Winter's doom-metal remembered...

Every now and then a band comes along that is just too damn far ahead of its time. Such a band was Winter, a doom-metal outfit hailing from New York. Winter was bassist John Alman on vocals, along with guitarist Stephen Flam and drummer Joe Goncalves. The trio recorded their ill-fated debut album, Into Darkness, for Future Shock Records in 1990. However, the label went belly-up and OOB shortly after the album's release, and it took Winter a couple of years to find a new buyer.

Nuclear Blast subsequently released Into Darkness with wider distribution in 1992, but the band's dark, gloomy brand of ear-sludge failed to make much of a dent in an era dominated by grunge bands. Although Winter broke-up before mid-decade, Nuclear Blast released the band's original demo tape in 1995 as the Eternal Frost EP; the label would revisit Winter once again in 2000 by putting both recordings together on a single CD.

In the intervening years, Winter's cult status has grown, propelled, in part, by the scarcity of the band's two recordings, which have been out-of-print for years. However, on May 13, 2008 our friends at MVD Audio will be reissuing both Into Darkness and Eternal Frost on CD for those who want a taste of Winter. With the growing popularity of such drone-and-burn noisemasters as Earth, Sun O))) and Boris, perhaps Winter's time has finally come!

(Click on the CD cover to buy Into Darkness/Eternal Frost from Amazon.com)