Richard Holmes1349 – Winter Mass (Season Of Mist)
To truly experience the aural annihilation of 1349, you need to let the hellfire singe your skin, stare into Ravn’s eyes as he channels the netherworld, feel Frost’s blastbeats hammering your bones into dust.
You need to see them on stage, wreathed by flames, daubed in corpsepaint and dominating whatever corner of the globe they’re standing in.
Winter Mass? It’s the next best thing to that.
This is the Norwegians’ first live opus.
And they’ve made it count…
1349 reach critical mass
Recorded in 2021 at Oslo’s Parkteatre, in front of a home crowd, Winter Mass is more furnace than record. It represents 1349 in their purest form, dealing apocalyptic black metal to a pit of worshippers, snarling through a 13-strong set where early savagery like Chasing Dragons jostles with Abyssos Antithesis and other more recent cuts.
Drawing on material from six albums, it’s something of a career retrospective. But through every era represented here, the band’s signature velocity and ferocity remains.
Indeed, Frost’s inhuman percussive barrage spits on the laws of nature: there’s a reason the guy has a legendary status in the BM scene, and it’s performances like this. Through Eyes Of Stone is a particularly potent example of his prowess. He’s the nuclear reactor powering Archaon and guest guitarist Destructhor, as they lay down torrents of white hot riffery over Seidemann’s surging basslines.
Winter Mass is ablaze as soon as Enter Inferno sparks Sculptor of Flesh into infernal life, and bar the lurching Serpentine Sibilance, the pace barely lets up. I Am Abomination serves as 1349’s anti-anthem; Striding the Chasm is all powerful; and the stunning Slaves laces the band’s volcanic elixir with dark melody.
Worship at the Atomic Chapel, face the Golem and plunge into the Cauldron. The choice is yours.
Or better still, just get yourself to a 1349 show… and drink in the chaos.
