A long ten years since his last release, one-man-project Nortt is back with another trip into the deep, dark woods. And as before, this is unrelentingly grim music, an ambient mixture of funeral doom and black metal that will either be the most gripping experience of your life or a very boring waste of forty minutes. Minimalist to a fault, driven as much by piano as riffs, this is music that is perfect for a miserable winter - a slow outpouring of hatred and despair, wall-of-noise guitar, intermittent drumbeats, occasional snarled vocals. Think Burzum stripped of any semblance of hooks and cut into four-minute slices and you'd be partway there, but Nortt relies solely on its atmosphere rather than trancelike repetition, and as long as the stately melodies of say, Lovsang til mørket hold your attention then Endeligt succeeds at its task.

Where it stumbled a little for me is in the length of tracks here - four minutes is often not long enough for this sort of ambient music to work its magic, and several pieces here feel like they end too early. Kisteglad, for instance, is essentially an interlude piece at two minutes' length, but the following Fra hæld til intet doesn't do much more with its soundscape give or take a growl or so. There are none of the ten-minute monsters from previous albums, the longest track just over six minutes, making this feel a bit bitesize compared to some bands and their twenty-minute epics! We funeral doom fans have built up long stores of patience, and it can feel almost trite to sit through some of the pieces here. Still, when Nortt gets it right this is engrossing enough, and although the likes of Støv for vinden aren't really memorable, they are effective enough while you're listening. Not nearly as good as past releases, then, and probably better as background music for reading or whatever, but decent enough if you like the style.