Time can be just as grueling as it can be rewarding. To see an album that you’ve been looking forward be delayed for whatever reason is always a shame, but it’s in the world of music that us peons must be patient. When I saw Great Cold Emptiness get grabbed up by a very solid-looking label with a follow-up promised, it brought me great joy before it was pushed back for a reason that I honestly forget. Patience has been a real virtue since then, and it’s now upon listening to this grand work of a sophomore album that I’m confident by patience has been rewarded here for this album is so much more than anything I was expecting from this wondrous act.

The very unique and extremely promising sound of blending atmospheric black metal and funeral doom with a tinge of epic influences into one creation sounds like a lot to handle, but it was a few years ago on the first album from Great Cold Emptiness, “Miles Before I Sleep”, that I realized just how much excellence the style could achieve. “Death Gifted a Bouquet” has been, like I’ve mentioned, an extremely anticipated album for me since the day it was announced and not a single one of these four tracks across this over hour-long creation leaves me disappointed. Following a story that we can all relate to in some form, “Death Gifted a Bouquet” is just as vast in its talent as it is expansive in its instrumentation with there not being a single minute throughout this work that isn’t worth absorbing entirely in order to truly know what Great Cold Emptiness has truly crafted here for it is nothing short of splendid that I can definitely feel is quickly becoming one of my favorite albums this year. You know you’re onto something special when it’s just in the first three minutes that you’re moved more than what many other records have been able to do for months prior, and it’s very much the whole of “Death Gifted a Bouquet” where that rings true with me in every form. There isn’t a single facet of this massive release that I would dare change in an effort to improve it for I truly believe that this work is virtually without fault, and it’s through the tremendous atmospheres, uniquely heavy approach, musicianship that is beyond provoking, and a stupendous understanding of this incredibly niche sound that Great Cold Emptiness achieves true glory in every sense when it comes to the beauty and grandeur that is “Death Gifted a Bouquet”.

I cannot express enough how satisfied I am with this magnificent effort if it was already evident enough. Everything that’s thrown down in every second of this effort is no less than immensely delectable to eat right up time after time, and Great Cold Emptiness knew just how to space them out perfectly, execute without fail, and bring it all together seamlessly to make for a cohesive listen that is no less than massive. If you consider yourself any sort of fan of unique black metal that dares to smash through any and all sorts of boundaries, then “Death Gifted a Bouquet” should without question be at the top of your list. No fucking excuses.

LISTEN to “Death Gifted a Bouquet” on Bandcamp here.

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