“Towards the Shores of the End” is an important historical relic, both as one of the early Nordvis releases and as a sign of what was to come for two bands which would each go on to find greatness. The first two songs on Fen’s side were recorded a few months before their now-classic sophomore album, “Epoch”, whereas the remaining two are a few years older. All tracks were recorded at Shockwave Studios and have a similarly warm sound - dreamy in a 70s progressive sense but still firmly rooted in black metal. The music itself is atmospheric and melody-driven black metal that brings Forgotten Woods to mind, with elements of post-rock bridging the material. In the earliest incarnation of De Arma, its founder A Pettersson’s black metal background shone through quite a bit. Two of the songs hint strongly towards both Armagedda and Lönndom in terms of the guitarwork and, in the latter case, clean vocals. “Noemata” is more indicative of where De Arma brought their music with the 2021 album, “Strayed in Shadows”. Stylistic differences aside, all three share a similar ambience – thanks in particular to the hypnotic waves of synthesisers reminiscent of “Hvis lyset tar oss” and 90s Katatonia. Later in 2011, following the positive response to the split, De Arma were signed to German label Trollmusic/SPKR and began recording their debut album, “Lost, Alien & Forlorn”.