The reviews of the musical outings of Mattias Hedlund, aka Vintersorg, traditionally begin with what is now almost a cliché: can you take his vocal performance or not? Indeed, the camps are severely divided: either it’s good or it’s the worst attempt at singing ever recorded. I, for myself, cannot see this distinction this clearly however. While I can absolutely appreciate early Vintersorg, Havayoth (the relatively unknown but superb Gothic Metal act) and ‘Empiricism’ of Borknagar, the last Borknagar and Vintersorg albums were too much for me in his vocal experiments. It seems that when he keeps it at the viking-chants, low-key Gothic singing and grunting, he delivers a fine job. At the point that the experiments become too much, like reaching various highly diverging notes in one song, the charm fails. I can satisfyingly conclude that the former is the case at Terra. But what of the music? The derivation from Borknagar is probably best described as an incorporation of more keyboards which do, indeed, sound like movie soundtracks for some parts (as advertised everywhere). These wander quite a bit; here and there we find the predictable horror, fantasy or science-fiction soundtracks, but along with the otherworldly scapes come more traditional themes, such as the strings in `Nonexistence` that could fit an epic western.

The Metal influence is clearly comparable to latter Borknagar, let’s say, the greyish Black Metal with riffage that is all but straightforward, but enjoyable nonetheless. Calm passages are abundant, with guitarwork reminiscent of 70’s rock. The point with the soundtrack meets Black Metal-approach however should be, in my opinion, that the two should strenghten each other, with the soundtrack creating the tension and the metal taking over, intensifying and expanding the theme. In that sense, the avant-garde approach on this album at times lacks a clear sense of direction, thereby frustrating the symbiosis. When they do reach coherence, such as in `Iceloted` or `Illumine`, the music becomes absolutely noteworhty. To wrap it up, I am mildly amused with the effort of Vintersorg (and of course Øystein G. Brun) and I think big fans of later Borknagar and Vintersorg might surely appreciate this. I must conclude however with the sad observation that Vintersorg, like a lot of his fellow countrymen, is involved in a few thousand side-projects, leading me to the supposition that the promised follow-up on 2000’ His Creation Reversed from Havayoth will not see the light of day very soon…