PAYSAGE D'HIVER — Schattengang (review)

PAYSAGE D'HIVER — Schattengang album cover

Album · 1998 · Atmospheric Black Metal

4.5/5 · 2011-12-28
Wilytank

The same year that 'Steineiche' was released, Tobias Mockl released another album (demo) in the Paysage d'Hiver name. It's titled 'Schattengang', and though I like 'Steineiche' much more than this one, I still find it to be a very noteworthy album in the Paysage d'Hiver discography. Unfortunately, the original version of this album is hard to come across, so I must make due with the three song re-release from 2006. Though shorter than 'Steineiche', it still features a generous amount of wintery magic issued forth by Mockl.

The journey begins with "Moloch"'s spacey sounding ambiance and whispering vocals. The black metal part finally kicks in two minutes and forty-five seconds into the song. The tempo in this song is slower, but not death doom metal slow like "Der Baummann" on the first album. Throughout the passage of the black metal half of the song, the vocals are growling. The keyboards are also playing throughout the entirety of the song making the atmosphere very dreamlike. The guitars are mostly played in chords and chugs, but the tempo varies noticeably throughout the passage of the song, eventually settling down on one type of style at the 10:45. This outro is played slowly with chords but very extravagantly with the keyboard, which go great with the snow/space/dream type setting.

Wind blowing, wolves howling, and...sleigh bells? That's how the next major song on the album "Die Zeit des Torremond" starts off. To call this a single song sounds like a bit of a stretch though as it doesn't seem like a single complete thought but several, all crammed into 21 minutes. This time around, the music is much faster with the guitar playing in tremolos and the drum machine playing in blastbeats. The first of the movements in this song is more light sounding, but still wintry and spacey sounding courtesy of the keyboards. After something of an intro passage, the beat stays the same for the length of what could probably be safely called a verse before moving on to a more of a lengthy buildup section that repeats itself once until reaching the climax at the 4:17, where the tempo drops slightly and one guitar begins playing a real awesome sounding leading passage. Over a minute later, it fades away to the sounds of wolves and sleigh bells. The second movement begins at the 6:06 mark and proceeds at a notably slower pace at first, but changes after the first minute as the drums begin to get more furious sounding. The notes being played do vary, but the main key of this section seems to remain largely the same throughout. By the ten minute mark, the section fades out to another interlude. This time, it features keyboard ambiance, the sound of something banging on something else, and whispering vocals. The black metal kicks back in at the 11:58 mark to begin the third movement. Again, it starts off slower paced while still retaining copious amounts of speed. At 12:58, another prominent lead guitar section comes in with the guitar playing some power chords. Then, the key changes at 14:03 to a lower and dark sound; and then back again to a lighter, faster paced rhythm about thirty seconds later; and once more to a slower, darker rhythm at the 15:50 mark. By 17:07, only silence remains. This silence goes on for almost 20 seconds before being interrupted by what seems to be a movie sample with heavy keyboard ambient in the background. After the sound of a door slamming, the metal comes back in for the final part of this song. It's slow paced again and also dark sounding with calm sounding lead guitar which turns out to be the music that the song eventually fades out with.

What remains is an ambient piece called "Atmosphaere". Unlike the ancient sounding "Der Baum", this piece takes a more spacey approach to develop the atmosphere in the music. It works well though, as most of this album seems to be more space/dream oriented than flat out winter themed.

So the spacey and dreamy journey of 'Schattengang' isn't quite as epic as the desolate and ancient journey of 'Steineiche', it's a nice variation of the experience of winter. Consequentially, I find it most fitting to listen to this album in the middle of the night in the middle of a snow covered field while there's not clouds in the sky so that all the stars can be seen. It's pretty cool in my opinion to put music like this in natural perspective anyway, and the sweet trip through the "Shade Course" is no exception to that feeling.

more than 2 years ago
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Doomster wrote:

more than 2 years ago

God this band is good.

Vehemency wrote:

more than 2 years ago

To me, Paysage d'Hiver is the most essential piece of winter themed black metal and has always been. The whole discography is splendid. I'm happy that most of the back catalogue has been reissued, though I was in time to catch an original tape copy of "Einsamkeit" in 2007.

Wilytank wrote:

more than 2 years ago

For some reason, it seems like everyone goes straight towards the self-titled and forgets everything else by this band even though it's far from their best.