1996 studio album by Arcturus
Aspera Hiems Symfonia (Latin for "Harsh Winter Symphony") is the debut studio album by the Norwegian avant-garde metal band Arcturus. Aspera is the only album Arcturus released to showcase a melodic black metal sound, though it still contains many of the experimental elements that would be expanded upon on their following albums, which saw the band shift permanently into the genres of avant-garde and progressive metal. Four of the album's songs are re-recorded versions of tracks from the Constellation EP, whereas the other four are new songs.
Background
The music on Aspera is relatively down-tempo, atmospheric black metal, and is much more restrained in character and lyrical content than major black metal acts such as Mayhem and Darkthrone. The album's production is also thin and lo-fi in nature. The lyrical themes revolve around nature, winter, alchemy, astronomy, and Viking folklore and mythology.
Re-release
In 2002, the album was remastered, along with the preceding EPs My Angel and Constellation. Re-released as a double disc, entitled Aspera Hiems Symfonia/Constellation/My Angel, it also contains two previously unreleased tracks, "The Deep Is The Skies" and "Cosmojam" at the beginning of Disc 2. The remastered version has a considerably stronger, clearer sound that restores many of the lower-frequency elements of the music lost in the original mastering.
Although the liner notes on the CD booklet state that Arcturus did not re-record any material, certain passages are evidently different from the originally released versions. Examples are the clean vocal sections in "Wintry Grey", "Naar Kulda Tar" and "Raudt Og Svart." The original synthesizer lines in the opening of "The Bodkin And The Quietus" are replaced by a similar but slightly more complex guitar solo. It is possible, but not confirmed, that these passages were not re-recorded and may have been spliced in from alternate, unreleased takes of the original material.
Critical reception
AllMusic wrote, "Aspera is a powerhouse album chock full of charged riffs, sinister chants and howls and some wonderfully foreboding atmospheres", and called it "one of the best metal albums ever."[2]
