Death

Death is one of the more straightforward early releases from Iunehkal, as it shows the project before it developed a more signature style that's more similar to Paysage D'Hiver rather than anything else, although some of the elements of what was to come are present in this release they are just less unique to the artist.

The atmosphere of this release manages to perfectly incapsulate the melancholy of death and the many feelings that come with it, as the hypnotic sounds work to keep you in a trance-like state of sorrow that consistently weighs you down like a harsh winter storm just to throw you back down as it switches to the equally as trance-like prodding guitars and clean melancholic interludes.

Compositionally however this release is extremely minimalistic similarly to artists such as Paysage D'Hiver, as the riffs are more focused on atmosphere building rather than being complicated, the entire release features borderline droning tremolo picked guitars along with a mix that's doused in ambient reverb and echo. These aren't the only things this album has to offer however, as there are also many doom metal parts that are present, such as the slow brooding riffs and the distantly atmospheric clean singing, as well as vaguely psychedelic chorus laden guitar interludes that appear during some of the tracks to build up the hypnotic atmosphere similarly to that of Alcest.

Even though this is one of the more simple and less unique releases from Iunehkal I still find myself loving it as it is perfect music to be introspective to. Alternatively this can also be very good background music if you don't feel like hearing a bunch of stuff happening at once, because the album almost consistently sounds the same throughout it's entire runtime. I would recommend this release to anybody who enjoys atmospheric black metal or artists similar to Paysage D'Hiver.