Wolfshade developed from an one-man project of Kadhaas into a three man one, but sadly the third musician (the drummer) did not participate in their latest record. Wolfshade are playing depressive black metal with some influences of bands like Alcest and shoegaze\u002Fpost-black metal bands. After a short synth-based intro, the first real song, Ex Nihilo, starts and takes you into some melancholic realms. The song starts with slightly distorted guitars and somewhat dull drums. After a short while the vocals kick in and the song starts to evolve. As the song progresses, Kadhaas seems to grow more and more desperate and with him his vocals, drawing you into the music. The vocals create so much atmosphere that the lack of variation in terms of the orchestration does not really matter. The melancholic atmosphere is enhanced through the vocals, as they are kept in French. The songs are mostly kept in mid-tempo, helping to create the depressing atmosphere. They keep this structure almost the whole time and variations are rare and somewhat unnecessary. The guitars play mostly un- or just slightly distorted melodies to accentuate the brilliant vocals that create the most atmosphere either way. The sound of the drums is disturbing from time to time because of the excessive use of cymbals. From time to time the melancholic screams and growls are replaced with clean vocals or even spoken passages which spices things up. You can clearly hear that the French are not the most virtuosic musicians of this genre, but they know what they want and how to get it so that they create a thick atmosphere with very few resources. The songs are pending between a DSBM construct (of course with the aforementioned influences) and somewhat doomy ones as you can hear in Au Tombeau des Illussions. The production is really good and that proves once again that even DSBM can take advantage of a good production and therefore bizarre buzzing sound should not be used. Conclusion: When Above… is not a copy of something that has been there before, although it has some influences of better known (French) black metal bands like Alcest or even Grisatre. The music is sometimes nearly purling with no real variation, but that suits the overall image and the incredibly melancholic vocals are perfecting the record. The only real flaw of the record are the drums, which are annoying from time to time, though they were programmed with feeling. A true insider's tip?!