winter Eternal are very reminiscent of the Swedish Naglfar despite the work of Soulreaper being more sparse.
“Nurtured By The Night” is a song sprinkled with a lacerating guitar, which tears the soul and cuddles it at the same time: here the intensity is really cut with a knife but when the rhythm fades and the atmosphere becomes calm you notice a really interesting, almost virtuoso bass line, which enriches the song.
The attack of “The Deceiver's Tale” is more epic than one might think and could lull the listener if it weren't for the fact that almost immediately it transforms into a black metal whirlwind launched at full speed. The excellent “Echoes Of The Fallen Crown” should also be mentioned, with further references to the Greek epic and, although we cannot stylistically grasp the typically Hellenic brand in Winter Eternal's music, it is the mythical atmosphere that intimately connects this band to something transcendental.

The sensations that this album transmits, in addition to making us take a time leap into the past, make us raise our eyes towards the night sky of a freezing winter, where a feeble waning moon does not have the strength to take away the brilliance of the countless stars of the celestial arc, as suggested by the evocative title.
If you are wondering if there is some mysticism in the music proposed by us, the answer is affirmative, because the sound created by this band lifts souls to the sky and even beyond, because the dimension that this music attracts close to us is the mythical, divine one. Never mind if there are those who won't come into contact with this intimate sphere, but this doesn't mean that this band wasn't able to create it anyway. A band to follow and an album to enjoy.