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I wasn't expecting much from this, but sometimes the guys at Solitude Productions hit gold. Raventale is a one-man band from the Ukraine playing an expansive, orchestral stripe of Blackened Doom metal. I was expecting something more depressive, like Xasthur or Shining, but instead this is a powerful and melodically haunting album.

The guitars on here are definitely Black Metal influenced, with a sharp, up-tuned sound and full chords rather than drop-D chunking. This is still very heavy, and the riffs are huge and oceanic, with a tremendous amount of build and atmosphere. The vocals are an unintelligible croak, but are very sparse, going for long passages without any vocals at all. Mostly what holds your interest is the clear and heavy guitar sound and the big, tasty riffs. The proceedings are leavened here and there with some delicate melodic guitar work and orchestral keys, the whole thing never losing the melancholic feel or the atmosphere of dark, fog-shrouded vistas of forested hills and frost-peaked mountains. Even the Anathema cover is done in such a way that it blends seamlessly into the sound of the rest of the album. If I have to level a criticism at this disc, it's that too much of it sounds very similar, and in places it's like just one long song. So there's not a huge amount of variation here, but there is a fuckload of atmosphere and crushing heaviness. Not a brilliant album, but close to it. A band that will bear watching in the future, as this is excellent work.