SO COLD - Gone with the storm

“People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries the soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, just sometimes the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.”
\r\nThese words were whispered inside my head when I first glanced at the amazing cover artwork of “Gone with the storm” where the crows, messengers of death, prevail in their threatening silence. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to experience. “Gone with the storm”, is it really so? Are some things really gone with the storm or they are returning with it? There are times that we catch ourselves patiently waiting for the storm with a sweet melancholy creeping up to the corner of our eye. Waiting for its cleansing drops to wash away whatever that hurts us, whatever destroys us day by day. Some of us manage to see their hope fading away under the black clouds, through then frigid raindrops taking away all these things that cause us pain. Some others are not that lucky. Sometimes it’s a blessing to feel “So Cold”. The Italian dark metalers are bringing out all these things we hate to talk about. All these things we persistently refuse to face. The cold apathy to anything and the feeling of surrender (“Black Harmony”), the sacrifice of trust in the altar of emotional immunity (“The deceiver” “My Own Prison”),the bitter loss of  beloved persons along with some parts of ourselves (“Disappeared”) and the precious protection-tranquility that only darkness can offer. Fortress or Prison? It doesn’t really matter.
\r\nThere are no dreams here, nor self deception. The swarming dark melodies are making them vanish into thin air, once and for all. The cold riffs seem to bite you like the chilling wind on a frozen winter morning. The vocal lines are haunting you, in their own morbid way, singing about your own agony, your own fears.
\r\nSurely there are a lot of bands out there serving that specific genre, but there are very few offering such stimulating compositions. So cold don’t even need to try, it seems it’s in their frozen blood. Besides, sometimes the only way not to fail is not to try at all.
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\r\nDimitris Karantounias
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