I don’t buy most neofolk cds, but of course there are also bands that I do like and Ostara is one of them. If you follow the band a little, you will already have 5 of the 12 tracks of this cd, which is a bit of a pitty. “Kingdom Gone” opens with the brilliant “Bavaria” that we of course already got from the mp3.com page. “Hammer Of Ages” is new and nice. “The Trees March North” was already available on the 10″. “March Of The Rising Sun” is an experimental ‘industrial’ track showing that Ostara means to continue to push the boundaries of the genre. Songs 5 and 7 (“Overworld” and “Never Weep”) were already available on the picture 7″ and 10″ and also 10. “Divine Wind” comes from the “Whispers To The Soul” 10″. The new songs 6. “Sword Of Reverie”, 9. “Life’s Symmetry” and 11. “Transsylvania” are very beautiful (especially the last), quite melancholic actually. And speaking of pushing boundaries, 8. “Talenokai” is some kind of techno/trance like track that is nice, but a bit too long. The closer is a slightly darker track “Kingdom Gone”. Overall resulting in a wonderfull cd of almost an hour.
The back had the well-known photo of Richard Leviathan and Timothy Jenn, but Leviathan will continue Ostara alone with guest musicians.