PORTRAIT OF WIND AND SORROW

Although the word of the more recent day has been 'jazz' for Spanish black metal act Kathaarsys, this band originally had quite a different sound. In the same style of bands as Agalloch, Opeth or Drudkh, the early Kathaarsys played an epic and brooding sort of metal, with plenty of acoustics and dynamic change in the songwriting. Although it teeters a little much on the long side, this band's debut, 'Portrait Of Wind And Sorrow' is a very ambitious black metal album that should satisfy anyone who finds themselves attracted to nature-inspired progressive black metal.

Although being comprised of six tracks, each of the songs is over ten minutes long. Suffice to say, 'Portrait Of Wind And Sorrow' is a fairly long album, and most black metal albums would get boring long before a full 65 minutes was over. In the case of Kathaarsys however, they manage to keep their sound interesting more or less throughout. This is accomplished through the use of beautiful melodies, something that all too many of this brand of bands seems to forget. Aside from the soaring black metal melodies, there are also plenty of lighter moments with clean vocals, and although not the most technically accomplished of singers, JJ Montans holds a warm tone to his clean vocals that reminds me somewhat of Mikael Akerfeldt.

The Opeth comparisons don't end there. This reminds me much of that band's debut, 'Orchid'; each of these tracks is a mini-epic of sorts, but the album's greatest weakness is the fact that while each of them are very good, they all sound alike, and lack much individual identity as a result. A little too often in this album, I would get the feeling that I had already heard these ideas or progressions earlier in the album. There is little that is unexpected outside of the melodic death/black metal style that Kathaarsys plays here, but they do what they do very well. Overall, a great debut from this band, and I would readily recommend this to fans of any black metal with melodic, epic, or folkish leanings.