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Visualizzazione post con etichetta Horn. Mostra tutti i post
Visualizzazione post con etichetta Horn. Mostra tutti i post

lunedì 13 aprile 2020

Horn - Mohngang

#FOR FANS OF: Pagan Back
The German scene is, as you probably know, one of the richest ones in terms of quantity and quality. We can find excellent classic projects, or newer ones that continue to release great stuff. Due to this, it is particularly difficult to find a band which manages to carve its own niche and maintains a bunch of loyal fans after some time. The solo project Horn, located in North Rhine´Westhaplia and founded in 2002, is one of them. The fact of being a one man project makes it more meritorious, since over time it would be logic if the project loses some of its freshness and inspiration. Fortunately, this hasn’t been the case of Horn, a project which released some impressive first efforts like ‘Jahreszeiten’ and ‘Die Kraft der Szenarien’. Anyway, Horn has continued to make interesting albums, though I must admit that its latest works like ‘Turn am Hang’ showed a project reinvigorated and with fresh ideas. Horn has played from its beginning a quite essential form of pagan metal, lacking of truly elaborated compositions, but having a so sincere, authentic essence in its music that its songs were inevitably great. The combination of simple melodies and a strong vocal performance was simply perfect and Horn´s compositions had in those old albums a truly hypnotic attraction. Later on the band evolved with some slightly darker works, while with the last records, Nerrath seems to recover some old majesty, enriched with new ideas.

Having this in mind, I was excited to check what Horn was going to offer this time with the new release ‘Mohngang’. Since the very first listen, we can appreciate that Horn´s core sound is still there in its entirety. The production, as occurred in the latest works, has improved through time and now it sounds reasonable polished and clean, but with a healthy balance between this cleanness and the necessary rudeness that the band requires. Stylistically, the new tracks have the expected pagan black metal sound with a strong epic touch. The initial track "Satt Scheint Der Sud Der Tat" has all the elements we love from this band. Nerrath’s vocals sounds as strong as ever, with his traditional aggressive tone, tastefully mixed with cleaner vocals gifted of an intense epic approach. The drums have a martial sound at times, yet sound varied and well executed. Pace wise, the song flows naturally between faster and slower sections, making a very varied and entertaining track. The album has an impressive start with the opener and the following two or three songs, which sound quite powerful and have a slightly faster pace at times. "Det Star Her Som Sletta" is another punch in your face, with its battling tone. The guitars shine in this song and in general in the whole album, with very well executed riffs, with a distinctive melodic and triumphal tone. The track is enriched with some acoustic guitars and epic arrangements, aimed at increasing the vigorous tone of this excellent song. Horn doesn’t overcharge its compositions with tons of arrangements or details, as they are moderately, yet tastefully, introduced when it’s required, in order to enrich the composition and give it a different and distinguishable touch. After the beautiful and folk interlude of "Dulcimerstück", the album reaches its end with two quite different tracks, showing the two sides of Horn. "Vom Tribock Hohl Geschossen" sounds as powerful and epic as the rest of the album, with this vibrant pace and tone, while "Ødegård Und Pendelschlag" has a slightly more somber tone, like a soundtrack after the battle. This song could serve as the sonic representation of the devastation depicted in the album cover. It’s not maybe my preferred track from this work, but it serves as a very appropriate end for the album, leaving aside the cello version of the track "Die Mit Dem Bogen Auf Dem Kreuz" which comes later. This version of the song is a beautiful and dramatic closure of the new album, even if it could be considered as a bonus track.

'Mohhgang' is definitively a worthy listen if you like Horn and pagan metal in general. It’s difficult to place this album in such a great discography but, it is undoubtedly an excellent release full of great tracks, brisk melodies, majesty and strength. (Alain González Artola)

(Iron Bonehead Productions - 2020)
Score: 82

martedì 27 marzo 2018

Horn - Retrograd

#FOR FANS OF: Pagan Black
Over a year since the release of 'Turm am Hang', Horn has returned in proper form with 'Retrograd', promising more incredible and inspiring black metal from a Westphalian bedroom. While this latest album is considerably shorter than the previous release from the dawn of 2017, the album's meatiest moments offer that familiar and glorious electric notation that rises to fury with its slamming snare to truly conquer realms and rule with an iron fist. Nerrath is no stranger to adopting the eclectic, beefing up his black metal ensemble with classical instruments and this comes across well as cello, violin, and folksy drumming introduce and march away with allusions to the intensity they bookend.

The title track comes with the fury of a storm as a howling gale of guitar calls out from drumming thunder to shred windsocks and sails alike, dooming hapless merchants with immense waves while casting their goods into the sea. Despite the misfortune of distant others, the king's flotilla has made landfall intact. On the shore comes the stomp and snare of a winding trail of warriors as Horn violently takes numerous villages, slaughters their inhabitants, and brings a new province into the fold. Glory is there in violin and lute to sing songs of the victorious dead while the reality is a smashing appraisal of the newly acquired realm despite the melancholy of interring the individuals unable to appreciate the riches of the fresh conquest for which they have fallen.

While a tempest conjures a beastly invasion on the coast, “Bocksfuss” sees the invaders and ousted defenders meet in barbaric battle deeper into the wilderness. Walls of spears and shields slam into each other with bone breaking thrusts that stab into each opposing line and are quickly repelled with swift sword swings and axe hacks. In harrowing climax the guitars issue blending notes, thick as blood pouring from mortal wounds as they redouble their efforts to shriek out of this press of battle and be heard above the wails of the defeated. As each side fights to exhaustion, the invaders dig in their back feet in preparation for a second wind of assault. The quick strike of a folksy lilt fires synapses as aching muscles are invigorated by the machinery of masterful men whose discipline drives this determined victory. “Garant” garrotes unit after unit as the conquering army's redoubt routs its foe, now turned into a paltry scramble of fleeing men as the field lies littered with the fallen and writhing with wounded warriors. While one side licks its wounds, punished for its audacity in attempting to defend its land from such an onslaught, “Die Einder” sees that a journey is not finished with a single victory. As Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, declared, “nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won”, and the melancholy of a victory at such expense as this would leave any force demoralized before it plunges onward into continuing its campaign.

Still, the deeper appreciation of such militaristic struggle within Horn could also be surmised by Maynard James Keenan who argued, in the song “Vicarious”, that “we won't give pause until the blood is flowing”. Horn is a band that appreciates the bloodshed necessary to achieve its aims and attempts to honor the victorious dead without forgetting the sorrow of loss that such victory inevitably entails. Unlike in 'Turm am Hang', each moment of celebration is met with sullen realization as this fresh force fights in foreign forests. This balance is met more melancholically in 'Retrograd' as venturing from a homeland hof into hostile territory prophesizes not only numerous dangers ahead but also forces conquerors into costly confrontations resulting in Pyrrhic pushes. (Five_Nails)

sabato 28 gennaio 2017

Horn - Turm am Hang

#FOR FANS OF: Epic Folk Black, Drudkh, Waldgefluster
Horn is the kind of one-man black metal band that many of today's bedroom black metal blasters can take some inspiration and notes from. With the album 'Turm am Hang', which (as aptly illustrated on the cover) quite literally translates to 'Tower on the Slope', the old German mainstay of being as literal as possible is beautifully demonstrated alongside the forthright power of some dead-on exhilarating music. So far the title track is the only single of this album and has a great video of the process of illustrating the cover, but I'm sure that metal fans can easily understand why this reviewer believes there to be a striking series of superb songs on this album that can each be considered hits. Horn's matchless mind, Nerrath, has built a formidable structure, composed a captivating aesthetic, and etched it into an imposing black metal monolith.

The album opens with a dour long-winded sigh of a guitar melody that morphs into an intoxicating and inspiring sound. This uniquely frenzied approach is forcibly freed from the fetters of familiar forlorn folk pieces that bridge on banality as they endlessly echo each other. While most black metal accentuates the morose, Horn celebrates the beauty of the melancholy. Riffs revel in dissonant resonating guitars, proudly wailing in an anthemic obscurity, drawing the listener into pensive melodies that, in defiance of their frigid arrangements, become inspirational reveries with an upbeat percussive heat and beer hall style harmonic bliss. This is some after-the-battle beer drinking, fist pumping, headbanging black metal that's not all up its own ass about being cold, kvlt, and hiding in a cave. Instead Horn is celebrating another great evening in Valhalla surrounded by brethren in victory or defeat. Horn also lyrically appreciates nature and the forest, a common theme with many of this band's black metal contemporaries. The fury and structuring of each song puts the band closer on par to the likes of Drudkh and Waldgefluster as riffs round out with some folk and Celtic edges, smatterings of influences that enhance the echoes of fellowship and camaraderie without just repeating the same stances just so say he went there. “Verhallend in Landstrichen” is where you will experience the first major turn from a pair of songs that seemingly go their separate ways to a sound that builds an increasing energy flowing forth from the next three songs. As these pieces grow in intensity they keep a common rhythmic core with a correspondence from the treble issued throughout these marvelous four. The high water marks of 'Turm am Hang' happen in this series of songs where the chorus in “Totenraumer” is signaled by the toll of a bell, the Maidenesque opening of “Die mit dem Bogen auf dem Kreuz” becomes a headbanging hail to badass black metal, and “A(h)renschnitter” envelopes you in shredding melodies undulating around the robust snare hammering. This is an album that must be played live, loud, and to a very drunk crowd. It would be a privilege to see such a spectacle.

After a short interlude called “Lanz und Spiess”, a delirious and unusual track that sounds like the machinations of a restless mind sleeping off the delusions of the drink, the album closes with two strong but slower songs. Like awaking and setting off to task, “Bastion, im Seegang tauber Fels” wearily marches to a new position, forming up and stretching its martial rhythm in preparation for today's predestined practice. “The Sky Has Not Always Been This” sings of the rise and fall of civilizations, the birth and rebirth that humanity has always undergone while the soil underfoot was tread bare by man's ambition. There is some interesting and well-thought arrangement in these songs, some experimentation with different concepts, and a keen ear for production quality throughout Horn's 'Turm am Hang'. While most one-man bedroom black metallers would be quick to describe loneliness, Horn creates a unifying atmosphere throughout the meat of this album. This is a welcome difference to the style of this branch of black metal that has carved out a unique notch in the overall musical tree. (Five_Nails)

(Northern Silence Productions - 2017)
Score: 80