Salute the oncoming winter solstice with Menace Ruine, that’s my advice…the latest release from this Canadian black metal project is The Die Is Cast (ALIEN8 ALIENCD82), a fatalistic title for a CD decorated with sombre, candle-blackened religious icons from the orthodox church and suggesting that mankind’s destiny is a nightmarish combination of many-headed monsters, headless figures running about aimlessly, and a coldly indifferent angel of salvation hovering over a sickly extinguished sun.