Finnish folklore- and nature-inspired melodic black metal band The Mist From The Mountains has set 11 October as the release date for its sophomore full-length, Portal - The Gathering Of Storms, which will come out via Primitive Reaction on CD, vinyl, and cassette tape formats. The band has also presented the first single/lyric video, "The Seer Of Ages".

It was the beginning of 2022 when The Mist From The Mountains released its momentous debut album, Monumental - The Temple Of Twilight, through Primitive Reaction. The record was presciently titled, too: hailing from the ever-fertile Finnish scene, The Mist From The Mountains was a brand-new formation with an old heart, with its chilling yet breathtaking ruminations harkening to the golden days of melodic, nature-inspired black metal back during the mid-'90s. Names invoked included old Borknagar, Kvist, Old Man's Child, Norway's Gehenna, and even the earliest Dimmu Borgir. Still, on the songwriting strength across Monumental, these still-young Finns were well on their way to forging an odyssey all their own.

Two years later, The Mist From The Mountains returns to deliver the next awe-inspiring chapter of that saga. Titled Portal - The Gathering Of Storms, the band's second album is indeed the next part of a trilogy, but whereas the not-inconsiderable debut was but a mere 38 minutes, this second full-length is an epic near-hour of mesmerizing majesty, its golden rays stretching infinitely beyond the horizon - laced with black, of course. Truly, Portal's textures are equally summer and autumnal: the warm embrace of the sun, with the stern suggestion (or at least austere awareness of) the eventual cold, and of course, those mossy, turn-to-brown sensations of fall's inexorable transitions to darker, colder days.

But that's simply a surface sweep of The Mist From The Mountains' ever-growing sonic palette, for thematically, Portal is quite a different beast. A sea-themed album, the band explores its standing as an untamed, dynamic force of nature that cannot be negotiated with - equally fierce, calm, and beautiful in all its inconsolability. As such, the Finns stretch their songwriting to more varied lengths; the melancholy and longing typical of Finnish music is fully accounted for,  but there's a pronounced emphasis on immediately (hummable) melodies, cleaner vocals, and more engaging downtempo. One could call it more accessible, and that one would not be totally wrong, but more so Portal reveals The Mist From The Mountains as weavers of utterly cinematic soundscapes, of magick and wonder taking fuller flight (and hitting waterier depths) that put the band in league with the likes of Moonsorrow, and Borknagar. But, lest one think that this is a more "mainstream" move, the album is not without its share of blasting battle-rage, betraying a truly vast canvas that can now only be distinctly The Mist From The Mountains.

The sea is a portal to new worlds - and, in mythology, also to the afterlife. The Mist From The Mountains again paints a poignant picture with Portal - The Gathering Of Storms and cements its status as a Finnish folkloric master. Link