CRONIAN – Terra

In 2000, the Norwegian Black Metal band Borknagar changed the man behind the microphone, bringing Andreas Vintersorg into the lineup. From that moment, a friendship was born between him and the main songwriter and guitarist of the band, Øystein G. Brun. This friendship evolved into an artistic alliance, creating a project band under the name Cronian. The creation of Borknagar’s albums and the extensive touring, didn’t leave much time for the two musicians to work on the Cronian project.

After almost 6 years, Century Media is proud to present the outcome of this artistic collaboration in a form of a full-length album with 9 songs. The cover art of the album, showing an arctic landscape in a bright blue coloring says a lot about the music in Terra. The album can be considered as a soundtrack dedicated to the beautiful and extremely dangerous arctic environment, as Brun stated in the recent MER interview. The final mastering process of Terra was performed by Dan Swanö (Edge Of Sanity, Unicorn, Bloodbath, etc.) at his Unisound studio, placing the final touch on this wonderful sound assemble.

Cronian features the two musicians in the lineup where Vintersorg was responsible for the Bass guitar, Brun for the guitars, and both for the Programming. Programming plays an important role in Terra, and is responsible for the creation of the cold atmosphere surrounding the 9 songs. Of course, there are some Black Metal additions, with extreme vocals and fast-played, distorted guitars and drums, following the known experimental paths trailed by Borknagar.

The songs have keyboard melodies taking the listener into a journey through cold yet clean atmospheres, where the colors blue and white dominate. Sometimes the bands sound like Therion, and sometimes like Borknagar, with a soundtrack point of view like the instrumental tracks “Coloures” and “End(durance)-Part I.”

The opening track, “Diode Earth,” comprises all the elements from the rich musical background of the two musicians, with clean and extreme vocals, fast drums, and distorted guitars. “Arctic Fever” follows the Doom Metal pattern, with a slow and heavy rhythm section with a faster break somewhere in the middle. Vintersorg is at his best when performing some catchy vocal melodies in a complete balance between extreme and clean vocals in “Cronian.” The latter combined with the keyboard melodies in the songs “Iceolated” and “The Alp” provide an Epic touch, and that could remind some of Quorthon’s (R.I.P. 7/6/04) work in Bathory’s album Twilight of the Gods.

Terra has a sound providing proof about the necessity of forming project bands; the musicians, free from the artistic boundaries placed by the name of their full-time band, compose music driven by their “inner” voice and personal inspiration. Additionally, the album can be considered to be a successful effort in the creation of the ultimate winter soundtrack, combining the power of Heavy Metal and atmospheric electronic and keyboard sounds.

It seems that the cold North European weather works in favor of much music, because it’s not only an inspiration source but it keeps the musicians in the studio!