Extreme Cold Winter – Paradise Ends Here EP Review

29th October 2015 0 By Suzie Rottencrotch

Hailing from the Netherlands, Extreme Cold Winter are unleashing their debut EP, Paradise Ends Here through Vic Records on November 30^th. What they are bringing to the table in this release is a very old-school sounding slab of doom/death metal, and for anyone that likes slow, meaty riffs this EP is definitely a goer for you!

What you will notice about this EP is that, unfortunately, all of the songs sound very similar and many of the riffs do sound recycled. Riffs that can only be described as doomy are what you’d expect for this release, but there are few variations in the riffs and structure throughout the EP. Opening with Warriors of the Wasteland we get our first taste of Extreme Cold Winter, and if you are loving this track by the end, then the rest of Paradise Ends Here will definitely be up your street. Packed to the brim with meaty, slow, heavy riffs, we are also treated to some excellently brutal, and surprisingly clear, guttural vocals. When the speed of the song picks up slightly (still slow enough to be doomy, just not quite as slow as what comes before) the track feels so much more alive, and this is easily the best section of the song.

Track number two, The Cosmic Rain, is, for me, the best song on the EP. The intro is fantastically executed, and there is an excellent section near the beginning of the song where the vocals come through as the music takes a small break, which just sounds brilliant here. Again, the faster sections add so much to the song, and here we have some very cold sounding lead guitar sections. All of this together makes the strongest track to be found on the EP, in my opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA6U62rlG-I

Carrying on in the same vein as what has come before, Siberian Darkness is packed full of slow, cold sounding doomy riffs. There is a short section where the vocals have been double layered, and this sounds excellent. At the end of the song, the music fades out into silence and the growled vocals are all that can be heard, this again has a very cool sound to it, and would have been an excellent end to the EP. Once Liquid Waters has no real stand out moments, unfortunately, carrying forward all the doomy riffs and brutal vocals that we have heard before. Closing track, Paradise Ends Here, is largely unnecessary – a minute of noise, it would have been better served as an intro to Warriors of the Wasteland that an outro to the EP.

Now, I don’t mean to sound overly negative here, not at all – parts of Paradise Ends Here are fantastically well written, the vocals are solid, and the lyrics are excellent, I just feel that much of the EP sounds the same and a little bit of variation could have gone a long way.