REVIEW: Tine - A Winter Horrorscape

Where pitch black shadows meet the pale white of snow, Tine lives. Through the growing cracks in the ice, the darkness rises up from its frozen graveyard deep beneath. The one-man-band, led by the mysterious and multi-faceted Count Murmur, has been going strong since 2011, and he shows no signs of letting up. A Winter Horrorscape is soon to arrive on the scene, carrying both the grit and aggression of black metal and the soaring melodies of symphonic metal – through this release, the genres collide in a style that is wholly unique.

Opening track 'A Feather from Lucifer's Wing' ambushes us immediately, growled verses attacking us from the shadows. A minute in, we're hit with sinister, occult-like chanting that then leads us into an intense riff. The track carries a strong versatility, a shapeshifter in tempo and style. The next part of this journey brings us to 'A Path Through Frozen Woods'. This track seems to exist to establish the album’s themes through Murmur's bitter frustration at the endless white-blanketed forest before him. It's bleak, frigid, and finding your way out is hopeless. Desolation is a running thread in this release, as we will soon come to find out.

'Ex-Cathedra' ties in an interesting religious element only hinted at through ominous chanting prior to this track. This is where the death metal influences cut deepest, growling roars at every twist and turn. Over five minutes into this eight-minute epic, a soaring instrumental takes centre stage. Before long, Murmur steps back into the fray with his outcry against divine rulers. This track soon finds its polar opposite in 'Return to the Black Forest in Winter'. This is a slower, more melodious track that features guest musician Samantha Bounkeua on piano, strings, and backing choir vocals. A haunting ambience permeates this track, offering a welcome respite from the stygian riffs and demonic vocals.

The following track 'The Scathing Blizzard' is disarming at first, leading us to expect more of the same atmosphere, but Murmur's rapid-fire vocals hit us immediately with the harsh depth of the eponymous snowstorm. After almost four minutes, the relentless assault lets up as the track comes to an end and leads us into ‘Triumph at Nineveh’ – an eight-minute aria that brings a contrast to the blackened atmosphere when Murmur's cleaner, soaring vocals come in. The next track, ‘Winter Comes’ is a breath of cold air, a beautiful instrumental piece that exudes the frosty atmosphere of a calm night in the snowy woods. It's shorter-lived, clocking in at only two minutes and twenty seconds, but makes good use of its runtime. Tracks like this are what showcase the musical ability in Tine – to pull off these cinematic orchestral melodies in the same album as blackened death metal pieces is true talent.

The final, and title track, ‘A Winter Horrorscape’, shatters the peace with its intense riffs and a howling wind soundscape courtesy of session musician Mark DiAngelo. Through this track, the album's themes are fully realised. The winter is endless, all-encompassing, and eternally shrouded in darkness. The forest is a maze, and in the never-ending white, there is no prospect of finding your way out – death is almost certainly the guaranteed outcome. Murmur finds himself succumbing to the blizzard as the song's final notes ring out, and soon all we're left with is the haunting whistle of the winter winds.

A Winter Horrorscape is an album that knows the perilous journey it sets out on, but along the way, much like our protagonist, it begins to lose its path. Tracks like ‘A Path Through Frozen Woods’ and ‘Winter Comes’ stand out, creating a strong sense of atmosphere, but others are destined to fall by the wayside, covered up by the falling snow. When the album does shine, however, it shines bright. Count Murmur's snowstorm of musical elements brings together a flurry of ideas that consolidate into an excellently atmospheric record – this is Tine's best work yet.

Score: 7/10

A Winter Horrorscape will be released on September 5th 2025.

Words: Naomi Colliar Duff

Photos: Tine