In 2019, the Italian label Annapurna re-released on CD one of the classic albums of Order 1968, called Tears In The Snow. The original album was released on tape in 1991 by Hate Productions. In 1999, the label Octagon Records re-released this album as a CD, but with a different cover and project name - Runes Order. The album is now being re-released with the original name of the project and with the original cover adapted for the CD, remastered sound, as well as with one bonus track. At the time of writing the review, the album is in the pre-release stage, but one track from the album is available for ordering and reviewing on the label’s Bandcamp page.

The cover is an old black and white photograph of a snow-covered slope, on top of which, against the dark sky, silhouettes of winter trees are visible. In the upper right corner is the white Order 1968 logo, which is something like a hand-drawn symbol. It is a circle, a cross and the letter R drawn together. In the lower left corner, the title of the album - Tears In The Snow - written with simple black font. The cover creates a kind of mystical atmosphere, but my first associations was with either Black Metal or Dungeon Synths genres. In my opinion, the cover is not really a good illustration of the musical part of the album, or the Dark / Apocalyptic Folk aesthetics inherent in the other projects of Claudio Dondo.

The album, with a total duration of just under one hour and seven minutes, consists of fourteen tracks, the last of which is a bonus track. In terms of style, the album is very heterogeneous. Each track has its own style and atmosphere. But talking about each track separately does not make sense, because this album is better appreciated as a whole. Here we can hear both proto-industrial notes and something close to Dark Ambient. There are also echoes of the Berlin School of Electronics and the New Age genre. It also seemed to me that some tracks are very close in sound to Drone and Power Electronics. There are also moments whose style can be described as minimalist Dungeon Synth with a touch of Noise. Now, this style is called Dungeon Noise. There are also a number of voice samples. I can't tell exactly what kind of music equipment Claudio Dondo used, but I clearly heard the sound of an 8-bit synthesizer and an inexpensive drum machine. As for melody, to be honest, the album is almost devoid of it. We can hear the harmonic combination of notes or arpeggios, but there is no obvious melodic line on any track. All this could be quite interesting and fresh, but the sound quality and professionalism leaves much to be desired ... I am not familiar with the original version of the album, and I am sure that re-mastering was carried out more than professionally. However, the production of the album seemed to be very flat and somewhat raw. Of course, Claudio Dondo used all the opportunities that he had at that time. But sometimes it seems that the author did not have a clear idea of how the future album should turn out, so he simply put together all the tracks that were ready. At the time of recording the album, Claudio Dondo was very young as a musician and as a person, so it’s not surprising that the album was so naive. I was also embarrassed by the fact that the album was recorded in 1991, but it sounds as if it was released in the early 80s. Perhaps this was done intentionally.

In finishing I felt that as an album Tears in the Snow had no structure or uniform style- that applies to both the cover and the musical part. Nevertheless, this album is an interesting historical document, which can be highly appreciated by fans and collectors alike.