Morose Italian black metal mongers Frostmoon Eclipe have been a tad hit or miss for yours truly ever since the ensemble spat forth its first few demos and whatnot twenty-something years ago. However, this brand new effort of theirs, which is appropriately entitled “Worse Weather to Come”, is something else entirely and it blew me away thanks to its deeply layered textures and rich tone as well as its strong vocals and the hauntingly beautiful atmosphere that permeates the entire thing from beginning to end.

“Worse Weather to Come” is steeped in melancholy and drenched in introspective darkness, but there is something so unsettlingly graceful and delicate to the evocative affair too. Somewhat raw black metal mixed with acoustic passages and topped off with epic melodies is hardly anything new as such, but Frostmoon Eclipse pull the whole thing off so utterly well here, and there is absolutely no shortage of confidence anywhere in sight on the disc. While the moving album opener “I See the Void” is riddled with longing, the following track bearing the brilliant title “A Room, A Grave” has a sense of urgency coursing through it, and those two compositions pretty much embody and represent what the record contains in the sense that it ranges from intense and driven pieces and further on to calm and heartfelt ones that ooze dreadful loneliness (and a solid dose of nihilism and despair too). In terms of its moods and vibes, it covers a lot of ground.

This 8-track album is as cohesive and coherent as they come, and it holds no weak or uninteresting tunes, really. The more I think about it, the more I realize that this one might in fact be the best and most compelling release issued by Immortal Frost Productions to date, which is saying something as those guys nearly always unearth quality stuff from the underground. Regardless, Frostmoon Eclipse’s majestic new opus will serve your blackened needs perfectly this fall/winter, so if bands ala October Falls, In the Woods, (old) Ulver, and the likes appeal to you, make sure you grab a copy of this bleak yet enchanting output.