On the third regular PAYSAGE D'HIVER album "Die Berge" ('The Mountains'), mastermind Wintherr has perfectly captured the dark essence of his mountainous Swiss home beyond those pretty picture postcard landscapes. Ragged peaks that unfathomable tectonic forces have crushed upwards and out of the thin cold crust of this planet create a harsh and hostile environment for humans, which is reflected within the sound of raw black metal. Note for note, these grey giants of rock come awake to life in song. Majestic, powerful, dangerous, threatening, and yet also inherent of a fierce beauty, these massive tracks of epic length echo the huge proportions of their source of inspiration and amount to a playing time of more than 100 minutes. With each release, PAYSAGE D'HIVER narrate a new chapter of a continuing story about a mysterious protagonist called 'Der Wanderer'. "Die Berge" takes the wanderer into the 14th chapter, which might end up as his last. The main theme of "Die Berge" is death and this time the enigmatic wanderer's journey is comparable to that of a Zen monk who hikes to the peak of a mountain on feeling that his time has come. Founded in 1997 in the Swiss region of Bern, PAYSAGE D'HIVER remained a strictly underground phenomenon at first. Wintherr unleashed a steady stream of 10 full-length "demos" and 4 split-EPs that earned him an excellent reputation while a massive following grew by word of mouth. When the Swiss came "out of hiding" with "Im Wald" ("In the Forest") in 2020, their regular debut album even entered the German charts, which meant mainstream recognition despite standing firmly with both feet in the underground. With "Die Berge", PAYSAGE D'HIVER continue to expand the horizon of Nordic black metal without ever stepping away from their roots.[info sheet from distr.]