Cold Winter

Mock's classic EP Vinterlandet is one of my favorite listens across the broad spectrum of black metal and its sibling genres in the 1990s. Cold Winter is... also a release by Mock.

It's not that this demo is irredeemable - it isn't. It's just not what it's trying to be. The songs - especially but not exclusively "The Waves of Ägir" - plod forward with riffs and drum patterns that come across as underdeveloped, like the band was kicking around riffs and agreed to record the first thing they wrote that a listener might identify as black metal. I'm all for simplicity, but these plainfaced riffs and basic rock beats are just boring, offering none of the majesty or vileness that one would expect from the genre.

The song structures are pretty uncompelling as well, either cycling between two uninteresting parts or simply playing one after another with no real care for flow or development. "The Waves of Ägir" is certainly the worst offender here, but none of the tracks really get it right. It is perhaps most noticeable on "Bonded by Thy Blood," which adds insult to injury by seeming to enter a thrilling fast part only to reveal that the fleet-footed double kick drums were just part of a big arena rock ending.

Speaking of endings: all four of the tracks fuck this up, too. "The Waves of Ägir" ends abruptly, killing any momentum that might have aided the transition into track 2; "Bonded by Thy Blood" uses that aforementioned arena rock ending; and "Her af Vikingum, Black" just fades out instead of ending at all - this, after a simple but genuinely interesting clean guitar section which hints toward the atmosphere that would characterize the EP to follow.

Fortunately, all this mediocrity gives way to "Northern Sins" - surely the best of the four songs here. While it still doesn't exactly nail the structure, there's a lot more thought put into it than in the rest; at minimum, the moves from part to part make sense. The distorted guitars in this track are a lot better too, using harmonic language that actually belongs on a proper black metal tune. Better yet, several sections trade in the mind-numbing rock beats and slow double bass for actual blast beats and more intense double kick, the first and only real demonstrations of Dolk's skill as a drummer here. I'm less impressed by the keys at the end of the track, which don't strike me as especially well thought out or appropriate for the song, but it's certainly no worse than the keys on the average black metal demo.

This solid final song does still close flaccidly with a fadeout, which I suppose is appropriate enough. There are moments here worth appreciating, but most of the tape is quite uninteresting when compared to any of its contemporaries, and even its own members' other works. I wondered when I bought this why a self-made demo by a relatively well-known band from this era was so affordable online, but having listened through it a few times I can understand why.