PRESS RELEASE:
Band: TINE
Album: A Winter Horrorscape
Country: USA
Genre: Symphonic black/death metal
Release date: September 5, 2025
Track list:
1. Winter Comes
2. A Feather from Lucifer’s Wing
3. A Path Through Frozen Woods
4. Ex Cathedra
5. Return to the Black Forest in Winter
6. The Scathing Blizzard
7. Triumph at Nineveh
8. Winter Horrorscape
Tine was officially founded by Count Murmur on April 1st, 2011. A seasoned bassist and vocalist by trade, Murmur had been in several bands prior, playing many styles of heavy metal ranging from thrash to melodic death metal. Murmur’s initial intent was to gather like-minded musicians to begin writing material for a demo release; however, it became clear that the material was deemed challenging and formidable by the vast majority of local musicians. Azim Erebus would soon join the band only for very short time before Count Murmur, again, struck out on his own in the autumn of 2011. That winter was a cold, bleak season – filled with the contemplations of a starving musician…
2012 was a quiet year filled with continued unfruitful attempts to find like-minded musicians. It is over the course of this year that Count Murmur began contemplating setting out completely on his own as a solo project, similar to the influential black metal project: Burzum. In the summer of 2012, Murmur had decided to pursue learning guitar in addition to bass. In addition, Murmur’s wife, Vanth, had discovered her knack for playing keyboard around the same time. It was something she had enjoyed in her youth, but hadn’t played in many years. It wasn’t until the start of 2013 that Murmur would seriously delve into becoming a guitarist to complement his, already formidable, musical repertoire.
In early 2013, Vanth had officially joined Tine as the keyboardist and Count Murmur continued to master his guitar-playing technique. The duo struck out to write the 1st demo single, which would be released to the world in the summer of 2013. The song, “Encounter with the Shadow People”, inspired by a real supernatural encounter from Murmur’s youth, was written by Count Murmur with Vanth adding her eerie keystrokes. All duties for the song, except keyboards, were handled by Count Murmur – including bass, guitar, vocals, and drum programming. The demo song was released to the world on July 14th, 2013.
After the release of the demo, Murmur began work on a full album composition. This process would last over 2 years in total due to other life obligations. As a full time scientist by day, Murmur’s life was a tale of two personas. Throughout the album’s fruition, Murmur became increasingly skilled at playing the guitar, while Vanth rediscovered her skills of her youth as a keyboardist.
Murmur and Vanth finished composing their first full album in January 25th, 2015. Preparations then began for the undertaking of recording all instruments in Count Murmur’s basement, lovingly dubbed, “Count Murmur’s Dungeon of Horrors.”
Recording for the 1st full-length record began on March 1st, 2015. Murmur recorded his instruments the traditional way; by using microphones in front of amplifiers. This recording process took just over 2 months to complete and was further complicated by a series of unfortunate events; however, Murmur persevered and completed the recording at the end of May. For vocals, Murmur used a similar vocal technique as Nergal from Behemoth, with layered vocal tracks. Other than layered vocals, reverb, or chorus effects, no other vocal augmentation was done on the recording.
For mixing and mastering of the album, Murmur’s initial plan was to do this himself, as he did with the demo single; however, it was clear that this was beyond Murmur’s scope of equipment and abilities as a sound engineer. Murmur was determined to find the perfect sound engineer, with the passion and commitment that would make his album extraordinary. The services of Darren Carikas, of Ghost Machine Studios in London, UK, were enlisted for both mixing and mastering. The album was produced by Darren and Murmur, remotely, through e-mails and file transfer service from July 1st, 2015 to September 4th, 2015.
Finding someone to do artwork was yet another roadblock that Murmur and Vanth faced. Vanth is a natural born artist, so she decided to take Adobe Photoshop classes with her local library to learn the software in order to create the album art. In addition to the album art, Vanth did all the photography, photo editing, and corpse-paint.
On September 6th, 2015, “The Forest Dreams of Black” was released and was immediately well-received by fans. Tine was also entered into the Encyclopaedia Metallum by an anonymous supporter. The debut album was distributed on 38 online platforms.
Writing immediately began for the next Tine album, but it was clear this process would take much longer than the first album due to many events occurring in the personal lives of both Count Murmur and Vanth. While many trials and tribulations were encountered, Count Murmur never lost focus on Tine. Vanth, however, decided it was time to take a step back from music and focus on their family and household.
For the next Tine album, Count Murmur decided to compose all the symphonic elements of the album himself, incorporating new elements such as choirs, and stringed instruments into the musical soundscape. It was also clear as the writing continued that the songs had begun to take on an aquatic character, and the music guided Count Murmur to dive further into these themes. The music of “Mergae Maris Profundi” took shape and was recorded in the spring of 2021. Once again, Count Murmur would enlist the services of Darren Carikas, of Ghost Machine Studios in London, UK, for mixing, mastering, and production.
“Mergae Maris Profundi” was self-released in digital and CD formats on January 28th, 2022 and was received exceptionally by fans and critics alike. The album was praised for being “both enjoyable and immersive” with YouTube plays exceeding 10’s of thousands of plays.
Writing for the 3rd album, and follow-up to “Mergae Maris Profundi”, began during the production for the 2nd album. This time, the songs began to take on a wintry and cold feel, so Count Murmur decided this would be the theme of the album. Additionally, Murmur decided to enlist the skills of session musicians for this album, broadening the breadth and scope of of the music considerably.
The new album, set to release on September 5th, 2025, is titled “A Winter Horrorscape” and features 8 crushing songs of pure symphonic black/death metal.
For more info:
https://www.instagram.com/tineblackdeath/
https://www.facebook.com/Tine.BlackDeath
https://open.spotify.com/artist/53BcboLZqzKnnBbx0HVjz0
