✦✦✧✧ I refer to you perhaps my most beloved piece of critical writing ever, my previous Panopticon first listen.

✦✦✧✧ Oh, so wintry, blackest of metals, folksiest of dirges. Behold, the snow on the very cover. Observe, the hooting of a fucking owl.

This is not nearly as winsome as Panopticon’s previous album “Autumn Eternal.” At least it occasionally kinda shreds, but it wouldn’t kill Austin Lunn to use a tuner.

★★★☆ This album is rooted in atmospheric black metal, but also evokes The Ocean, Opeth, even some 80s goth. The doom+bluegrass+folk+goth fusion here is seamless, and in a surprise twist the resultant sound comes across as more heartfelt and upbeat than one would expect. More importantly, this album is eminently listenable.